Family Fuel

Having finished with our fruit salads, we now proceed to the Elimination Challenge of this episode. As Kelly first describes it, it sounds kinda fun, update and modernize a family meal. However real American family meals and real American families just aren't sexy enough so someone had the bright idea of feeding the cast and crew of the TV show Modern Family.

Really? Cooking for an American family in 2010 is best expressed by cooking for a 125 member cast and crew of a TV show shot in Hollywood? I know when my mom cooked for my family, she would have the toughest time getting me to come out of my air conditioned trailer to sit with my brother, the lighting grip, while the food was still hot. Can you say out of touch? So now we've taken something potentially interesting and turned it into a catering steam tray challenge and nothing about family at all. Must be time to go shopping.

On the bright side I'm beginning to get one of those chef crushes on Jody. Not only does she help chefs shorter than herself...

...but she also asks to taste the bacon she wants to buy!!

Whatta woman.

Why does this woman look so happy? Pork Belly my friends, pork belly. A giant slab of pork belly.

Back at the kitchen, we learn that Susur is still steaming from his disastrous Quickfire score. He puts a quick call into the wife to whine. Mrs. Susur will have none of it and immediately tells him to pull his head out of his ass and MOVE FORWARD!

Gotta love when the Chef of the Millennium gets good advice from home. Of course she's got 3 teen-aged boys so that might have a little something to do with it.

Ratcheting up the Sassy Kitchen Wench quotient is Jody again. She's trying to describe her frustration of cooking for 1 1/2 hours only to stop and start again the next day. Let's just say she feels like it's Cooking Interruptus.

You have to watch those gingers, they will surprise you.

Ladies and Gentlemen, start your STEAM-TRAYS

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There you have it. Hollywood Family food. Feh. The cast mostly liked the food. Although there is a mystery. Debbie Gold kinda got screwed by one of her co-chefs who dropped her Pork Belly on the floor the night before thereby rendering it unusable. So what ever she had planned suddenly she had to switch into Plan B. We'll just call it The Ballad of the Lost Pork Belly. On top of that we have The Spoiler. Plenty of people caught it, even I caught it standing at the watch party. They (who ever produces the previews for the next week) included this in the preview commercial.

This preview ran before the final judging had happened on the show. So much for the drama of Judge's Table. It may seem picky to point this out but if you only knew just how tightly the reins are held on the many folks who participate in the money making bonanza that is the Top Chef franchise, you'd think something as simple as not flashing the winning chef before he's won would be a piece of cake. In the grand scheme of life it matters not a bit but it does seem very sloppy. And if I hadn't already been fired up about that, then there was this guy to work my last nerve.

I'm all for passion and confidence. Smug superiority is not exactly something that resonates with me. Rick apparently thought he had it in the bag during his first appearance at Judges Table. Even worse was his attitude in the stew room. He begins to lecture other chefs on the whole "Master Chef" title. Then he starts demonstrating his knife skills on a radish...

...again telling the other chefs "...you need to practice". Now I know what games the editors can play with a big pile of stew room video but it certainly seemed like Rick was setting that Top Chef Master mantle on his shoulders just a little prematurely. What Rick didn't realize is that Karma still had a hand to play and that hand was full of stars.

Not only did he win the last spot to the Champions Round he was a half a point away from a perfect 20 score and that last half star was in the diners score. The three critics gave him a perfect score of 15 stars.

Not exactly the scenario Chef Tramonto had envisioned.

Next up, Top Chef Masters Wedding Wars (a little Bridezilla anyone?)