It's really not that hard

Tonight's Top Chef involved needing to cook for a vegetarian. This was a twist on what looked like an otherwise straightforward dinner party, so I do understand the chefs being thrown for a loop at first, but they got to go straight into looking through the non-meat products (fresh ones from a Farmer's market, Tom Collichio says in his blog, so probably plenty of good choices even aside from anything they normally had on hand). But the dishes were not, really, all that great. Many of them looked a lot more like appetizers or sides than entrees, and almost none of them included a protein.

Now, if dairy weren't allowed, protein choices may've been slim, though we know for sure there were some legumes as one chef used garbanzo beans. (I suspect there was no tofu, but you never know.) Still, most well-stocked kitchens have a few choices for legumes. (Not mine. Legumes and I don't get along very well. Though I can and do use them in small quantity.) There must be a hundred dishes you could make that feature or use legumes in some way. And if dairy were allowed, which Gail Simmons' blog suggests was the case, how many dishes can you add cheese to or feature cheese in? A metric assload, that's how many. With dairy on the table, so to speak, eggs may've been as well. But no one used either of those.

I think perhaps the chefs were too caught up in "How can I make a fine-dining dish?" and only secondarily (if at all) considering "How can I make a good vegetarian entree?" The first thing I thought of without knowing about the dairy was chili. Sure, it's not the most upscale thing, but if you make a really good, chunky chili and pair it with a good, hearty starch (given the location, steak fries come to mind), not many people are going to complain. If dairy was on the table, pasta is an obvious choice, and there are a ton of possibilities with that... and I should note their guest judge owns an upscale Italian restaurant. With or without dairy, you could also go with Mexican or Tex-Mex, too, and while those aren't as often featured in fine dining, they're not unheard of.

Even if you wanted to feature a different vegetable (eggplant was used, for instance), there's no reason to not pair it with a legume. Sides including legumes are not hard. Or, let's take that eggplant. If dairy was allowed, why not eggplant parmesan? I know it's not the most wildly creative dish, but presumably there's something you could do as a side that would give it a little twist.

This really was their opportunity to show that vegetarian restaurant dishes don't have to be dressed up sides, and I think they didn't do a great job with that. I may not be a vegetarian myself and may not totally agree with the usual reasons behind it (I note I don't totally disagree either), but I think that if someone has made that choice, it's basic politeness to try, as a host of any sort, to accomodate it. If the guest is an ovo-lacto vegetarian, which is fairly common, you don't even have to stretch that hard, because you probably cook dishes with eggs and/or cheese anyhow. And tofu and soy milks and cheeses can be worked into a lot of dishes. If you don't want to go that route, aside from legumes, there's whole grains and nuts and seeds to work with as well, and a lot of vegetables have at least a small amount of protein, so you don't have to overpower a dish with only one source of it. (I was really surprised no one did a whole grain side.)

I know that they didn't have a lot of time and I can't be sure what they had available to them, but I can't help but think there had to be some better choices they could've made.