Top Chef


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Top Chef Masters: Grand Finale

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Wednesday was a good night for food fans. Two and a half hours of chefs killing themselves to put out the best of their abilities and a lot of really amazing food was cooked. Top Chef is back folks, and to open for the Top Chef Masters Finale I can’t think of a better way of giving the audience exactly what they want; dish after dish after dish of exceptional food porn!

If sitting through the Masters series got kinda stale at certain points, and it definitely had its lackluster moments, this finale completely made up for any previous lack of entertainment. Hubert Keller summed up the his final TCM elimination round as “the perfect challenge.” I couldn’t agree more. This is the type of event I tune in for every week. No weird restrictions, no dramatic twists; just cook from your soul, tell a story and put out the best meal of your life. I won’t lie. I took a deep breath and held back on tearing up a little when they announced the challenge.

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Top Chef 6: There Will Be Blood

It almost feels like it hasn’t been long enough without our Padma and Tom, right? Well this fall’s season of Top Chef starts early, premiering this Wednesday at an earlier time — 9pm ET. Judging by the preview above, it seems TC will stick with the formula that works this season: drama, fauxhawks, and a little bit of blood.

As always, ES will be chatting with the Top Chef-testants as they fall off the chopping block. Check this space Thursday for our interview with the first eliminated chef.

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Top Chef Masters: Finale Round 3

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I had such a nice intro planned about how TC fans and food aficionados may disagree on a lot of things, but we can all agree on who’s a tool. The preview for this week’s Top Chef Masters seemed to indicate Dale of TC Season 4 would be causing all sorts of havoc. But in reality, Dale didn’t end up having nearly as much of an impact as we were lead to believe. Turns out TCM had multiple tools acting up this week.

All in all, this was a tough round for the competitors. A few curve balls and a lot of personalities filled this week’s episode. Lo, Bayless, Keller and Chiarello are the last ones standing, each with very different culinary perspectives and each very, very close to winning the grand prize.

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Cheflebrity Smörgåsbord: Amtrak is a Culinary Wasteland

amtrak

Would it kill Amtrak to sell reasonably good food?

I spent five hours total on the North East Corridor yesterday, traveling from from Trenton, New Jersey to Washington, D.C. for work.  Normally, I have a pretty high tolerance for shitty food — as long as someone else is paying for it.  Unfortunately, my employers have decided that the 150-mile trip doesn’t qualify for meal reimbursement, so I’d have to shell out my own cash if I wanted a dirty water hot dog or whatever else they were hawking.  I settled for reading food blogs and toughing it out until I made it home for dinner.

Look, I understand why the folks who fly steerage on airlines get crap (if they’re lucky).  There’s only so much space on the plane and the equipment used to cook/heat the meals isn’t exactly ideal.  But why can’t Amtrak, which makes tons of stops where good food can be loaded and has the luxury of a roomy cafe car, offer some higher-quality fare for its riders?  Isn’t this the kind of thing that Emeril, Wolfgang or someone like that should be jumping on?

It’s nothing but first class when you ride the smörg…

– Really, Wall Street Journal?!? You don’t say…” Another boost came from Mr. Ramsay’s blossoming media career, with the success of reality television shows such as “Kitchen Nightmares,” “Hell’s Kitchen” and “The F-Word” — so-named for Mr. Ramsay’s frequent use of expletives.”

– The fact that a cheftestant on the upcoming season of Top Chef has left her job has NOTHING to do with her performance on the show.  It has EVERYTHING to do with her snagging a better deal at one of Philly’s higher-profile spots.

After the jump: the culinary scourge of the nation, the world’s least surprising medical update and Spike tells you how to sign off in style.

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Top Chef Masters: Finale Round 2

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I’m sorry to report that I will be calling off my pre-pre engagement to Zooey Deschanel. She’s handling the news very well actually, thanks largely to the fact she has no idea who I am. But if she did, and maybe, just maybe one day she will, I’d like to think she would at least be mildly disappointed.

The thing is, we’ve just been struggling with these imaginary problems for a while now and it’s really taken a toll on our long term future. The final straw was the realization that the only source of nutrients Zooey is allowed to consume is grass. I was crushed when I found out. All these years you think you know someone and then a bomb like this drops on your head and shakes your imaginary relationship to the core.

Find out how the remaining Top Chef Masters handle cooking for a group of people that hate choose not to enjoy everything on this planet worth eating, after the jump.

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Cheflebrity Smörgåsbord: Do You Take Out Your Meat?

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First up, a quick, semi-selfish cooking question:  Despite having watched a lot of food shows and read a lot of cookbooks, I haven’t found a definitive answer to the question that I encounter during quite a few meals.  Namely:  Should you take your meat out of the refrigerator before cooking to raise the temperature?

I’m not talking about a pork shoulder…I know you need to bring that up a bit or it will never cook evenly.  I’m thinking about cuts like pork chops, beef and even chicken, where you want to get the meat to reach the right internal temperature during cooking just as you achieve outer-browning Nirvana.

And so I turn to you, dear readers.  Is there a hard and fast rule that can be used here?  What will work without sending me to the emergency room in a cold sweat?

The smörg is always the right temperature.

–  We just can’t get enough Fabio!  Last year, he couldn’t find a taker for his proposal, so he self-published a cookbook. Now ALL the ladies (and publishers) love them some Fabio.

– This year’s Great American Dine Out will feature Food Network’s Aaron McCargo as a spokesman.  Cool: You eat out and money goes to Share Our Strength.  As if you needed another excuse to go out and stuff your face.

After the jump…a look at Virtual Susie Fogelson, a lawsuit that can’t possibly be frivolous and a fantastic new accomplishment for the Smörgåsbord.

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