American Pie

The Quickfire assignment? Pie. It's not often that Top Chef asks the chefs to make something that I dearly love but pie certainly fits into that category. It wasn't a hard assignment, two hours to make a pie. That is if you've made a pie before. If not, then you're kinda screwed.

Especially when Gail is here to pimp her new show, Top Chef Just Desserts. Seems that Gail will be hosting while Johnny Iuzzini...

...will be the Head Judge. Is he supposed to remind me of Bowzer?

Thank goodness that Hubert Keller will also be a judge because I'm not sure about Johnny. But enough about Just Desserts, let's have some PIE!

Except we're suddenly bombarded with chefs confessing to never having made a pie. So we at home must all pause and think, damn, I've made a pie. Hell I've made a lot of pies. I dream about the beauty of a well made, delicious and juicy peach pie. I want to go there. What's wrong with these people? Why wouldn't you want to make a pie?? It's un-American.

Is Top Chef harboring a bunch of panty waist Momma's boys? Scared of a little pie crust? No wonder America is going to hell in a hand basket.

Too busy with their foams to get down and dirty with the pie. It's just wrong.

No. She did not just say that? First thing I think of? Obvious member of the just busted Russian spy ring. Her name's not Sherry at all, it's Natasha.

Somebody please, make us some pie.

Whoa, hit the pause button. When you go by the title of Executive Chef at your restaurant, this is not what one expects your pie made from scratch to look like.

Sherry/Natasha isn't doing much better as she tries to explain to Johnny that she's not a pastry chef. Johnny promptly smacks her down with his grandmother's pie prowess.

Ed blames/is inspired by Johnny to go cracktastic with a banana cream pie, salted nuts and celery spuma.

Perhaps a Boris to our Natasha?

You decide.

The winning pie is Kenny's
Bananas Foster Pie with Currants and Chinese Five Spice
If you'd like to try making Kenny's pie yourself, click here for the recipe
As for me, I'm hitting the farmer's market for fresh peaches. Yeah baby!

Top Chef Masters A Seat At the Table

Before we get too deep into Top Chef Las Vegas I wanted to take one last look at the Finale of Top Chef Masters. Talking about all the food that the chefs produced was a daunting task especially if you weren't at the table. So I decided to reach out to someone who was. Chef Harold Dieterle, our first Top Chef, was kind enough to take time from his busy schedule at Perilla to give some insight as to what it was like having a seat at the table for the Top Chef Masters Finale.

KK: Harold, it's wonderful to talk to you again. As always we have to check in on your baby, Perilla. What's tickling the palates of Perilla's diners?

HD: Just having fun cooking for people, the menu and food program are constantly evolving. We have alot of talented people in the restaurant right now putting their heart and soul into the food.KK: How rough has it been keeping a fairly new restaurant running in such choppy economic waters?

HD: No matter what the state of the economy, it's always challenging. It's important to everyone to be inspired and focused. We're doing really well and beginning to think about new projects.

KK: Any strategies to keep the regulars while attracting new customers?

HD: We actually participated in New York Restaurant week this year. I think it helped bring some folks in that might find our usual price points a bit too steep or don't usually dine downtown.

KK: Before being asked to attend the Top Chef Masters Finale, had you eaten in any of the finalists restaurants?

HD: I had never eaten in any of their restaurants, I did have an event in Napa a week after the finale. So I did eat at Michael's place.

KK: Did you know ahead of time who the three finalists would be?

HD: I didn't know who the 3 chefs were going to be. I was just excited to be there.

KK: Was there a dish from that night that you would want to "borrow" for folks back home?

HD: Not really...the food was all really awesome.. but when you find your style you stick with it, my style is so different from all 3 of the masters.

KK: Chef Bayless's mole sauce seems to have been the superstar of the night. Do you have a similar dish that was your culinary inspiration?

HD: No I don't think I have ever eaten something that made me want to be a chef....I've eaten things in Thailand that I've been obsessed to recreate.

KK: Pretty gutsy move by Chef Chiarello to plate a dish with burned pages from James Osland's magazine. James did make it home safely that night, yes?

HD: Yea...I thought it was pretty hilarious.. but I suppose James had the last laugh with the poor star grades he gave Michael later, which I personally didn't agree with.

KK: The one dish that seemed most out of step with the whole theme of excellence as the focus of Top Chef Masters was Chef Chiarello's fish dish. From a viewer's standpoint, it looked very heavily breaded and simplistic without the sophistication we've come to expect. How was it?

HD: Well it was hard to eat....I don't think he had the plate selection he would have liked. It was my least favorite dish of the entire meal. At the same time, it's a good thing he moved out of South Florida and went to Napa to developed his style. He cooked my favorite dishes of the night.

KK: What dish was your favorite?

HD: Michael's braised short ribs.

KK: What dish sparked the most discussion between you and your fellow critics?

HD: I think it was funny how Hubert was talking about using humble cuts of meat in our current economic environment, such as the sweetbreads and beef cheeks. Then shaves black truffles over the top...I thought that was pretty funny.

KK: The judging was really close. Did you find yourself agreeing with the final scoring or would you have had a different winner?

HD: I thought they all did an amazing job. I had Michael edging out Rick.

KK: Putting your Top Chef producer's hat on for just a moment, what Master-like "twist" would you have given the chefs in their last challenge?

HD: I don't think I would have. When you make it to the finals you have earned the right to cook your food without any restrictions

KK: While I enjoyed seeing what those 3 finalists brought to the challenge, I was most sad that Anita Lo didn't make it to the end, not because it was an all male finale but because I was so hoping to see what incredible Asian dishes she would have kicked out, free of any restrictions or twists. Was there a chef you were hoping would be in the finale that wasn't there?

HD: I too would have liked to see Anita Lo in there. I've eaten her food at Annisa several times and she is legit.

KK: Thanks so much for giving us a bit of your time and sharing with us your experience of the food that night. As always we remain some of your biggest fans and we certainly loved getting to see you again on the little screen.

HD: My pleasure ladies.

The Making of a Master

There a lot of things I've loved about the regular series Top Chef, top of the list being the love of food ususally in the end wins out over the drama. Top Chef Masters took my love to a higher level with their approach to the finale. Show us your life long love affair with food. $1300 to create 4 dishes for 13 guests.

First let's look at the GoodBringing in each chef's personal Sous chefs. A really nice touch and a vast difference from bringing back angry past contestants that early Top Chef provided for their finalists.

Talisman Look at the glee on this man's face. This is a man who loves his truffles. French truffles. While Rick's heart might be in Mexican food his mortar and pestle certainly reveals his other touchstones.Michael brings the most basic element of his family vineyard to his final dishes, cuttings from the vines. You can just see the blood, sweat and tears in the very fiber of those cuttings.

Flirting. So many reality shows try to overpower us with the drama but forget to balance that out with the lighter side of life. Show us the fun, people, you're getting paid to eat the most amazing food and hopefully get to enjoy the companionship of interesting people. Watching Gail and Jay flirt just a bit was fun and cute.

Coming - The Bad

Congratulations to the Top Chef Master

Congratulations to Rick Bayless, the new Top Chef Master.

All three chefs gave us an amazing array of incredible food to feast upon so come back as we dig into to the stories the food portrayed of these three incredible chefs.

Who's the Eye Candy?

While we the viewers never get to taste the Top Chef Masters food, from some of the comments showing up here, readers certainly enjoy some of the other visual aspects of the show. Let's see just who you enjoy most.Would it be the Master of Italian cuisine, the hot headed Michael Chiarello?Maybe it's the Mexican master, the spicy but calm Rick Bayless?Or perhaps it's the French sophistication of Hubert Keller?

Vote for the chef you'd most enjoy rattling your pots and pans.

Who is the sexiest Top Chef Master Finalist?
	Michael Chiarello
	Rick Bayless
	Hubert Keller
pollcode.com free polls

Top Chef Masters - Revelations

Holy cow what an episode. The food? Don't remember. I know, I know, we're all about the food. Not so keen about forced drama. What's that you say? What other kind of drama is there? Here's the thing, as one of the former Top Chefs once told me, you don't need all the crap at the living quarters or the stew room. Throw any bunch of chefs together in a kitchen and drama will happen. That chef was right, it happens everyday in restaurants all over America. It happened in the most recent serving of Top Chef Masters and it was delectable in it's revelations.

The Quickfire. Who cares. For some reason the blind taste test has morphed into The Toughest Quickfire Ever. Uh, maybe for the chefs but for us it's the most boring TV ever. Watching people taste ingredients blindfolded is about as exciting as watching someone peel a potato. Wanna really ramp up the excitement? Have them compete against each other, blindfolded, in speed rounds. Anyhoo, they all tasted the same 20 items and no one got more than seven. While I couldn't track down the whole list here's some of the easier ingredients: peanut butter, corn, ketchup, maple syrup, mango and almonds.Harold's got a point. If these Master Chefs were asked to taste the exact set of ingredients the Season One Chefs had to taste I think my girl Andrea Beaman still would have won. Thankfully it's over quickly and we move onto the elimination round. Here's where it starts to get good.Do you know what Bravo named this episode? The Masters of Disaster. The guy in the middle? I'm a Top Chef junkie and I had to go look up his name because that's how memorable he was. So the challenge was to produce a buffet lunch for 200 by trying to mold these former contestants into a highly effecient team of sous chefs. If given a choice between herding cats or cooking with these chefs, we might have seen a lot of I Can Haz Cheezburger action last night. It gets better. The Master Chefs have to "interview" their potential sous chefs. How does each do this? Three write out a list of questions to ask each chef. One does not. One starts ordering his interviewees to cut up carrots.

(C'mon, admit it, it was fun watching him bust the chops of some of these former contestants)Poor Elia looks as if she's flashing back to the Thanksgiving episode of her season.Blaise also seems to not to be able to let go of the past. And Spike?
Spike just can't let go of being an asshat.
Which is ok because none of the Master Chefs want him on their team.
Keller even goes so far to say it was cruel of Rick to stick him with Spike. Rick, what has Keller done to you to deserve Spike?

All the little teams then go off and try and plan their buffet dishes. Up until now, we've seen the Master Chefs competing like good natured, comrades in arms. But it's the last round before the finals and it's now that we really get to see what these chefs are like back in their real lives. Who handles pressure well, who trusts their sous chefs. The masks that we've been seeing start to slip from their carefully crafted TV faces. What's also fascinating is that all these former contestants think they are the experts on Top Chef stategy.

Which is odd considering there's only one Top Chef in a group made up of losing contestants. I think I'd leave the thinking to the Master Chefs. Back in the kitchen a seemly simple question almost takes us to Hell's Kitchen.

What we get instead is a young man with a lot to learn and an older man who understands that there's more at stake than putting some young punk in his place.
But you could tell it came close to Def Con 1 for Chef Michael. As for Dale, if ever there were a New Jersey Housewife Chef, Dale is the one.

Day Two rolls around and our teams are in the kitchen for their last two hours of cooking and prepping. But that would be too simple. Time for a twist. Now they must pack up everything they just started cooking and head out to serve somewhere else.

Lo is looking pretty weedy is this point. It only gets worse when they see where service takes place.No umbrellas, no shade whatsoever from a very hot sun. The effects of direct sunlight on a seafood raw bar?
The answer's not underneath that towel Anita.

But Wait, There's MORE! The Masters must cut loose one sous chef from their team.Keller, in a act of Karmic Justice, tosses the sticky Asshat. Oh yeah, loving the Keller. Service starts for the 200 seat filling free food loving diners. No other sous chef eruptions occur, at least not that we're shown.

The food. I could show you all the dishes but really it wasn't even close. Here's why, look at these pictures of Keller's dishes.

Think back to the buffets you've dined at and see if it comes close to the spread Keller put forth for this challenge? Not only did he put out great food, he got his team of sous chefs to crank out an amazing amount of dishes expertly prepared. Now the judging is interesting. The diners gave Keller only 3 1/2 stars while giving Rick 4 1/2 stars. The Master Judges however gave him a perfect score of 15 to take the win. Despite all the twists and drama, Hubert Keller seems to be peaking at just the right time.

Anita Lo, on the other hand, got twisted right out of the kitchen. Not that I think she was too sad to be leaving. I think she's happiest in her own kitchen doing her own thing. I know the next time I'm in NY, Annisa will be on my list of places to try.

Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better...

Now that our Master Chefs have broken bread together, it's back to work. Except they've really been working all along. In true Top Chef form, the Elimination Challenge is to take one of your competitor's dishes and put your spin on it.This is a tricky thing not so much on the part of Top Chef but with regards of the camaraderie you just established with your fellow chefs. Unless it was edited out, I don't remember seeing anyone spitting out any dish (apparently that move is only reserved for the judges on regular Top Chef) or expressing any criticisms at all. But that's not to say they didn't have any or thought to themselves perhaps they could do it better. Add to that not only is someone trying to improve your dish, YOU have to watch them messing with you masterpiece.It's a fascinating twist also for the fact as to the question of did the chefs really do their best signature dish? I only point this out because this isn't even the finale, it's just the first round. Wouldn't you save your best for the final challenge? Round and round we go.

After shopping we're back in the kitchen where Art seems to be trying his hand at some return smack talking directed at Hubert and that there fancy French cookin'.Art also reveals while he's been cooking quite a while he's only worked in a restaurant for a year and a half which is amazing when you look at his competition.
The breakdown of who is doing what goes like this.
Hubert, who was the two-fer on the winning team of the Mise En Place relay race gets to pick the dish he wants to reinvent. He chooses Anita's Scallop dish. This also means she gets to re-make his Lobster and Truffle dish. French vs. French Asian. Art and Suzanne will be trading Seared Grouper and Chopped Sirloin with Egg and Rick and Michael will be delving into Fennel Balsamic Quail and Rack of lamb with chiles and figs.

Michael wraps his lamb with his caul fat or, as he calls it, Sicilian pantyhose. Good luck finding this ingredient in the online recipe version of this dish.Suzanne is still struggling with her texturally challenging fish while Art is...well...

I'm not sure what Art is doing.

Let's Eat!
SURPRISE! Your former competition will now be judging your dishes. (Thank you TeeVee Gods for bringing me another slice of The Ludo, my new favorite French Cheese) Will they be kind or hypercritical? Let's see.
Art's Lamb Scotch Egg with sweet potato fried and tomato tart. I'm glad he followed the tried and true rule of Baconizing his dish but this is not appealing to me at all.
Elizabeth Falkner and her extra spikey Judging hair wonders how the dish might have turned out if Art had tried using a soft boiled egg instead of a hard boiled egg. Not too much positive feedback.
Rick's Quail with Parsnip and proscuitto stuffing over wild greens is presented next.Hey Ricky, he likes it! Actually everyone seems pleasantly surprised that Rick stepped out of his Mexican box.
Suzanne's Roasted Great White Whale of Grouper with gnochi, peas, bacon, and parsnips.
Falkner cuts a sister no slack as she brings her A Game Judging standards and points out the overcooked fish and cold gnochi.We can dig it James.
Hubert's Seared scallop with cream of sea urchin over fingerling mashed potatoes. The only knock on his dish is that it seems that there's not enough sea urchin flavor in the sauce. But there is bacon so it's got that going for it.Michael's Rack of lamb stuffed with fig mostrada chick peas and fried rosemary. While it looks really simple it's much more layed and complex than it appears but the diners aren't convinced it's the best it could be.
Anita's very interesting corn chawanmushi, champagne gelee and lobster biscuit sandwich. All the diners seem to enjoy the dish. Which is good because her take on Hubert's dish makes her this week's winner.
This week's loser I'm sure you can tell by her reaction...Whoops! Sorry...
...there we go. I know I'm sad she's leaving because after some of the antics we've seen on Top Chef, this calm soul was a welcome breath of fresh air.