“Top Chef” — Cooking by Numbers
Newly single!
It’s been two weeks since the last episode of Top Chef, and a lot has changed. Most notably the soon-to-be-singleness of host and resident hottie Padma Lakshmi. MagneticMediaFed.com would like to take this opportunity to say that we wholly support her decision. Honestly what could a world renowned author possible bring to the table that a bony, television-blogger could not? Perhaps she hasn’t seen those super-stylish MagneticMediaFed t-shirts that have been popping up all over America? Those are what I like to call deal-makers. More on the actual episode of television’s greatest reality competition coming up after the jump…
Four episodes in and the trend seems to be someone wins the Quickfire Challenge getting immunity and then performs so horribly in the elimination challenge the person eliminated gets dumped despite not being the worst dish prepared. This week Casey wowed the guy from Bombay Sapphire [bombay sapphire, bombay sapphire, bombay sapphire, bombay sapphire, bombay sapphire, bombay sapphire] only to get paired with two of the sweatiest men on the planet (Joey and Howie) and screws up her tuna dish.
The name of the game this week was “teams.” It was the first time everyone had to work in a group and the results were mixed. There were four groups of three and each group had to prepare a course for a tasting menu. Each course should have three unique items that shared similar ingredients.
The first course was comprised of Lia, Ryan and Hung and they knocked it out of the park. The ingredient was shrimp and each performed admirably.
The second course was Casey, Howie and Joey. Their heads butted the entire time. There was no cohesion. The best moment from their team came during Chef Tom’s walk-through during preparation. He asked Joey what he was making and once Joey told him Tom flashed the ever so famous “Are you f#@king kidding me?” smile. This made Joey freak out because everything makes Joey freak out. He then started acting like a two-year-old with the mouth of a sailor (or a particularly salty two-year-old, either I suppose). It was priceless. God, I hate Joey.
The third course was largely absent from the proceedings during the entire episode. Their food was fine. Not so good to win, but hardly a disaster to get them a spot in front of the judges table. Because of this, and since we still have twelve contestants in the game they hardly showed up on camera during the entire hour.
The final course, the dessert course, was manned by Dale, Camille and Sara. Their decision to go with dessert proved to be a disaster as no one knew exactly how to make a dessert. Camille tried to make a pineapple upside down cake using corn-meal. I’m no baker, but even to me that sounds as kooky as twelve rice reduction — you know what I’m talkin’ about!
At the judges table group one were the winners with Lia’s dish being crowned victor. I’m all for Lia. She looks kind of like Sutton Foster who plays Coco on Flight of the Conchords (if that’s all right with you).
Groups two and four were at the elimination table with Camille’s lousy cake getting the hatchet (she then promptly packed her knives and went).
The real story was the river of tears that flooded through the proceedings. Casey felt awful because her lousy dish negatively affected her teammates chances. Dale felt responsible for deciding on doing a dessert, which in turn caused Camille to work in an area she knew nothing about. And then when she went back to tell everyone she was kicked off, Joey — fat, idiotic, sweaty Joey — found this to be too much to take and started bawling. What?
It’s so good.
Padma, call me!
July 13th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Let’s just say both of us have a reason to look forward to the next issue of GQ.