February 2009


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Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

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Since we were all-Top Chef, all the time this week, I just had to share this photo. First Tom Colicchio for Diet Coke, now Padma Lakshmi for Hardee’s. What’s next? Gail Simmons for Baconnaise? But I digress. On with the comments…

– Is Stefan the new Carla? Maybe, judging by the love ESers are showering on him:

Eick: Over the course of the season I was warming up to Stefan more and more and starting to like Hosea less and less. This interview is the fucking awesome and the icing on the cake. I am now a full-fledged Stefan proponent. His line about how read the blogs he DID win and will be able to lay valuable eggs – awesome.

Leahsucks: I was hating on Stefan for a while but have been coming around and this interview totally won me over. He’s a lovable good hearted jerk. I don’t think I will be buying the cock panties anytime soon though.

– So who is the new Top Chef villain? Casey, obv. Leahsucks: Umm… Casey’s bitter rant. You are done with TC and we are done with you. Good Day sir. Maids: wow talk about a contrast. Carla = gracious and protective of Casey (True mark of a fine competitor) Casey = nasty and hateful toward Carl.

– Most of you are as excited as we are about bacon cheese.  KMango: They serve that on the sammiches you get when you arrive in heaven. But not JoeHoya:

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Friday Fuck Ups: Calista Flockhart’s Chest

This lovely “pancake” of a cookie is from our fellow blogger Sarah Shirley of Bottomless Cookie Jar. Sarah totally fucked up a recipe for these buttery raisin cookies. Here’s some of her rant, which is absolutely hysterical:

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Wow.  These cookies are worthy of Friday Fuck Ups…Do you see this pancake-like abomination that is trying to pass itself off as a cookie????  I should have seen this coming from a mile away; the original recipe calls for no leavening agents and virtually no creaming time to pump air into the batter.  Of course the end result will resemble Calista Flockhart’s chest!

The dedicated baker quickly rewrote the recipe and is now urging cookie fans to try her updated process. Please let us know if you have any luck creating a plump cookie, or if this cookie should go in the Friday Fuck Ups Hall of Fame. Of course we have no idea what *leavening agents* and *creaming* and *pump air* means in a recipe, as we don’t bake and surely don’t use recipes. We’re fuck ups, what can we say.

Buttery Raisin Cookies [Bottomless Cookie Jar]

You too can become famous on ES. Just send us a fuck up. Oh, come on, we know you have one!
info@endlessssimmer.com

in Desserts 5 comments
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Top Chef Exit Interview: First Runner-Up

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Our interview with the second-place chef’testant, after the jump (viewer discretion is advised).

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Top Chef Exit Interview: Second Runner-Up (And Contest Results!)

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OK, first things first–the results of our Top Chef Finale Guessing Game. After consulting all of the winning chef’s recipes online, it seems they used the following ingredients: Foie gras, redfish, corn, scallops, venison, wild mushrooms, cilantro, tuna, hamachi, black bass, fennel oil, fried tempura bits, chestnut, celeraic, blackberries, green beans, kumquat, orange juice, lemon juice, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce, cucumber juice, ginger juice, jalapeno juice, sriracha, fennel, avocado, cucumber, orange, blood orange, grapefruit, chile oil, garlic, rosemary, Yukon gold potatoes, butter, heavy cream, sugar, veal demi glace, French bread, eggs, milk, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, maple syrup, apples, cider vinegar, star anise, pecans, cayenne, half and half, Tabasco, tomato paste, yellow onion, bell pepper, creole spice.

Phew! It takes a lot to be a Top Chef! I can’t believe no one was able to guess all five with a list like that! A lot of people had one correct. No one had three. Only a few people had two. First off there’s BS(!) with scallops and sriracha. Chris had foie gras and scallops. He came so close to winning it outright but guessed smoked paprika instead of cayenne.  The lovely BS’s Mom had mushrooms and celeraic (nice guess on cleraic! Also used by Stefan.) Ben! had scallops and garlic (hmmm…garlic is close to not counting, but Padma and the judges rule it’s OK.) Queen had cinnamon and eggs. JoeHoya had mushrooms and lemon (well, he used lemon juice, but I’m assuming that came from a lemon, so you get the point). Muffin had cream and foie gras (sorry, we’ll give you points for cream, but not butter–that falls in the too obvious category as stated in the rules).

So of the ppl with two guesses correct, only two had the winner right: BS’s Mom and Ben! Congrats to both of our winners! BS’s Mom, as you may have guessed, is my mom, so conflict-of-interest rules prevent her from receiving ES prizes. Ben! send us your mailing address — the Top Chef cookbook and calendar are on the way.

OK, now on to the good stuff…our interview with the third place chef’testant…

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in Contests / TV 10 comments
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And On Wednesday She Cooked Two Dinners

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Monday night I went to Belmont‘s book club meeting where she served an African-inspired hearty, pureed, spicy (canned) squash soup. It was the color of puke but was absolutely wonderful. Perfect for a cold, winter night. All of the bookies are waiting for her to post the semi-elaborate recipe. I do know, however, that she spiked the soup with red wine and whiskey. And right there I vowed to myself to abuse 80’s liquor cabinet on behalf of our meals, kinda like this truffle amazingness. A selfless host indeed, Belmont took the time to shake up a blood orange vinaigrette and a salad full of fresh spinach and blood orange segments and the bitch doesn’t even like fruit. She’s a real crowd pleaser. Plus the from-scratch vanilla pudding.

So that was Monday.

Tuesday I attended a press dinner at the very new Inox. It was all the way out in Tysons so I was <this close> to not trekking out there. But, good lord, I’m glad I sacrificed some oil for the tasting dinner:

  • endive salad with blood orange (two salads with blood orange in two days!) paired with the creamiest nugget of bleu cheese – and I hate that usually funky shit;
  • red snapper in a lively ginger-lemongrass curry bouillon which also had beautiful indigo colored-basil seeds floating around – had a great, and surprising, kick;
  • lobster, glorious lobster;
  • pink slices of pan seared duck downed with bites of artichoke, fennel, olives and sun dried tomato;
  • crispy, meaty skate wing and a pudgy scallop;
  • elderflower soup which scared the shit out of me because it looked exactly like a jellyfish (did anyone else get forced to watch seven pounds??);
  • a chocolate bread pudding with – GET THIS – kalamata olive oil sherbert infused in the creaminess. First you receive traditional chocolate, but then it’s salty, and tangy, and briny and holy shit it tastes like an olive, but there is no olive, just the essence of an olive. It’s a real trick on your brain. A beautiful trick that I would gladly fall for again;
  • fruity, light, juicy pineapple dessert, but I couldn’t keep my tongue away from the chocolate-oliveness;
  • ended with petits fours;
  • lots of wine throughout served by the cockiest, driest sommelier I’ve ever encountered. His demeanor was actually refreshing compared to the normal ass kissing wine expert. He was still kinda a dick though. But only in the nicest possible way.

So that was Tuesday. And sorry, Amy, for taking the LONG way home.

Anyway, I was tired from two nights out, plus I’d been living with a cold for the past few days, and I was excited to get back into the kitchen. It’s funny how much I missed it there. And this is how I know I’m really crazy. You know how everyone is like, oh, I only want to make one meal, one meal in one pot, something easy on a week night. Well, I like cooking so much that I enjoy making 80 and I different dinners. They’re usually similar in scope, but contain different ingredients.

Here goes crazy.

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in Bacon / Cheese / Endless Bacon / Fowl / Pig / Recipe / Veggie 6 comments
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Live Blogging Top Chef: The Finale

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