First

You know, someone always has to go first.  Normally I don't really care because really, unless you personally know the person, what difference does it make?  This time?  I cared.  Because if I had to see this hair for more than one episode I think I would have stopped watching.

Skeeve.  That best describes my personal reaction of that hair in a food preparation environment. I'm not naive in thinking there's not a lot of nasty stuff that goes on in the kitchens of restaurants but I'm telling you that long hank of dreadlocks just skeeved me out.  I know that's not fair, dude may keep it wrapped up and secured away from food prep areas....

 ...then again after many shots of sweaty guys dripping into their dishes (Howie of the Miami season immediately leaps to mind) I'm totally comfortable with this dude going first.

Lost it's Mojo?

Has Top Chef lost it's Mojo? The ratings numbers for their premiere for season 7 seem to point in that direction. Lisa de Moraes, the Washington Post's most excellent reporter on all things TV, spilled the ratings bad news this morning. Only a million eight tuned in for Top Chef DC's first episode, the lowest rated premiere since Top Chef started. What's worse is that it looks like a trend. Top Chef Vegas premiered at 2.6 million, down from Top Chef New York's 2.7 million. For a show that lives and dies on it's ad revenue, that's a trend worse than another pile of foam on your plate. The question is what will the producers finally do to inject some much needed seasoning into this pale pile of dreck.

And for the Ladies....

Foreground Spotting with Shamu

Why, Hello Girls......and hello Gail and Padma.

Background Spotting with Shamu

I would totally remiss in my blog duties not to throw a shout out to our Northern Culinary Cool Cousins. Top Chef showing a little Maple Leaf love, Eh.

Top Chef DC

Did you watch?

Sustenance

So the finale of Top Chef Masters was close. Very, very close. Marcus Samuelsson won by a half a star, not that you could tell by the editing. Since the exit of both Jonathan Waxman and Susan Feniger, the finale held little interest to me. There was no excitement, no unexpected twist to look forward to, just 3 men cooking the stories of their lives. The editing led viewers to think one thing (Marcus's third dish sounded like the most criticized of the night) when in fact something else happened. I think I've finally figured out my malaise with the Top Chef franchise - FMF or Fan Manipulation Fatigue. For instance...check out these quotes from Jay Raynor's blog.

"... No, I was nervous because I had absolutely no idea whether the producers and editors had decided to save me from myself or not. There was a lot of very good stuff in that finale. What there wasn’t was the moment, when I lost my temper in a red-faced, eye-bulging, vein-swelling rage, during the critics’ last discussions."

OK, gotta step in here and ask why the hell not? Why wouldn't the producers and editors include that? I want to hear that passion because I'm here to tell you, that finale was a snooze-fest. But it obviously wasn't Jay's decision so back to Jay.

"I will admit that as the competition went on, I became more than a little tired of Moonen’s posturing as both "the fish guy" and "the sustainability guy." The latter struck me as a little odd given that his restaurant is located in Las Vegas, possibly the least sustainable city on the face of the planet. Almost nothing grows there. It all comes from somewhere else, leaving massive carbon footprints as it travels. But all of this was irrelevant to the competition. Our job was to judge their food according to both how they had matched up to the challenge laid before them and the quality of the food placed before us. And that’s what we did, and Moonen went all the way to the finale fairly and squarely."

Again, Jay brings up some interesting points while ignoring the biggest which is next the US Military and BP, television and movie productions are the most un-green and un-sustainable industries in the US. So having Rick Moonen on a TV show talking about Sustainability at his restaurant in Las Vegas is a big nugget of crazy wrapped up in a tender cocoon of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. But after the Toby Young Experiment, all Top Chef crazy is relative. Jay continues.

"But at that finale the game changed, subtly. The challenge was very specific: the food had to tell their story. It had to be about food memories, the food that made them want to be a chef and, finally, and crucially for me, the food that defined them as a chef.

For this course Moonen cooked venison, and a lovely piece of venison it was too, with outrageous pear butter. He made it clear that he wanted to change the way we looked at him. He didn’t want to just be "the fish guy." He was a fully-rounded chef. The problem: that venison came from New Zealand, thousands of miles away. It seems he wasn’t the sustainability guy either."

Uh oh. Fame and Ego crash head on into ethics and morals. Rick picks a piece of meat flown all the way from New Zealand in his drive to win Top Chef Masters. Now, there seems to be some confusion to what Rick's philosophy is when it comes to sustainability. I pulled this from the RM Seafood website.

"When not behind the stove, Moonen can be found throughout the country educating about the dangers of over-fishing and ocean conservation. As an industry leader, he has testified several times for environmental and sustainable policy issues in Washington, DC and New York. He is a founding member of the Seafood Choices Alliances which named him Seafood Champion in 2006 as well as an active member of the Wildlife Conservation Society, Seaweb, and a chef's advisory board member of Ecofish. He also has served as a spokesperson for American caviar, a more environmentally sound alternative to the Caspian Sea varieties, and he is often quoted for his expertise with various indigenous and exotic fish."

Not only that but Rick is unapologetic about picking that protein, "I’m not a tree hugger. I’m a chef. I’m in a cooking competition." Jay seems more upset that Rick picked a protein that had a huge carbon footprint....not something that was ecologically unsustainable as farmed New Zealand venison is not. I would have been more impressed if Rick has used some good ol 'merican white tail but let's not act like he got a facial with gold tin of Almas Caviar. Still Jay wasn't ready to let it go.

"Bloody hell, but I was furious. For weeks he had worn his green credentials on his sleeve, bigged himself up as the savior of the planet. Even under cross examination about his dishes in the finale he declared that "we need to respect the environment you live in." I’m certain his restaurant in Vegas is run according to rigorous sustainability criteria. But, when it came to the last stage of a cooking competition, he shrugged it off. I felt like we’d been had, been spun a line by a shameless opportunist. I expect to see in the comments below this piece the rebuke that it was a cooking competition and we should only have judged him on the food. To which I will respond again, that we were to judge them on the challenge and that dish was meant to show us what defined him as a chef. And after weeks of singing "We are the World" he decided to throw every single one of his self-serving homilies out the window and use a staggeringly unsustainable ingredient, which had been air freighted thousands of miles. God knows what the carbon footprint of that single dish was. Mr Sustainability, Rick? I really don’t think so."

Love the honesty Jay is bringing to the back end of this but again, these are the kind of discussions that I, as a fan, want to see. Did Rick lose because of it?

"I should say here and now that this is not why Marcus Samuelsson won. He won because his cooking was better, especially his duck dish with that fabulous foie gras ganache. But I can definitely tell you that Moonen’s craven attitude to environmental issues is why I scored him as I did."

Half a star Jay, Marcus won by half a star. Jay gave Rick four stars but graded him down because of where the venison came from, not the taste of the dish he was served. Did he give Marcus 5 stars knowing it would be so close and to keep Rick from winning? The Diners (last season's finalists and Tom Colicchio) scored all three chefs the same with 4 stars so no help there. Seems that Jay's anger ruled the day.

Again we, the viewers, are left wondering if the best tasting dishes really won and who else pissed off Jay enough to lose stars in the process?

The Winner?

Did we really have a winner last night? Here were the final scores, 17 Stars, 17 Stars and 17 1/2 Stars. How do you pick a winner from dishes that apparently that close? Discuss.

Summertime Grilling

I happen to be blessed to live in an area that has multiple farmer's markets. I can visit nearby downtown Kansas City and enjoy the oldest market in the area, full of vegetable and fruit vendors along with shops selling Middle Eastern, Italian or Vietnamese spices and products. Or I can go to the smaller neighborhood markets closer by but not as much variety. Recently I visited the Overland Park Farmer's Market to check out the early spring offerings. Mostly it was bright flowers and vibrant herbs. Lots of non-food items that didn't hold much interest to me but then again, they have sell something when it's too soon for veggies. Still lots of folks shopping and when you have a ready crowd, it's always good to whet their appetite. That's when I found, Rachel, one of the good chefs of the Culinary Center of Kansas City doing a dish demo. Set up with her little gas burner and lots of space to chop and talk, I found myself doing a Pavlov's dog routine. The recipe she was making was grilled bison with couscous salad. Oh yes, it looked good. But no samples at the table, oh no, smart people that they are the recipe was a ticket back at their store where you could get a sample and shop or maybe sign up for a cooking class. You know I'm all about the free sample. It was wonderful, with the bison sliced really thin and the sweet tang of dried cherries. Turns out the sample wasn't enough so I decided to make my own. Happily they post their recipes online so if you'd like to try it out here is the recipe: Grilled Bison Steak with Caramelized Onions & Spinach Couscous Salad.



First a couple of notes. While it doesn't say it in the recipe, use the Israeli or large grain couscous. The smaller grain is fine but with something as robust as grilled bison, the larger grain seemed more appropriate.

Even if you don't use the large grain couscous, definitely add the dried cherries. Since you're already going to be at Whole Foods buying your bison steaks, go ahead and pop for their dried cherries. They are addictive by themselves but they really make this dish sing. That grilled bison is a hearty contrast to spicy mustard dressing on the couscous and the sweet zing of the cherries. This is really a great summertime dish. The couscous salad can easily be made ahead of time. Set it out while the bison is grilling and it should be room temperature by the time your meat is done .



Definitely not your normal backyard barbecue pasta salad but if you like breaking out of the rut of potato salad and hot dogs, this is the dish for you.

Scream Therapy

Issues. We all have our issues. Lately I've had a lot. If you thought there was an extra large set of cranky pants floating around here, wait until you see the Michael Moore size set we've got going on now. First to the most obvious "Technical Issues" Technically when your body rebels against itself so much that it hurts to do your normal everyday things, that's an issue. There's no need for gruesome details, just a need to move forward. Although, note to self, these would have helped.

Then there was this.

Last week's offing of Susan from Top Chef Masters. I won't go into massive detail but here's the gist, they had to make a dish drawing inspiration from a mythical god assigned to them. Susan chose Aphrodite, the goddess of Love. They were making tasting portions for 50 guests. Yet another catering style challenge but whatever. Susan made a dish that she loves and played on her interpretation as Aphrodite being the goddess of reproduction. Did the dish taste good? Gail Simmons liked it but that's about all the critique of how the dish tasted we got from our judges. What we got instead was suddenly an edict that a sandwich, no matter how it tasted, is not substantial enough to be considered Top Chef Master material.
I guess someone is going to have to break this news to Tom Colicchio. Susan goes home and here at the blog we're reaching Def Con Level 3 of Crankiness. I know I'm letting my emotions play way too much into this but I heard the faint echos of Top Chef judging creeping into Masters. I like TC Masters so much because it is not regular Top Chef. I grumbled to myself and set out to try and enjoy the last few episodes of the season.

Except.

Issue No. 3. The Great Top Chef Master Hoax. When this program emerged and the first season was done, I was pretty excited. I loved the show. I loved that we were getting to see adults acting like adults and really getting into the food. But let's face it, both TC Masters and Top Chef have hit a wall.That wall is the producer's belief that everything they throw up on the wall makes interesting TV or even makes culinary sense. You KNOW every Top Chef Crack Monkey out in the audience inwardly cringed (or outwardly shouted NO at the top of her lungs like I did) when Kelly told the chefs they had the night off and they would be enjoying a night of improve with the Groundlings. For those of you who are not TC Crack Monkeys, the idea is to make a dish from the words screamed out by the audience members at the Groundlings show, such as Burnt Sienna Depressed Avocado. Brilliant huh? I just don't get the logic of bringing this particular challenge back for Top Chef let alone using it for TC Masters. It sucked as a challenge then and it sucked even more as a challenge last night. My question is: Was this challenge worthy of being a Top Chef Masters Challenge? Oh. Hell. NO! So all that previous bullshit about Susan's sandwich not being good enough to represent a true Top Chef Master looks even stupider when they trot this thick gristly ham bone of a challenge for the last four chefs of the season!! I mean, Jonathan missed out on the finals because he had to make a dish that 1) tasted good, 2) incorporated or was inspired by the words Burnt Sienna Depressed Avocado and 3) make a dish worthy enough to be considered Top Chef Masters material. What asshatery. I want to see challenges that incorporate some of the things that actually happen in a real kitchen, like equipment failure in the middle of a dinner rush, finding out your supplier sent you the wrong fish and the cook who checked in the order from the supplier didn't catch it and now you have to totally improvise a new dish with that fish, or how about cooking in a power outage? I know plenty of restaurants who find ways to cook and serve during storms and weather events no matter what. But please, start smoking a better brand of crack than the one you're on now that lead you to believe the Improv Challenge was funny. It was not. Unless of course you find food shaped like a vagina endlessly funny because if that's what being a Top Chef Master means, somebody better get Michael Midley sobered up and ready in time for Top Chef Masters Season 3 because he will smoke anyone you put up against him.
If it was the producers intention to fool well known, established chefs into thinking that they would not have to dance the dance of Top Chef's stupidity, bravo, mission accomplished. It's only a matter of time before we see Top Chef Masters waking up in some horrendous bunk beds and when it happens it will be a sad day indeed.

Temporary Sign Off

Having some technical issues, should be back to full blogging strength next week.

How does my garden grow?

Are you a morning person? Does the crack of dawn thrill you? Are you perky and ready to go, even without that first cup of coffee? Do you count yourself in that mass of happiness? I hate you people. I am not a morning person and because I'm not a morning person you generally won't see me at the farmer's market when it opens at sunrise before the hungry hordes descend upon it. So I decided to turn my backyard into my own farmer's market. It sure beats mowing the lawn.

This plan could go terribly wrong. I'm not exactly sure if I've got the gardening green thumb. It's not because I don't have the genetic background, growing up as a kid we had backyard gardens where ever we lived. Huge gardens full of tomatoes, green beans and greens.


So I sent away for a raised garden kit and started building my own lasagna garden. A lasagna garden is a no till, no dig method of gardening. This definitely appealed to be since 1) I got no rototiller and 2) who knows how good or bad my lawn soil is and 3) it's much easier to weed and water. This way I can build a good soil base for my veggies, full of compost and nutrients.

So after a ton of spring rains, I finally got my plants in their bed. What plants did I plant?

Green Beans







Tomatoes



Collards



Eggplant

Not to mention my containers full of herbs and lettuce.





Old Faithful kicked winter's ass and comes back strong for another season.





Can't forget the flowers







Me and my little friend here will be back every so often with a full Garden Report and hopefully dishes made from the results.

Leg Men and Woman

Six Chefs left and they are getting crankier as it gets closer to the final episodes. This week's Quickfire is all about legs.

Why? I don't know but as long as they are cooking for real live people I promised myself I wouldn't complain and a gold medal athlete using his legs is as good a tenuous connection as any when it comes to these Quickfires. But I wondered? How would they choose which leg they wanted? Draw straws? NO!

AWESOME....Rugby Scrum. They all bum rushed the fridge like it was 4:20 on a Friday. That's right Susan, wiggle your way in there. With their proteins procured, cooking commences. One of the reasons I like watching these sorts of shows is the hope that I'll pick up some new technique or method that I can use in my own cooking. For instance...

...beating the hell out of your crab legs with pot. Or....

...praying to your refrigerator. Rick needs to pray, he picked out octopus (which, technically, don't have legs but this is a reality cooking show not a biology class) to try and cook within the 45 minute time limit.

Meanwhile Susan is doing something golden and beautiful to some chicken legs. (My plate is cleared for landing for those luscious bird stems). Time is up and service to the Gold Medal Leggist begins. Can I just say, I love that the Quickfire is served away from the chefs and they have to watch via TV. It's prime bitch time.

We start with Tony's Crab and Potato salad with 3 types of Coriander. Jay Rayner, who is also sitting in on the judging, feels it's under-dressed. Jason, who seems to actually know what he likes, likes the salad.

Next is Susur's Indo roasted Leg of Lamb. This was also a pretty bold choice for a 45 minute Quickfire. Again Jason likes the flavors and the light sauce hand. Jay says the meatballs are cute. I suspect he says this because he knows it will get under the skin of the very serious Susur. Sadly we did not get to learn any good Chinese curse words.

Susan's Cumin Cilantro Chicken with pickled tomatoes on quinoa & raisin pilaf. Not a plating masterpiece.

Don't get mad at me, you plated it. It's not like it matters because both Jay and Jason love the tastes. Tasty and Ugly is always better than Pretty Dreck, at least in my house it is.

Jonathan's Capellini with king crab, jalapeño and mint is up. This looks really good and pairing mint and jalapeño sounds interesting. Jay, who apparently has his own set of cranky pants, wants more crab in his pasta. Jason thinks it's a good carbo-loading meal for an athlete.

Marcus gives us a Confit of Frog Legs with Curry Broth & Crab Rice. It's not pretty especially with the Brown Smear of Pretension. It's too rich for Jason and too overwhelming for Jay.

Rick is last with his Egg in a Hole with Roasted Octopus & Béarnaise Sauce. Jason likes the clean plating of the dish but Jay can't help but express his dismay at the chewiness of the octopus.

So who wins the $5000 for their charity and an advantage in the Elimination Round?

That's right, The Big Passion in a Little Package, Susan with her simply Delicious Ugly Chicken.

Next up: Tossing the Old Olive Around