Project Runway – Season 5, Episode 1

Well, a week later and I am finally getting around to last weeks show. Sorry! Life happens.

Season Five is underway and to begin the first show we met the designers, some through clips of their audtion tapes and others just though interviews as they are arriving. The one thing I can say, well….no one sticks out as a favorite to me, but Blayne and Stella are getting on my nerves already.

So off to the roof-top we go, and it’s Champagne with Heidi and Tim, and at least for tonight, a good night’s sleep because the first challenge won’t start until tomorrow.

4am and Tim is waking them all the next morning to go on a field trip for their first challenge, and where do we go but the grocery store from Season One, the only season I did NOT watch. And who is our lovely guest judge for this week, but Austin Scarlet from Season One, and I am not sorry I didn’t watch season one because I think he would have got on my nerves! Everyone takes off in the grocery store and they all head for the table clothes, the only thing fabric like in the store, WHAT??? This is suppose to be a challenge, and making a dress out of a table cloth is no big deal, get some lettuce or spaghetti or something, come on people where is the creativity?  If they are bringing back former challenges, I hope they bring back the flower garden dress challenge, where they had to make something out of live flowers! Yeah, not that takes moxie!

So they all go back to the workroom and complain and work. Tim comes in to check on them and calls them all out for the tablecloths, the reason we took you to the grocery store was to challenge you to think outside the box, I fear the judges are going to call you all slackers, fear no more Tim, I’ll call them all slackers!!! Really, tablecloths? Oh get over it guys!!

The Winner……Kelli with this dress:

It was amazing that is all came from the grocery store.  The bottom of the dress, the skirt was made of vaccum cleaner bags, that she then bleached in some spots and then used fabric dye in other spots to make what from a distance lookes like hand-dyed paper.  To coordinate with the browns in the skirt, she took coffee filters and a lighter and burnt them to make the bodice of the dress. In the back, she took the metal from a sprialbound notebook andused it to make hook and eye closures for the back, and the gold dots in the middle are actually gold push pins! WOW, talk about creative!!

I’ll give her the win for that one!

 

 

Now my second favorite, and the runner up in this challenge was Daniel and he made an amazing little dress out of plastic cups.

He used the curve of the cups, spliting them open and then ironing them and gluing them to muslin to make this dress, which I think was wonderful. Had Kelli not used so many different items in so many creative ways, this could have easily been the winner, but i think Kelli just really steamrolled this challenge, but Daniel is not to be over looked. It was a good challenge for him. Those in the top really rocked the challenge and thought outside the box. Those in the bottom, well they deserved to be in the bottom for a reason!

 

 

 

Joe made this dress with oven mitts for the bodice and then there is real pasta all over the skirt! WOW! I was so glad that he didn’t use a tablecloth and he used real food in his design, but we hardly got to see this at all because he ended up in the middle.  I really liked this one, and wish it had been one of the top three, not sure why it wasn’t because I certainly like it more than Korta’s yellow table cloth with a kale and tomato neckline, but alas this ended in the middle and we got nothing more about it. All I will say, Joe is flying under the radar and we need to keep a watch on him, he will be one to reckon with as time goes on, I am sure of that.

In the bottom…… Stella, with her trash bag dress. She unrolled the bags and they were really thin, and it took here forever to think to jsut leave them folded together and work with them that way. Her orginal plan was a pair of leather like pants and a top or something, and if she wouldn’t have spent so much time complaining and had figured out to use the trash bags folded up, and made a pair of pants that way, I think she might have landed alot higher in the order. She was her own worst enemy on this challenge.

Also in the bottom….Blayne with his jumprope and drawer liner bathing suit. Michael said he thught we were back in the wrestling challenge, and I thought she had a diaper up her butt.  I mean there is just nothing more to say about this creation. Yes, I will give it to him that he didn’t do the table cloth, but maybe he should have, I mean really, you look at this and tell me what you think!  And then what was he thinking with the boots? Oh please I am not sure where he comes from, oh yeah the northwest and the home of grunge, but you know even that doesn’t explain this creation or whatever it was.

 

Besides, Blayne just drove me nuts! Girlious, and whatever else he said, I finally just started muting the guy! I mean really, he was annoying with a capital ANNOYING.  But he is safe to design another day.

Jeffery, so he grabbed a shower curtain, since it was the cloest to fabric and he didn’t role that way to do something out of produce. 

Well, that was his downfall from the get go, he refused to think outside the box, to try to make something elegant from something unexpected, so he ended up making a cartoon charachter coat and dress with rainboots and rubber gloves. Yeap, enough said, the picture alone is worth a thousand words and then some.

Pack your bags and head back to wherever ou came from, Jeffery is our first to go this season! 

Thank you!

Next week, another challenge and another designer will go home, and in a couple more weeks it will be down to a reasonable number of people that I can actually tell you who did what, unlike now when you hardly see the people in the middle.

Shear Genius, Season 2, Episode 1

BravoTV always does the best with reality shows, but this one is a little, well, I am not realy sure how to describe it other than a little bit out there, but then again it is BravoTV and they do tend to stretch the boundaries a little. Anyway, I watched and would like to share my thoughts with you, but don’t expect them everyweek, because I am not sure how much of some of these people I can take.

Jacyln Smith is ou host again this year, and Rene Fries is the mentor to the sylists again this year, he is the Tim Gunn of Shear Genius, and he does a pretty god job at it, this year we have new judges, guess they were a little put off by last year, maybe? The judges this season are Kim Vo (and all I could think about was, a little too much botox dude) and Kellet Atterton of Allure Magazine. This week, the guest judg is Niko.

Short Cut:  45 minutes to do a new haircut, blinfolded!   This was funny! I mean, would you trust someone to cut your hair blindfolded? Anyway, the top 2 were Dee and Nicole, with Dee being the winner, and the bottom two were Neksia and Oshun. The ranking was important, because it determined the order in which they picked in the Elimination challenge.

The ranking was:  and the picks for the Elmination challenge are also listed, but I will explain those in a moment:

1. Dee, 37  – Betty Boop
2. Nicole  – Jemm
3. Meredith, 36 –  Jemm
4. Glenn, 35 –  Judy Jetson
5. daniel, 29 –  Wilma
6. Gail, 24 – Wilma
7. Charlie – Marge Simpson
8. Matthew , 37- Marge Simpson
9. Paulo – Just Jetson
10. Parker – Betty Boop
11. Neksia, 29 – Lucy
12. Oshun, 31 – Lucy

Elimination Challege:  interput a new and modern style for your client, given the picture of who they want to look like, they will have 2 1/2 hours and the winner gets immunity next week.

They are all liking this challenge, saying it happens all the time in the salon, to recreate a picture of someone, onyl the twist on this challenge, the pictures are cartoon charachters! Yep, and you have to reinturput the blue beehive of Marge Simpson! Sounds like fun!! Some people had major problems and others did fine.

The top three were:  Charlie – Nekisa – Daniel, with the winner, who gets immunity next week being, Daniel.

The bottom three were:  Matthew – Oshun – Gail, with the one who is packing their scissors and going home….

OSHUN.

Okay, so my take on this guy, he was young and had had some success that lead to his being way to cocky and over confident. I don;t know how many times we heard him say that he had been nominated for an Emmy for his hair work, and when he walked out, in hearing of the judges he says, “this is Bulls$%t”, which was so unprofessional, and Jacyln Smith handled it like a true professional, just taking right over and through it! Kudos to her. Glad to see the guy go. Oh yeah, and the other thing, you pronounce his name OCEAN, so he kept saying he was deep, that wore on my totally!!  I tried to catch how old everyone was during the show, and I missed a few, but what I did get I listed in the rankings behind their names, and it looks like we have a mature class of people who have a great deal of exeperience, so this should be nice, at least I think it will.

See you next week…..

Other thoughts on some of our stylists:  Daniel, says his trademark is dallas Hair, welcome back to the 80’s! Glenn says that she is a color genuis, and that will set her apart, probably because some of them realyl screwed up using color in this first week challenge.  Dee says she has a strong vision, this coming from a woman with a bleanched yellow spike in the front of her forehead. Meredith said she is the cutest thing you have ever seen, and I am thinking NOT! Honey, your face is showing your age and then some!!

Top Chef Chicago – Reunion

Every year we get a Reunion show from Top Chef, sometimes it comes during that break, when the finaly four are named and before they arrive at the location for the final cook-off. This year, we get the Reunion after all was said and done.

Everyone was there except Richard, who had a perfectly good excuse not to be there, his wife was about to give birth, so that right there tells you this was taped about a month ago, but Richard was able to join us via satelite and Top Chef even gave him a baby gift, a little Top Chef Oneies.  Richard also mentioned that he opend his own resturant, I think he said Home was the name, so I think all is going well for Richard.

Antonia mentioned, if I remember right, that she opened a place during the break between the last cut in Chicago and Puerto Rico, so I would say she is doing fine.

Stephanie, not only was the first woman top chef, but she also was the first to be top chef and fan favorite! She joked that she was taking everyone to dinner afterwards. She is in the process of opening a place in Chicago, so I would say she is doing good.

Dale, you all know i loved him all along, but he was calm and cool and I think we saw more of the real Dale than the mad Dale on the show. I hope he is doing well, I didn’t hear anything about him, but then again I was not as in touch with the reunion show as the show itself.  They also addressed Dale’s elimination and the fact that Tom was not there, and he said based only on what he saw, and he only saw what we saw when it aired, he thought Lisa should have went home, but Dale stepped up and said he would always take responsiblity for his mistakes, and if he messed up he should go home, he never complained about it or said he only had one mistake and Lisa had two, I am telling you if I hadn’t liked Dale before I defintely did after hearing him tonight. He was first class.

Zoe and Jennifer were there, sitting beside each other, but when Andy Cohen asked about the internet rumors that they are no more, Jennifer said they had their bumps and Zoe said we don’t comment on our personal lives, so in other words, the rumors are true, they are no longer a couple but they are not about to anoounce it in public on tv. Oh well, another relationship bites the dust after appearing on “reality tv”, what else is new.

Andrew was recognized this year with the most famous line of the season, you all might remember the line “I have a culinary boner” well, Bravo has made it into a t-shirt, yep they really are good at capalizing on those kinds of things.

The language was brought up, and they all said they didn’t realize that they were saying it that much, although the clips they showed were not as bad as it was at times, and someone mentioned it wasn’t really all when they were cooking, it was more in the interviews, and that they were venting to the stress, but Tom reminded them that they weren’t private confessions, they were interviews and that they needed to remember whenever they did interviews, whether there or with a real reporter they were representing the whole world of chefs and is that how they want to be seen, and it really seemed to shock a couple of people that those “private” ventings were seen as interviews. I think they forgot that the whole world would be listening to them.

Overall it was a decent show, as far a s reunions go. Next week starts a new season of Shear Genius, then come July we get Project runway back, and I can’t wait!!!

Top Chef Chicago – Finale

Richard, Stephanie and Lisa, yes that is correct, it is not a typo, Lisa is actually in the Finale, and don’t ask me how. This is the finale, so there is no Quickfire, just the one final challenge that will take two days and crown the new Top Chef.

The chefs met Tom and Padma on a porch, and they are standing with three top name chefs, only one of which I recognize, and each chef has a table of meats. They are April Bloomfield, Dan Barber and Eric Ropert. The Challenge, each chef will create a traditional four course meal; fish, meat, poultry and desert and yes they will have to make a desert and I am thinking, if you are on Top Chef, did you not expect this? For today the meat table that you choose will grant you that chef as your sous chef. Then Padma announces that they thought that they would have the chef with the most Elimination Challenges pick first, but they have a tie, Richard and Stephanie both have four (hummmmm, I was thinking one of them had five?).  The meal will be a black tie event for 9 dinners, they will have 3 hours today and 4 hours tomorrow.

Stephanie goes first and picks Eric as her sous chef, Richard picks Dan and Lisa ends up with April, and with that prep work begins for the day.  Service for tomorrow will be all three chefs serving each course together, then the next course, all three together. Side-by-side taste testing!

And with that we head to commerical were we learn that Season 2 of Shear Genius will begin June 25th. All I can say is if it is on Bravo then it is probably worth watching! I watched about half of the first season and it was pretty good.

As the day of the final begins, we see the chefs walking into an empty kitchen, only to have tom appear and tell them they are on their owns today, they will not have the sous chefs they were expecting, it is up to each of them to live or die by their own hand in this competition, and they all seem to take it in stride.

First Course:  Richard serves scallops, to which the comments are that it lacked a little seasoning and there was too much going on.  Stephanie serves Red Snapper, which is beautiful, raves all around the table. Lisa serves grilled prawns, with a sauce, which was way too strong. Point, Stephanie.

Second Course: Richard serves quinea hen, which was complex, and depending on who you asked, some liked it and some thought the flavors became muddled.  Stephanie serves Quail Breast which was delicate and everyone liked except for the leaks. Lisa served a cocnut soup with chicken and it was the rave, delicious. Point, Lisa.

Third Course: Richard serves a pork belly that needed work. Stephanie served lamb mediallions that were full of surprises, worked so well together ,but they didn’t think they would.  Lisa serves wayu beef with no flavor, the sauce was the same as before only sweeter, they called it pedistrian.  Point, Stephanie.

Fourth Course: Richard breaks out the Banana Scallops again, with bacon ice cream this time, and it is a winner! Stephanie does a ricotta pound cake that is ok, nothing special. Lisa does a rice pudding that was good, first bite was not good but the more you ate the more you liked. Point, Richard.

Commerical….the new Project Runway will begin July 16th!! I can’t wait!!!

Call in:  Who deserves to be Top Chef?  Lisa, only 4% – Richard, 36% and Stephanie, 60%

Judges Table is long!! By the end Ted Allen is commenting that the sun is about to rise and the birds are chripping. Each one is asked to say one this before they go to deliberate, Stephanie says that dale told her not to second guess herself, and the one dish that she really messed up on is the one she second guessed herself on. Lisa tells them that she cooked good and deserves to win. Richard shocks Gail by saying that he will admit it, he choked tonight.  What was neat is that Tom came to Richard’s defense, he said that the meal was good but had some mistakes and in Richard’s mind he choked  but not to alot of people, he just sets his standards for himself higher.  They went through each course and named what they thought was the winner in each course, and I noted those as the point to whoever in the end of that course, so you could kinda see where it was going, then they said it came down to which meal would they want to eat again.

Top Chef for Season Four is…………..   Stephanie!


 

Top Chef Chicago – Part one of the Finale

So last night was part one of the two part finale, yeah!! We get to see all four chefs arriving in Puerto Rico. Now let me tell you that as I watched I had two little “spoilers” in my head. I had read something yesterday, one person said they read a spoiler that said Antonia wins it all, and the second person said, well, I head that Anotina leaves before Lisa, and I thought there is no way, there is nothing Antonia could do so wrong to leave before Lisa, so I had these two thoughts in my head while I watched, and the only reason i mentioned them is because I will prove them in the remainder of the post.

Richard, Stpehanie and Antonia, oh yeah and Lisa, and yes it still irkes me to include her in this lineup. I still wonder if Tom had not be gone on that one challenge, if Lisa wouldn’t have went home instead of Dale, that is how it should have been. Oh yeah, and the call in question, who deserves to go home, 91% called in for LISA. I rest my case.

So the Quickfire, to make a classic Puerto Rican dish for a famous Puerto Rican chef, and no I have no idea how to spell what they were making or what they really were. When Padma was talking about them, I was thinking like fritters, but when they started making things and then serving them, I was a little confused. They had to use Plantains, which are not exactly like bananas, but look like them, in both of two things they had to make. Richard ended up in the bottom, the raw planatain did not go over well with the chef, and Antonia was in the bottom, on one dish she only had a planatain jam on it and none inside the dish. Lisa was liked, excuse me, I was floored. And Stephanie was liked, and in the end, Stephanie takes the QuickFire win!! YEAH! Her reward, we learn the next day, is to assign the sous chefs that will be helping everyone, now she could have pulled a Spike and assigned people who didn’t get along well together, but she didn’t, she picked people she thought would work well together, good girl! That’s the way to play it.

So they all go to a street party that night and the next day learn that they each will have a whole pig to use to make dishes for a party and the president or governor or someone important, sorry I didn’t catch what they said, at their mansion, with alot of people from the area. So the helpers are Dale, Niki, Andrew and Spike and Stephanie gets first pick and choses dale for herself, she says she’s knows Dale for about ten years and they work well together. Then she pairs Richard with Spike and Antonia with Niki, that leave Andrew with Lisa, who said when he walked out that it probably would not be good to work with him since Andrew still thinks Lisa threw him under the bus, which she probably did.

Throughout the cooking in this small kitchen, we never see dale get angry or mad, he cooks and is a big help to Stephanie, although at the end of the first day, when everone is rushing to try to find room in these little refridgators to put everything, the pork belly that they fixed first for her is left out overnight, big set back but they handle it and make the best with the other meats they have, Dale is upset over leaveing the meat out and says he will never forgive himself if she goes home. You know, I think we actually got to see more of the real Dale last night. I still like him alot!!  And you know, everyone said only Dale complained about Lisa, well, we get Richard complaining about her negative attitude in the kitchen today.

So judges table….yep I am skipping the food, I am sorry, but I was so tired after VBS last night that I have no idea, but for a few things what all they cooked last night, I know it was pork and I know who did well and who didn’t, but I am short on details today. Sorry.  Richard and Stephanie are called to the judges table first, so we know they are the tops. Even missing the pork belly, Stephanie still ends up on top, and let me just say that no where during the talk with the judges do you ever hear her mention anything about the pork belly! Classly lady! The judges loved both tables but in the end, they gave the win to Richard, who was a little shocked, and then when Padma told him he got a special prize, a new Camray, he was completely blown away, he had no idea! I didn’t either! Man they must have gotten some good sponsers this year!!

So Antonia and Lisa head to judges table and Lisa does that double chin, arms crossed, I’m mad at the world pose or stanch that she always does and defends her food, the pork felt as more of an afterthought than the main ingredient, the sauce and garnishement got more attention from her. Antonia, well, she went for rustic and put all her dishes on one plate, no, everything mixed together and you couldn’t tell which was what and then the other biggie, where pigeon peas were undercooked.

In the end, Antonia was packing her knives. WHAT?!?!? If you have told me before the show that this would happen I would never have believed it, wait, someone did tell me that before the show and I didn’t believe it. I thought there was nothing Antonia could do that would be bad enough to get her sent home. Of course, they come back into the room to tell Richard and Stephanie that she was leaving and they are visably shaken at this and shocked, and she walks out and they are still sitting there with this deer in the headlights kinda look, when Lisa calls them out for not congratulating her….what? That is what Stephanie said, she just looked at Lisa and said what? or sorry, congrats…like she was still in shock, well you know what did you expect. Then we get a PI of Richard and he says, you want a congrats, you got the bronze medal, woo-hoo!  Well, we can tell that Richard doesn’t think Lisa is a threat. All I can say is that girl better be going home ASAP on the next show or I will scream! She has no business being there and I would hate to see the other two have a bad day and her win! That would make me ill!!

So….until next week…..keep cooking!

Top Chef Chicago – Steak Night

Okay, so I can’t remember what the real title of last nights episode was, but Steak Night sums it up pretty well. You know, I was still upset about Dale leaving last week, and apparently I am not the only one, because if you go to the Bravo website, Tom’s blog even addresses it….actually since he wasn’t there that week, he mentioned that he saw what we saw, and that was it, and to him, it was dale’s one bad dish versus Lisa’s two bad dishes…so it should have been Lisa, and I am sorry, I am still upset!

Okay, now, onto this week. To start with we head to a meat packing plant and and the chefs are told they have 20 minutes to clean their own set of ribs, called a tomhawk steak. If you have no idea, neither do I. I know nothing about steak, it is not something that I eat that often, nor do I ever cook it. Once they finish, they are told to pack up and back to the kitchen they go where they meet the guest judge, a steak guy, and are told to cook their steaks, medium rare (yea, that means warm but still moo-ing at you, yuck. I think that is why I don’t like steak, the whole rare, and bleeding, and moo-ing thing). So how does it go? Well, Stephanie and Richard end up on the bottom, wait, did I just type that, yep, Stephanie and Richard, who would have guessed. That’s okay, they redeem themselves later. On the top Antonia and Spike, and who won…..Spike! Well, who would have thought that! Of courser this allows him to choose his meats for the main course and appertizer before everyone else, and we all know what happens when Spike gets a chance to pick first….

So the Elimination Challenge is to cook service at the Steak guys resturant that night. This poor guy, he was begging them not to ruin his resturant so many times, I think he was having second thoughts about doing this, but then again, he can bill the night as Top Chef night, and if the food is bad, people will still pay for it and say I got to eat Top Chef food.

Oh, I should note that there where three guests at the judges table during dinner service that gave their opinions. Who were they, none other than Top Chef’s own season One winner, Harold, season two winner, Ilan, and season three winner (should have been runner up) Hung. I was plesantly surprised by Hungs demeanor last night, I think he might have gotten a case of reality-check after seeing what an a**h**e he was on season three.

Stephanie wins the challenge, the judges liked her appertizer and her main course. She is headed to Puerto Rico for the finals. Poor Richard, you could tell that he was disappointed, then they annouced that Richard’s appertizer was their favorite and so he is going to Puerto Rico, and Antonia had their favorite main course, so she is going to Puerto Rico. Well done!

In the bottom, Lisa and Spike, now isn’t that a shock! Tom even mentions that Lisa has been in the bottom FIVE times and Spike SEVEN times, is that right? I thought it was the othr way around, I thought Lisa had been there more, but okay, either way, they both suck. So who goes and who stays? Well, you know I was really pulling for them to send them both home! But I never get my way, so Spike goes home and Lisa goes to Puerto Rico, okay that is sticking in my throat! UGH, Lisa, who can’t cook her way out of a paper bag, is going to the finals. All I have to say is she better get sent home ASAP!

On another Dale note, the call in question was who do you think got sent home too soon, and the options were Andrew, Jennifer and Dale. Would you believe that Dale rocked that call in, he was voted with a 53% vote as the one who went home too soon.

Top Chef Chicago – Restaurant Wars

Top Chef Chicago last night left a bitter taste in my mouth. One of the better cooks, in fact I had him down to be one of the final two, left last night and I am a little mad, to say the least. But that is putting the cart before the horse, let’s get down to business on the show last night.

For the Quickfire Challenge Tom takes the chefs to a place in Chicago that is famed for it’s breakfasts and tells the chefs they are going to work the egg station, and whichever one the owner would hire is the winner.  Some people were better at this than others, Anotina and Dale came in as the owners top picks, and I have to say, for watching them I agree. Antonia went first, was calm and collected and took care of the few orders we saw her do. Dale was calm and efficient and I thought, given that we saw him handle four orders shouted at him at one time, the better of the two, since we only saw Antonia handle one order at a time. But in the end, Antonia was choosen the winner.

Okay, now I need to saw that in the recent challenges she has stepped up and acted and cooked liek a chef, but in the beginning, she was a mess and I am surprised that she managed to stick it out this long. I still don’t like her, and her constant digs at Dale in almost every PI is driving me nuts, I mean, last night he was the Dale only cooks asian food, well no, I think we have seen other things from him too in this challenge, but that is his comfort zone, but why is that a negative and why do you need to bring it up every chance you get, does it make you feel better about yourself?

The Elimination Challenge was the Resturant Wars, but with only three to a team, hummmm this might be hard. Antonia, as winner gets to pick her team, and she picks Stephanie and Richard, no sirprise, in fact, even Dale said he would have picked the same two people, but I think if he had been with Richard and Stephanie he would have been so much better off.

Antonia, Richard and Stephaine picked a Gasto Pub concept and worked it to prefection, there wasn’t a single complant about anything they did.

Dale, Spike and Lisa….oh you knew there was trouble when this team was left. I mean really, can Lisa actually work with anyone? And what I hated even more, everything that we all say about her, how she has a negative attitude and is hardto work with, she goes into her PIs and says that Dale is that way, humm have you ever heard of the pot calling the kettle black, excuse me Lisa, but you are projecting your own shortcomings on Dale, fess up, you stink! Spike, decided to take the front of the house, and in the shopping trips he takes credit for being the one to pick all the decor and he just gets completely out of the kitchen, probably because he can’t cook and he knew that Lisa would hang herself. Dale made a bad choice in making the butterscotch something (shrimp or scallops), but Lisa screwed up a soup and a desert and then triedto blame the desert on Dale, because she had to make it because he was making his halo halo, excuse me, no one said you had to you could have made Spike do a desert.

Okay, so to judges table…Spike is called out on the table decor, the purple and sliver linens and instead of taking responsiblity for the choice he claims that they all chose them, to which Dale and Lisa roll their eyes. Dale takes responibility for his butterscotch mess, and doesn’t try to blame anyone. When Spike tries to take credit for the short ribs, Dale reminds him that it was Spikes receipe, but that Dale did the cooking while Spike was in the front. Lisa, where to start, she wanted to make a soup and then can’t flavor it to save her life, and to futher illistrate how poor a cook she is, she has no clue what to do that might fix it. Then the desert, another trip into yuck. She just really doesn’t have an idea, and she caleld out Dale, not in front of the judges but in the kitchen because he moved the rice and she said it wasn’t done, is someone always messing with her or is she just that bad of a cook.

The comments from the judges table were that Spike moved himself to the front of the house and avoided the conflicts. Dale should have stepped up more and pushed Lisa aside and fixed her messes, although I am not sure that would have went over in the kitchen too well, and that Lisa, well she is just bad and then she comes in with her arms crossed and Anthony Bourdinv (guest judges) said she is unwilling to take critism from the panel or anyone, and I almost thought they were going to go ahead and send her home, but they sent Dale and I was so mad!!! How could someone as stupid and negative as Lisa still be there and dale have to go home, he is a great chef, and I am sorry, but his attitude has never bothered me this season! I am so sad to see him leave, but from the previews, it looks like Lisa is again in her blame everyone for screwing with my dish form, so lets see what happens. Spike and Lisa need to go!!

 

 

Top Chef Chicago – Protect and Serve

Top Chef is probably my favorite show. I enjoy the cooking and just overall, it is fun for me to watch. I am a day late in posting my thoughts on Wednesday’s episode, but you know, that’slife, it happens and I can’t change that!

So we start with the Quickfire and who is the guest judge, none other that season two’s hunk chef, Sam! Oh how I have missed Sam! I think he is great, although I noticed that Antonia was liking him too. Humm…so the challenge is to make salad sexy again, when was salad ever sexy? I am sorry, I love salad, but I never order it thinking it’s sexy. I love a good cobb salad from time to time, but I would never call it sexy, and I didn’t think any of the chefs creations were sexy. Anywy, they had to create a new salad.

So anyway, Lisa is bitching about people not deserving to be here still, humm isn’t that like the pot calling the kettle black, girl you have been in the bottom more times than I can count at this point, and you think you deserve to be here? The only reason you are still here is because someone screwed up worse than you, not because you are any good!

So, the bottom three are Richard, who didn’t really do a salad, Stephanie, who didn’t plate all her food, and Lisa, no suprise there, whose flavors were completely over powered by a banana.  The top three, Antonia, who had a poached egg on top of a salad, which to me I am thinking yuck, but then again I am not a poached egg person; Dale, his Asian salad, humm the comment that all he can cook is asian was brought up again, but then again, he is cooking good food; and Spike, wait, did I just say that, oh my heavens, yes Spike was in the top, and then Spike was announced the winner! I about choked on my Diet Big Red! Not Spike, oh wait, there is no immunity, so ok.

So for the Elimination Challenge the chefs have to make a healthy boxed lunch for the cadets at the Chicago Police Acadmey, and each meal must include: a whole grain, a lean protein, veggies and fruits and as the winner, Spike will be allowed 10 minutes extra to shop, and he will be allowed to pick one item from each catergory that no one else will be allowed to use. The problem with this is that it all went to Spike’e head fast, and he was determined to screw over the other contestants, instead of focusing on his own food! Bad omen here for you buddy!

So in the end, Dale and Stephanie are called before the judges. Dale made a Lemongrass lettuce wrap, without lettuce, since Spike took the lettuce, he used Napa Cabbage instead. The judges all liked the flavors and felt it was good. Stephanie made a meatball and leek soup which went over well with the judges and the cadets, had good flavor and was filling.  In the end, the winner is Dale, to which he mentions that he has won five of the challenges now….hummm, and people don’t like Dale! I have to say, he was great this challenge, he didn’t piss anyone off, and yet they all complained about him like always, I am beginning to think the complaining is more jealousy than anything Dale is actually doing, because hey in a competion, no one likes the guy who keeps beating them.

Spike, Andrew and Lisa are called before the judges as the bottom three, and that surprises who? I mean, Lisa might as well take out a room in the bottom three, she is almost always there! Spike, now he thought he was good since he won the Quickfire, but that went to his head so fast he got so interested in messing with everyone else that he forgot to cook good food, and Andrew, well he just completely ignored the challenge and made what he wanted because he knows nutrition, yeah well I know nutrition too but that doesn’t mean I always eat what I should!

This judges table went downhill fast, about the mintue that it started! Andrew going of on the judges that he knows nutrition and this was good food, about not knowing the rules, or losing his rule sheet and just generally being an idiot in front of the judges. Then comes Spike, and he is just about as bad, in that he made good food, and when Tom mentioned that four dishes were better than his, he said “in your opinion”, wrong answer! Tom’s opnion is the one that matters, you better be impressing him. Then comes Lisa, who claims she has no idea why she is here, actually I think what was said was “Tell us whay you think you are her” and Lisa responds with “Your the one who called me here, you tell me”. When they tell her the shrimp was undercooked, the flavor was nasty and the rice was undercooked, she goes off on someone turning the burner up on her rice on purpose, okay, you know, there are carmeras everywhere, who in their right mind would do something like that with all the cameras, because I am sure that there is enough footage to prove that claim if it would have happened. So I am of the mind that she screwed up, again, and couldn’t or wouldn’t take the blame, again.  It was her dish, and even the judges said if you forgot about the rice altogether, it was still bad….she refused to stand by her dish.

Now, I was hoping they would send Lisa and Andrew home, and maybe even Spike, but in the end they sent Andrew, which was fine with me, because he was getting on my last nerve, the only one that Lisa hadn’t gotten to yet. Now, can we send Lisa home next week! That girl is so negative! I mean, everyone laughed and complained about Dale when he told her she was negative and that it wore on people, hummm can we say thank you dale now, because he was correct. All she does is complain, about the others, about the place, about anything and everything and it is getting old, way old! I don’t want to hear her anymore, in fact I have started muting the girl when she talks because I don’t need that kind of negativity in my life either!

So, next week, it looks like we get the resturant wars back, this should be fun. I can’t see any of these people other than Richard and Dale working together as a team!

Oh….I should note, that David Dust, who does a wonderful recap of the show, found the picture of Sam that I used above. When I saw it, I was like, oh please, I have to have a picture of Sam.  I am always looking for pictures to put in the post, maybe I’ll have to find one of Ted Allen for the next time he is guest judge, but I wanted you all to know, that David found the picture and not me!!

Top Chef Chicago – Wedding Wars

Okay, so last night was a great night for Top Chef, two former challenges were revisited for tonight, so let’s get started.

Quickfire:
First off, the chefs are told that from this point on, there is no more immunity. Yep! About time! Then they divide into two teams, and I can see problems already. Team One is Richard, Andrew, Anotina and Stephanie. Team Two is Dale, Spike, Lisa and Niki (trouble in the making). So the challenge is the relay race, the frist person has to segment five oranges, the second cap two artichokes, the third clean and filet a munk fish and the fourth make mayo. Starting with the decisions on who does watch we see big problems for dale’s team, the girls haven’t made mayo by hand since school! UGH! None of them seem to have any idea how to do any of the tasks except Dale.
So the challenge starts and it is Lisa vs Antonia on the oranges, and Lisa wins and build a hugh lead, then comes Spike and Andrew on the artichokes, well, Spike not only loses Lisa’s big lead but ties with Andrew, third is Dale and Richard fileting the munk fish and it’s a tie, then we get Stephanie and Niki on mayo, and since Stephanie does this all the time she is a quick winner.
Now, Dale gets a little upset at losing and hits the lockers, and yes it was a little over the top, but if you watched them they were all jumping and cheering and the aderaline was flowing so I can understand it. Now Antonia’s PI the dale had a temper tatrum and needed his diaper changed was just WRONG! I wanted to climb through the tv and smack her, I mean really, isn’t that a little childish, well…the pot just called the kettle black, duh!

Elimnation Challenge:
This is going to be a take off the resturnat wars, only this time it is Wedding Wars, the winning team picks the Bride and does a buffet for 125 people, and the losing team gets to cater to the groom. Let’s start with the Bride’s Team.
So the Bride’s team mets with her and she wants meat and potatoes, southern food, so they do alot of meat and then Andrew revisits his chicken from the neighborhood challenge, with about the same bad results. Stephanie bangs out a great looking cake, but one that doesn’t taste that bad, but the groom’s cake actually ends up tasting better. Bride’s team wins, because most of their food is better, and Richard actually wins the challenge but he opts to give the win to Stephaine because she did the cake.
Groom’s team, well he wants italian food, which is Nikki’s specality, and she starts out really in the lead and talking about what to do and how to do it and all that, but about the time everyone starts asking her how to do something or what she wants, she backs off and tells them she is not the leader, make a decision. I think if she would have stepped up and been the leader she shoudl have been we would have had a different result. In the end, it seems like they all decided to make Dale the gunt, and have him do all the work and yet no one wanted to let him take the credit for it, yeah it was all half-cocked and not the greatest, but he had too much to do, and when he mentions it, espically Spike pawning the zucchini grilling off on him, it comes to light that there was no leader to say this is too much stuff, and Dale just wanted to do what he could so he just banged out everything that everyone else just left on the side, and although it wasn’t that good, he did it all because he knew if wouldn’t get done if he didn’t do it.
In the end, the judges called Spike out for not doing his part (pawning off the veggis and spending three hours on the fish….even if it was good, it wasn’t that good), Dale for trying to do too much, he should had stepped up and said it was too much and atried to get everyone to listen (although we know that would never have happened because Lisa and Niki and Spike all seem to have something against Dale, maybe the fact that between him and Richard they seem to win almost all the challenges and quickfires) and then Nikki was called out for being the person that had the experience to be the team leader, should have been the team leader, but who flaked on it and refused to be a leader. In the end they send Nikki home. Thank you!

You know, the call in asked “who annoys you more Lisa, Dale or Spike? Well, for some reason people picked Dale, but personally Lisa and Spike annoy me more than Dale. I think Dale knows he is a good cook and sometimes he comes across a little cocky, reminds me a little of a mix of Stephen and Harold from season one. He doesn’t annoy me at all. He wants to win and he is invested in this, but at the same time i don’t see him being mean to annoy.
Lisa annoys me the most! She is cocky and yet at the same time she doesn’t have the skills to back up the cockiness. She is in the bottom all the time and never has a clue as to why she is in the bottom, and she never listens to the judges and always tries to spin whatever they are saying. She needs to pack her knives and go asap.
Spike, well I was over him a long time ago, but since Lisa has annoyed me more than him and I have though he is fine, this week showed me that hi needs to go just as bad as Lisa. I would love for next week to be a double elimnation, Spike and Lisa pack your knives and go!! He is alot like Lisa, he has a little better skills than she does, so he is doing a little better in the challenges than her, but he thinks his way is the only way and he voices it all the time!

Looking forward to next week, and hoepfully we can say goodbye to Lisa and/or Spike! I still think it is between Dale and Richard as to who wins this, they are both just good and they work well together, although sometimes Dale can let others bring him down, but I am lookign forward to watching more of them.

Top Chef Chicago – April 30

Top Chef Chicago – April 30th Episode

Okay, so we are watching the lead ins to the show last night, and I looked at my daughter and said, “You know, I am pretty sure Mark is going home tonight” to which she asked “hun?” and then fell asleep.

So the Quickfire starts with at short challenge, only 15 minutes to fix an entree. Welcome to the real world people! The rest of the world, those of us who work and have families, do not have hours to prepare and make a meal, we have 15-30 minutes.  I loved it! And it just about drove me nuts to listen to some of them complain about the time! Get real!

On the bottom; Mark, Stephanie and ???, you know what I can’t remember, but I think it might have been Andrew.  On the top; Dale and Richard, no surprise there, and Antonia.  Okay, you know Dale and Richard are just about always in the top and I have no problem with that, their food tends to be really good looking and sounds like it tastes good.  Antonia in the top, well, you know that is a little bit of a surprise, seeing as she has been in the bottom the last two weeks in a row, but once we find out that she is a single mom, then it makes a little more sense that she would have a little more understanding of this challenge than some of the others.  And the winner is…..Antonia! WOW!

The Elimination Challenge is to cook a nutrious meal for Four on a budget of $10!  YEAH! A real-life challenge! And then Andrew has the nerve to say it can’t be done! I wanted to smack him! I feed a family of five every day of the week on a budget of around $10 per meal, and it can be done! Don’t tell me it can’t, I do it all the time, this is real-life, learn to deal with it! Now that being said, I think they all did a good job, although the kids that were tasting this menu are not your normal kids, because my kids would have NEVER eaten some of that stuff, the beets come to mind, and then there is my son who doesn’t like any food that is mixed  another food.

Top three:  Antonia, hummmmm, you know what, it has completely slipped my mind who else they liked! What does it matter, Antonia won, and then she said it would have been terrible if the single mom had lost this challenge, well, I think I actually agree there.  Oh you know what, it was Nikki, she was in the top and I forgot, I guess because I still keep forgetting that she is there. She usually is in the middle and we never hear from her so I forget.

Bottom three:  Mark, Lisa and Stephanie.  Okay, so is anyone surprised that Lisa is there? Nope, not me.  Then, when the judges are asking her about her dish, she doesn’t listen to what they are saying, doens’t take the cristism, actually she pretty much says your wrong and I’m right, which is exactally what she does say when she gets back in the glad-room.  I am sorry, but you want me to think that the judges panel, which although has so much more experience than you doesn’t know what they are talking about? Okay, so that is something that has bothered me all season, in the glad-room, the chefs talking about the judges like they are a bunch of Denny’s cooks. Where is the respect? Have you no idea, and what are you going to do when it comes out and everyone sees this that you dis’d Tom or Ted Allen or any of the other judges like that? I would hazzard a guess that you will be looking for a new job.  At this point, Lisa has got to go! I will take Spike over Lisa at this point!!

Stephanie, peanut butter and tomato? What the ? What were you thinkin? Did you actually think that would taste good? Oh please!  And then there was Mark, you know I liked him, I thought he had a great attitude but at the same time, I think he might have been the least talented of the chefs, and so it just came down to a point where no one else screwed up worse and it was his time to go. I have to agree that I don’t think he made good use of his budget, but then I don’t think he has ever cooked for kids either, so I think he was in the dark on this one. Sorry to see you go Mark, but it was your time. It has been a fun ride.

Next week looks to be a wedding challenge! Yeah! Those are always fun! Can’t wait to see what they do, but at the same time I am ready for Lisa to pack her sorry knives and go!! At the moment she is my least favorite, yeah I even like Spike more than her. In fact, she has driven me nuts so much in the last two of three shows that I am actually not bothered by Spike anymore, although Andrew is starting to get on a nerve.  Looking forward to next week!!