Just Desserts, The Clunky Episode

I don't know what it was about this episode but it just felt clunky, off it's stride, just sorta eh. Maybe it's all the sadness of Whiny Heather's departure?

Yeah, perhaps the crocodile tears were appropriate in this circumstance. Still Yigit seems to be letting her auffing, along with his visit to the loser's table for Dessert Wars, really mess with his head. However now is not the time to go all stupid with your skills. Shinmin Li is in the House that Sugar Built.


She's here for intricate sugar work, not to listen to a bunch of excuses or whining or whatever you think is pretty. She'll tell you if it's pretty or not. You know why? Because bitch can do this!

And these!


(Do those shoes go with that bag?)

What is Shinmin looking for? A heightened sense of sophistication and creativity. Intricate details and showcasing your sugar pulling skills. Right off the bat chefs without those skills start reverting to what they know best and ignoring the challenge set before them. No more immunity for the Elimination challenge but to sweeten the pot there is $5000. Not to mention a whole 3 hours to create their bouquets.

Zac appears to be doing something with a big chocolate letter C?

Danielle does a lot of candied orange peels and marshmallow flowers and neglects to finish the backside of her arrangement.

Eric decides to make....a giant cupcake.
It better be the best looking giant cupcake ever because flavors don't mean diddly squat for this challenge.

Morgan is hitting both his chocolate skills with the shiny dark chocolate that he used before in his little black dress and pulled sugar with an intricate ribbon bow. However it is his stint at the heat booth that gets him in trouble when he hits Yigit's pulled sugar vases and destroys one of them.

Which really sucks because I get the impression that this was a time consuming process for Yigit. Did Morgan do it on purpose? Only Morgan can say and really, is there a penalty for accidentally destroying another contestant's work? Again, don't know but I'd like to give Morgan the benefit of the doubt....except it's Morgan, biggest jerk left in the game. So no, sorry Morgan, acting like a jerk 95% of the time will only get the general belief that you broke that vase on purpose. The flip side is that it's entirely possible that the vases would have never worked due to their extremely fragile nature. I'm just sad we never get to see Yigit present his original vision.

Zac goes old school Crack with this Disco Flowers arrangement.

Danielle and her not so pretty lime and orange zest roses.

Eric's squatty Giant Cupcake.

Those are your bottom three contenders and really no surprise there. Seems like folks just getting through the challenge.

Yigit and his 13 minute, on the fly bouquet. Uh, damn. Nice recovery from the Morgan disaster.

Morgan's arrangement with bow.

Morgan and Yigit take the top two spots with Morgan easily taking the win and the money.

Which is all well and good but I'd love for Morgan to deal with a disaster and still present a winning piece in 13 minutes and be as magnanimous as Yigit for not outwardly blaming another contestant for possible sabotage of his work. (coughcoughlemonscoughcough)


Tomorrow? Let's pretend Celebritards are more important than 99.9% of the rest of your life.

Grits and Greens - Harmon Style

Here's the great thing about cookbooks. They keep on giving. Back in October of 2008 I won a copy of Virginia Willis's cookbook, Bon Appetit Y'all while attending the American Royal. I love this cookbook. I made biscuits, I made Chicken Saltimbocca with Country Ham and I was happy. I even grew my own collard greens in the backyard just so I could make my own organic Grits and Greens.

It was only natural when Haley Harmon of Don't Eat the Paintings called for reader recipe suggestions to paint that this was the recipe I wanted to submit. Who could resist those big beautiful collard greens?

Isn't it beautiful? I think she did a great job. I know it made me hungry. Thanks so much Haley. Don't forget to visit Haley often to watch for more yummy paintings.

Gail's Fashion Corner

Celebrities and Tea?

A Celebritea Party? Two things I spend absolutely no time or money on. I mean, I get Ladies Who Lunch but really, tea parties? How many tea parties have you been to in the last six months? Not counting the political ones?

A Celebritea Party?
	Anything celebrating celebrities should be shunned.
	Tea? You mean like Bubble Tea?
	I don't eat no stinkin' crumpets.
	Call me when the Margarita Party gets started.
pollcode.com free polls

Dessert Wars

I was wondering how they were going to adapt Restaurant Wars into a dessert only setting. I'm not sure I like it. It somehow loses a bit of the drama that chefs cooking multi-course meals usually deal with. I know they had special orders but still. Let's review. The challenge for our two teams was to prepare and stock a pastry shop. Each chef had to prepare 3 desserts on the menu and one item on the menu is required to be a bread item. The reward, aside from bragging rights to having won the first Dessert Wars, is $30,000. Nice. So off they go to shop...where nothing exciting happens but still you have to pimp the grocery store or no free access to film inside the store.
Back at the kitchen things start to get interesting. Two of Team Diva's desserts involve pie or tart crust. Simple right? A building block of every pastry chef's training. But if you work in a larger scale bakery that cranks out a lot of pies and tarts, there are machines that help you roll your dough (dough sheeter) into thin, precise crusts.
The black team has no problem using this machine. However Whiny Heather chooses to hand roll all the dough for her team. Why? Could be she's had bad experiences with a dough sheeter in the past and is uncomfortable using it. Or. It could be that she fears it will be seen as a short cut. While this is the first season of Just Desserts, the chefs have had plenty of examples of how shortcuts bite them in the ass from 8 seasons of Top Chef. So Heather rolling her own could be a wise choice....IF she rolls all of them perfectly.

Then there's the lemons.
Seems that Morgan can't find two bags of lemons. Since he can't find his two bags of lemons he bought, he claims Yigit took his lemons and on top of that, is upset that Yigit took all the lemons out of the Pantry. If Morgan's not careful the Whiny title is coming off Heather and will be slapped on his broad forehead.

Not much else of interest happens during prep except Yigit covers himself with a large bowl of whipped cream...and not in a good way.

Although as cute as he is I'm betting he could get plenty of folks to cover him in whipped cream in a good way.

Next day finds the chefs hustling to get ready and open their pastry shops. Our guest judge for Dessert Wars is Nancy Silverton, she of many awards, cookbooks and dessert establishments.

Will she be tough? Nit picky? Will the chefs be ready in time?

The black team appears to be. Team Diva?

Not so much. Now I watched closely to see if Team Diva's case ever looked as full as the black team's case and below is the best I could find.

Some stuff but just not as eye catching as the black team's display. Not a good choice. Onto the desserts.

Zac

Yigit

Heather

Morgan

Eric

Danielle

The best in my opinion and the ones I'd buy if I were in the two shops? Zac's donut offering and Morgan's Chocolate Mousse, as much as it pains me to say in Morgan's case. While he might be a total dick he has a ton of talent. Zac loves to fry things and I love him for that. However over all Whisk It Away takes the title and the money.
The worst is Heather's crust for her lemon tart and Yigit's chocolate tart. Her decision to hand roll turns out to be the wrong one. Now because Team Diva lost they come in for the most criticism which they no doubt deserved. But part of me is kinda pissed that the black team put up a chocolate chip cookie and a pretzel stick as Dessert War entries. I thought Johnny's bullshit line about having something you know will sell was crap. It's Dessert Wars, I want amazing. Geez, at least make an interesting shape with the pretzel.

In the end Whiny Heather finally whines no more.

Gail's Fashion Corner

Mise En Place Pie Crust Race

Pie crust. Little details like pie crust and holes in your dough. Makes all the difference in the world when you're fighting to stay in the running on Just Desserts. Gail and her merry band of Sugar Freaks (she's Sugar Freaky, YOW) whipped up a wicked little Mise En Place relay race.

Is it me or is Gail's smile a little more wicked than usual?

Wow, what a sur-prise??? Team Diva all pick the same color cookie from the Cookie Jar of Fate.

Spasms of sugar and coffee fueled dancing erupts. Now in the interest of whacked out drama it would have been much better had Whiny Heather been paired up with the extremely annoying Morgan but it was not to be. We'll have to wait until Season Two for possible Pie Fight action. For today we'll just have to settle for Johnny Izzuni and the Mise En Place Dancers.
So here's the rundown. Mold 12 perfect tart shells, pipe 8 perfect butter cream roses, separate and whip 6 egg whites to firm peaks stiff enough to hold overhead for 10 seconds and last but certainly not least, stretch strudel dough over the length of the the table and then roll the strudel. Piece of cake, yes?
Maybe not. Especially since Gail adds the incentive of three grand each for the winners. First the teams have a bit of a stare down while waiting for the opening whistle. And they're OFF!
Danielle vs. Yigit molding tart shells. For whatever else Danielle is, she's a whiz at this task and smokes Yigit, leaving him far behind. Winner Danielle.
Eric vs. Whiny Heather making butter cream roses. Now because of Danielle's speed, Eric gets a head start on his task while Yigit is still correcting his not perfect tarts. Yigit finally finishes and Whiny Heather has some catching up to do. Which she does while Eric starts to get a bit nervous. Suddenly Heather is calling for Johnny to check her work while Eric is just finishing his last rose.
Johnny calls Heather good (even though Eric's roses are much prettier) and Team Diva takes this round.

Putting the beat down on 6 innocent egg whites is Zac vs. Morgan.

Frankly Zac looks like a frenzied little chipmunk whisking his egg whites and Morgan looks like he could whip concrete into stiff peaks and still not break a sweat.
Did you know that gypsy pastry chefs can tell the future in the stiff peaks of egg whites? Little know fact. So Morgan calls time and easily takes this round but not much of a lead and that could hurt them in the final strudel stretching finale.
So strudel stretching begins and things seem to start out really well for both teams with nice complete dough happening on both sides. (raise your hand if you've stretched strudel)
Especially under the watchful eye of Gail and her little black dress. But it's not long before Morgan and his team start running into holes and tears.
So while they try and repair the damage, Team Diva reaches apple filling and rolling stage.
Suddenly Team Diva is calling check before the other team can even touch their filling.
Johnny makes the final judgement and calls the race won for Team Diva.
Making them three thousand dollars richer and leaving a bitter, sour strudel on the other side.

Will the Black Team reach down deep to out Diva the Divas in Dessert Wars?