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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