Top Chef idea

You know what I want to see? A spin-off of Top Chefs called "Home Cooks" or something.

You know how people who are really good home cooks sometimes are told they should open a restaurant? The purpose of the show would be to help someone do just that.

I'd want it structured more like TC Masters, with qualifying rounds and then "playoffs" and finals, and with a rating system like theirs as well. I'd also like to see some more generous time limits, or the addition of sous chefs or something else to acknowledge that home cooks aren't always the fastest preppers, and take the focus off of speed a bit in favor of letting them see what they could do. And the prize would presumably be both money to go towards opening a restaurant (or catering business, maybe) and the aid of someone who knows the ins and outs of opening restaurants to help them set up their place and hire the right people and such.

The challenges could be similar to what they do now, so long as they got the extra time or extra prep help I mentioned above. Plus I'd probably want to give them basic reference guides—not recipe books, exactly, but things like "this is what goes in basic sauces at these ratios" and "here's a basic white cake mix", and "here's a list of basic substitutions". A bit of a cheat sheet seems reasonable for people who don't spend as much time with cooking as professionals do.

Anyhow, I think that'd be interesting to see.

PR recaps; Top Chef; Top Chef: Just Desserts

Because of the length of time it takes me to write a recap like the one I did for S8 E1—it's a good 5-6 hours of watching for a few seconds, pausing, and writing something, then starting the video up again—I'm clearly not going to get caught up. I'm going to try to finish up the one for E2 anyhow, since I was near the end of it, but then I'm going to try to find a way to write much leaner recaps for the rest. No promises, though; my painkillers aren't, lately.

On Top Chef DC: Totally disappointing season. I didn't really ever connect with someone I wanted to root for—the closest I came was deciding to root for Tiffany, and then she got eliminated right after I decided that—and one of the people I thought was not all that strong a chef won. Whoopie-doo. And apparently the next season of Top Chef is going to be an "All-Stars", starting in December. I haven't decided how I feel about that. It includes people from every season, many of whom made it near or into the finale but didn't win. (Thank goodness it doesn't include winners, or I might have to see that cockmeister Ilan again. Seriously, guys: stop inviting that douchebag back, okay?)

Top Chef: Just Desserts is probably not going to hold my attention. Basically, most of the contestants annoy me, and of the few I kinda liked, two are already gone. But I'll give it another couple episodes. And that's... seriously all I have to say about it.

The official lineup of Top Chef: All-Stars has already been announced, and I have some opinions:

Top Chef & Project Runway

Here's my reaction to Top Chef so far: x.x

Top Chef DC Initial Impressions

So, as usual with the first episode, I barely remember anyone's names or much about their actual dishes, but a few things did stand out:

• Dude with the dreads. Sorry, I know this is shallow, but to be honest I'm kinda glad I'm not going to have to be creeped out by his hair anymore. I know that dreads are just as likely to be clean as some random sweaty chef's hair, and he wore a bandana to keep 'em out of the way, but seriously, dude's hair scared me. Also, if the dish you make to represent yourself and where you're from is something I can make at home, you probably aren't quite ready for Top Chef. No offense.
• Big chick with a big mouth... I thought at first I might like her, until she decided to call another contestant a hick and implied that would mean he sucked. Yeah, I didn't see you in the top 4, babe. Maybe keep a lid on the insults til you show you're any good either, k?
• Kenny is freakin' fast at the mis en place. Doesn't guarantee he's good (but the top four placement in Elimination Challenge does tend to suggest he is), but, wow. I think I'd still be working on the onions, myself...
• On the other hand, dude needs to learn how to lose gracefully. Seriously.
• And speaking of someone who's gonna have to learn to lose: Angelo? Is that his name? The one who won, with the attitude and the smug and the self-absorption and the admittedly good-sounding dish? Yeah. You aren't gonna win all the challenges. Trust me.
• I hope the culinary instructor lady kicks some serious ass this season, because I'm sick of all the winners being young-ass kids. She seems to be pretty collected, so hopefully she'll do well under pressure. Don't know what I thought of her food, though.
• Kenny and Angelo may've clearly set the "people to beat" mark, but... Alex? Russian dude. *just goes and looks it up* Yeah, Alex. Anyhow, deconstructed borscht that actually sounded kinda good? Sounds like he's got some interesting ideas, at least.

Maybe by next week I'll remember more people's names...

Well, I'm disappointed

Three chefs. I liked two. The third one won.

My reaction? A big 'whatever'.

Mid-Top-Chef reaction

Michael V (interview): Kevin cooks the kind of food I cook on my day off.
Michael V (to Tom C. during walkthrough): I'm making couscous and tzatziki.
Me (to Michael V's image): I can make those on my day off. Or any other day. What does that say about you?

Wow Me or GTFO

I'm going to rant a bit about Project Runway now, and then I'm going to tie it in a bit to my feelings about Top Chef, and then I'm going to wonder if I should go back to watching neither of them and just sticking to the recapper's blogs as I did for S5 of both. Suitable warning: This is extremely long. If you don't want to read lots of words, don't clicky:

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.

I know I said I wasn't likely to watch...

...but I've been watching Top Chef regularly this season again.

I think it's obvious at this point who the front-runners are, the probable top four. Granted one of them might screw up (anyone can have an off day, or succumb to the pressure of time), but really it's been pretty clear for a couple weeks that Kevin, Jen, and the Voltaggio brothers are the likeliest top four. If one of them screws up badly enough, I suppose that Mike I. might be in instead, but I don't think he's as talented or creative as that group. Plus I can't stand him, so I hope he doesn't make it. Laurine also might have a shot, but again, I think it would take one of the others screwing up.

No offense to Robin or Ash, but I don't think either of them likely to make it to the top. I kinda like both of them and I don't think they're incompetent, but I don't think either of them work well with the time pressure or in front of the cameras, and they haven't shown a lot of flair. Eli, well, I don't like him, and he's not any more likely than either of them to make it, for similar reasons plus a general blindness to his own faults.

I'm torn on who I want to be the winner. As far as skill goes, I think the four best are all on par with each other overall, so I wouldn't be disappointed at any of them. I'm inclined to root for Kevin, who sort of slid into being my favorite personality-wise, but I kinda want to root for Jen's quiet competence as well. If it comes down to those two I think I'd be pretty happy either way (the loser might not get the money but the publicity can't hurt).

An Open Letter

Dear Mike Isabella of Top Chef,

You seem to not realize that your audience is composed primarily of foodies and chefs. I base this characterization on the fact that you felt a need to condescendingly let us know that risotto can be made of other things than rice.

I realize that 'condescending' is your normal tone, and what with your obvious hangup about women and bloated self-importance I hardly expected to particularly like you at any point, but that one little interview pretty much guaranteed that I am now actively anti-rooting for you. You probably don't care (I'm a woman and not a professional chef, after all), but let me point out to you something you and certain other past contestants seem to have missed: you are on national TV getting name recognition. That recognition can be good (as in, "Wow, that dish Michael V made sounds excellent") or bad (as in, "I don't care if he cooks food suitable for the second coming of Jesus, that guy is such a douche, I wouldn't eat at his restaurant for any amount of money").

In case it isn't clear, you fall into the latter category for me.

It's a little late now, of course; the season is long since taped and the decision made as to who will be the winner. I predict, however, it will not be you, which means the only thing you will have accomplished by this is alienating a portion of your potential customer base. I hope that outcome is what you wanted.

Sincerely,

Your #1 Anti-Fan

Not a Top Chef

I'm not watching Top Chef this season. I freely admit I got bored of it, which seems weird because I really do love cooking shows. Maybe I just like them better when there's less manufactured drama. I find Iron Chef (the real one, not the American version) and Alton Brown pretty entertaining, for instance.

That doesn't mean I'm totally disinterested, though. I'm reading the recaps over at Television without Pity, which I do for shows I've seen as well because they're frequently really funny and point out things I missed. Right now, because I'm bored, I'm noodling through some of the old recaps, and I just got up to season 3's "reinvent a classic home dish as an updated, healthier dish" challenge, which I really liked.

Now, I'm not a professional chef and never will be, but I do like to cook, and I'm fairly good at it. I'm actually a lot more familiar with the classic home dishes than upscale food, in fact, and cooking healthily is usually a goal of mine (nothing wrong with occasional unhealthy food, mind you). So when they did this I thought about what I would make, and I'm thinking about it again now that I'm reading the recap. I don't know if I'd be able to come up with this stuff on the fly, but then, I'm not aiming to be a contestant. I haven't tried any of these (though some use elements I've used before). I actually am planning to try some of them since typing it up made me hungry. :D I think, though, they'd work reasonably well.