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Yeah. I don't blame him for letting loose at the end, but I do blame him for playing a bigger part in the problems of the team than he was letting on.

When I saw him after the talk speaking with the other contestants in the room, snapping around, out came the usual Howie at a remark of CJ's: "I don't want to hear it." Howie doesn't realize that not wanting to hear it is a huge fault he has, and that it is hobbling him. It turns his partners into his enemies by default, rather than his allies, which they perhaps could be, or who knows.

But central to Howie is that he doesn't want to find out. It's fear. He needs to control so much because he is afraid things will get out of control if he works with people. He doesn't trust them or himself around them, so he short-circuits chances for both failure and success at the same time by locking them out. It's a coward's solution.

If Sara didn't contribute much, Howie can look at himself for the reason why. Did he even give her a chance? I saw one -- when she wanted a kind of pasta he didn't. His response was to immediately cave in, but with plenty of resentment. That's not a fair chance. He didn't make his case to her, but he sure went on about it to the camera. Great going, hero. And then he completely stopped communicating from there on out. This is how Howie handles conflict. It's not a productive way to work with people.

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Here's Tony Bourdain's guest-blog entry on the show this week:

http://www.bravotv.com/blog/tomcolic...ket.php?page=1

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The only coking contest shows that I watch are the original Iron Chef (Apparently off the air...boo!) and the Food Network Challenge ones. Even then, I only watch the latter near the end when they move their wares off to the judging area, and I'm always hoping for a collapse.

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Quick,

Original Iron Chef is sometimes on Food Network at around 3-4AM weekdays. Someone mentioned it being off the US air a couple weeks ago, and then a week later I caught it on. So its still around, you just have to make TiVO look for it.

Katy,

One of my biggest gripes was with the freezing part. Maybe the IQF thing is a really basic concept that every chef should know. But one of my best friends graduated near top of his class from the best culinary school in the US and is now doing food science at Cornell. From what he says, there's a big gap between being a restaurant chef - ie, Top Chef - and doing food science. He's more interested in the latter, so he's doing things like interning at firms that make artificial flavor additives, contests for major restaurant chains to make recipes that can be produced at a central location, frozen, then shipped to individual locations, etc.

So it seemed to me the meat of this challenge wasn't so much the being a chef, but more the food science, and I don't think any of the contestants signed up for that. I mean, would the results have been close to the same if the judges had said, "Oh, you must IQF all your product?" As I said, maybe that's such a basic concept they should have done it anyway, but only two or three of the ten seemed even to consider it.

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Tony Bourdain summed up my feelings of this TC episode in his blog: "This is challenge I would be proud to have lost."

And ROFL at Joey balling his eyes out. I mean [censored] dude, it's just a reality TV show, get a grip.

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[ QUOTE ]
OOT thread on Top Chef and it would appear that most people thought last night's episode sucked.

[/ QUOTE ]
Maybe it was the guest judge that gave a bad feeling to the episode for me.

Howie was growing on me but this show he had a bad attitude the whole time.

I liked Hung at first but he's coming off like a jerk more and more.

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Anyone see Ramsay's show tonight? Those women were painfully annoying and had no [censored] clue how to do anything. That lady didn't even know how to buy fresh meat for Christ's sake. I can never understand why people open restaurants when they have no idea what they're doing. It's one of the toughest businesses to succeed in, and so many people treat restaurant management like it's just something they do in their spare time.

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[ QUOTE ]
Original Iron Chef is sometimes on Food Network at around 3-4AM weekdays. Someone mentioned it being off the US air a couple weeks ago, and then a week later I caught it on. So its still around, you just have to make TiVO look for it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks! No TiVo in Casa Quicksilvre, but I'm out of school during the summer; I can just stay up.

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[ QUOTE ]

So it seemed to me the meat of this challenge wasn't so much the being a chef, but more the food science, and I don't think any of the contestants signed up for that. I mean, would the results have been close to the same if the judges had said, "Oh, you must IQF all your product?" As I said, maybe that's such a basic concept they should have done it anyway, but only two or three of the ten seemed even to consider it.

[/ QUOTE ]

You make an excellent point. I can see how this was more a food science project rather than gourmet cooking. I can understand how people might be disappointed in that episode.

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[ QUOTE ]
Anyone see Ramsay's show tonight? Those women were painfully annoying and had no [censored] clue how to do anything. That lady didn't even know how to buy fresh meat for Christ's sake. I can never understand why people open restaurants when they have no idea what they're doing. It's one of the toughest businesses to succeed in, and so many people treat restaurant management like it's just something they do in their spare time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh crap. I was busy baking my blueberry pie and didn't even know this show was on. In fact I only discovered just this morning that I get the BBC channel now. When I bought the Bravo package it seems I purchased BBC with it. Cool huh. I am going to try to watch Ramsay's show at 11:00 EST. It is called Morgan's, Liverpool episode. I think it's not the same one that you watched earlier. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

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Anyone watch Good Eats?

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Katy,

Yes, Morgan's was the show I watched tonight. I think it's a new episode. There should be another one after it too.


PS: pics of blueberry pie plz.

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Aw [censored] [censored] [censored]. Now I feel like an idiot. Turns out I DON'T get the damn BBC channel. It's on my info thingy but when I go to channel 173 I got nothing. God damn it anyway. How freaking disappointing. I guess I will call my cable company tomorrow and find out how much that one will cost to add. Pretty soon I will be over $100/month just on cable TV [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img].

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[ QUOTE ]


PS: pics of blueberry pie plz.

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I will post pics if you promise not to laugh. I burnt my crust.

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

So it seemed to me the meat of this challenge wasn't so much the being a chef, but more the food science, and I don't think any of the contestants signed up for that. I mean, would the results have been close to the same if the judges had said, "Oh, you must IQF all your product?" As I said, maybe that's such a basic concept they should have done it anyway, but only two or three of the ten seemed even to consider it.

[/ QUOTE ]

You make an excellent point. I can see how this was more a food science project rather than gourmet cooking. I can understand how people might be disappointed in that episode.

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And this is why I consider the sponsor-heavy orientation of this episode really bad. ANY of these chefs can easily make very good food. The real question was a silly one not germane to the question of what it means to be a chef or run a restaurant. It was a sort of "fake challenge" whose real subject was: Imply the importance and possible gourmet-level of the type of food our sponsor makes.

It's not important. This food is far from gourmet. And doing this is neither a chef nor a restauranteur's job.

What we have is basically an advertisement passed off as something else, and it did not improve the show or even keep it at its previous level.

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[ QUOTE ]
Anyone see Ramsay's show tonight? Those women were painfully annoying and had no [censored] clue how to do anything. That lady didn't even know how to buy fresh meat for Christ's sake. I can never understand why people open restaurants when they have no idea what they're doing. It's one of the toughest businesses to succeed in, and so many people treat restaurant management like it's just something they do in their spare time.

[/ QUOTE ]

i dvr'd it & didn't get to it last night...may be Sunday before i see it, but looking forward to it. 'annoying' doesn't sound good though...oh well.

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Ramsay's KM was really good last night. I didn't think he would pull it off this time as not only were the 3 women clueless, but so was the untrained head chef.

Last night I got 2 friends to watch the show for the first time...they both really liked it, and added it to their tivo list [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

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[ QUOTE ]
Anyone watch Good Eats?

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Yes, but it's not a cooking contest show. And "Scrap Iron Chef" doesn't count.

"The challenger's pork belly is delightful, almost like a haiku. The Iron Chef's is, well, crap."

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I missed Hell's Kitchen yesterday. I'm assuming Rock won? Could someone recap what happened?

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I was surprised to find out it was not the finale -- they are stretching the finale into two shows. :P This one was just a cooking challenge, after a replay of show highlights from the season.

The challenge was to create a signature dish for a bunch of top Vegas chefs, in Vegas. Bonnie won, 4 to 3, with a pasta with shrimp and lobster; Rock had fried chicken on top of a crab cake. Odd. At first Bonnie racked up 3 in a row, but then I think people may have started feeling sorry for Rock, and he had a big crowd cheering for him. I have a feeling Bonnie might have gotten more votes if nobody had known who made the dishes. Btw, the last vote for Bonnie's dish was TWO guys, whose vote counted as one.

The show is really quite pleasant now. Ramsey seems to respect all involved, and we are spending more time with the last few finalists, all of whom come off very well as people in front of the camera. There's no real good guy or bad guy to root for here. It's pretty impossible not to wish both of these people well.

I suppose the main thing of interest in this week's show was that they brought in the old contestants as kitchen help for the challenge, and Julia could not stop crying. She said in front of everyone that being brought back for the show was her worst moment in the whole experience, which seems ungracious and pretty over the top. She seems to have forgotten that she really was only a short-order cook, and got very far. And that she got tremendously praised by Ramsey and is even going to have her culinary school paid for by the guy. I think she's did very well, but emotionally speaking is making the worst of some very good things happening to her. I lost a bit of respect for her, and maybe like her less now.

Funny was that in a private take with the camera, she said she wanted Rock to win, but Rock, when alternating picks for his team with Bonnie, said he didn't want her on his team because she looked like she was breaking down. Bonnie is the one who wound up picking her, when she was the second to last pick.

I enjoyed the episode, but feel a bit cheated by it not being the finale.

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I can do a quick recap for you.

Last night was not the finale. The finale is next week.

On last night's show the two finalists, Bonnie and Rock, were given the opportunity to design their own restaurants (tables, floors, wall decorations, ...even server outfits) as well as design their own menu for next week's finale. To me this seemed like a lot of fun.

Bonnie really shined in this area. She totally got into planning her own menu and had very definite ideas what she wanted her restaurant to look like: classy, hard wood floors, no booths, servers dressed entirely in black. Jean-Phillipe seemed pleased. Her menu had some different sea food dishes and pasta dishes as I recall.

Rock really struggled and was made to look kind of dumb. He seems to have a terrible time making decisions. How he could get this far in the competition and not be planning out a killer menu for the finale is beyond me. I can't tell you how stupid they made him look. The only thing that really came to his mind for his menu was fried chicken, if you can believe that. He also did not have a clear vision for his restaurant design. He wanted the booths to remain, wanted it to be like southern Americana and said he prefered waiters in jeans. Jean-Phillipe frowned at this suggestion. After Jean-Phillipe explained to him that it simply would not do, Rock changed his mind but look completely bewildered.

Right now, Bonnie looks like she is definitely in charge and kicking ass.

Chef Ramsay surprised them by taking them to Vegas and throwing them a party. In the middle of it he announces to them that they have 30 minutes to prepare their signature dish to be judged by some famous chefs as well as the last 2 season's winners of HK. They looked really happy to be there. The winner got first pick for their kitchen team for next week's finale, choosing from the last 6 contestants kicked off the show.

The way it played out, Bonnie has an all female crew, Rock has an all male crew. Julia confided to the camera that although she's on Bonnie's team she would like Rock to win. Should be very interesting!

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Thx guys. I know I can count on The Lounge for instant summaries of TV shows I missed. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
The way it played out, Bonnie has an all female crew, Rock has an all male crew. Julia confided to the camera that although she's on Bonnie's team she would like Rock to win. Should be very interesting!

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In last season's finale, one of the eliminated chefs got picked by the finalist he didn't want to win. So he demanded $10K to give his best effort.

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Holy crap, you're kidding me? How did that get discovered, if it was even hidden, and how did it turn out?

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[ QUOTE ]
Holy crap, you're kidding me? How did that get discovered, if it was even hidden, and how did it turn out?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not kidding. They never made any attempt to hide it, it was in the episode. The finalist agreed to it IIRC. But they never said if she paid up or not. Her team lost. But I doubt it had anything to do with that guy tanking it. She was obviously the weaker chef throughout the competition.

Edit: Last season's HK finale thread.

She ended up offering each of them 1K.

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Man, how lame. Now I wonder I'm wondering even more if Julia is going to pull her weight.

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Agreed on how bad Rock looked. I was surprised how flustered he got about, basically, everything. I could see him not being clear on restaurant design ... that seems pretty natural to me, especially for a guy. Something it couldn't hurt to know, but not really his department.

But suggesting his waiters wear jeans -- just how "down home" is it really necessary to go? Would spitoons be a nice touch? I'm not exactly sure how Rock's vision of "American South" works, it seems there's a little too much barbecue joint in there for someone who aspires to run a nicer restaurant. I guess the guy is at cross-purposes with himself.

I'm really surprised how tight Bonnie's game has become and how loose Rock's has.

When Rock tried to psyche her out by telling her she didn't have what it takes and wasn't a finisher last night, and she told him flat out to "Shut up, Rock," I laughed and really respected her for it. And Rock reminded me of those idiot hustlers who are really digging being sly and getting one over on you, but are actually so hilariously clumsy they don't have a chance and just make themselves look, well, like idiot hustlers. Rock seemed out of his league the whole show, except in one respect -- he looked like the crowd favorite in Vegas. If being susceptible to the crowd has anything to do with the finale, Rock probably has an easy win. Otherwise, I'm surprised how much it seems Bonnie has a very real chance.

Btw spoiler: earlier threads in OOT say word got out early in the show about who won. We'll see.

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Here's a question: Who should win for most-improved? I'm thinking either Julia or Bonnie, but I'm not sure which one.

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Bonnie for sure.

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I tend to agree also. Probably my memory is just dim, but I can't recall anything Julia did that would qualify as elegant. Her big win was over a chicken sandwich judged by kids in the school cafeteria. Bonnie getting great marks from the Vegas Chefs would have been impossible for me to imagine at the beginning of the show. She seems to have transformed into a different person in just a couple months.

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Bonnie

before: couldn't cook an egg under pressure, always looked flustered, cried a lot, didn't communicate as well as she does now, wandered around looking confused.

Now: has become assertive, can get her ideas across, can communicate her needs to her crew, has maintained her kindness and great spirit while becoming a leader, can now cook well under pressure, has actually earned respect.

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I watched Top Chef last night. I found the episode to be rather stressful. First of all they all seemed sort of stressed out at the Fresh Market. Second, they were stuck in those mobile kitchens and it looked very uncomfortable.

Howie sweats too much, it's gross. Shouldn't that man wear a bandanna or something? I mean come on. And what was with the uninspired bar food? I was expecting stuff that was creative, not the typical onion ring, chicken wings and burgers fare.

I don't blame Sara and Casey for being bummed out about the surprise. They looked like they were so up for a night out on the town. Casey sprayed her hair and everything. Boy did she look pissed off. But lol at them for pouting so much. (So funny what the judge said about Sara being demoralized [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] )

Sara was rather pathetic. Even I could have done a better job. How can a chef not salt the burgers? Everyone knows that hamburger needs salt. And ice in milkshakes?! As a milkshake maven I can tell you that this should never be done. Was she thinking smoothies or something? She needed to be fired. I like how Howie brought her to tears. He definitely has entertainment value. Interesting how the judges did not like his cuban pork sandwich.

Oh, and CJ did not come off well last night. He was not a good leader.


Ice cream challenge

I thought Dale's peach cobbler ice cream sounded really scrumptious. I would have liked to have heard how Howie prepared his dish. Scorched berries or something like that. Sounded interesting. And Hung's, omg. What was it again, cauliflower ice cream?

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[ QUOTE ]
I watched Top Chef last night.

Howie sweats too much, it's gross. Shouldn't that man wear a bandanna or something? I mean come on.

Sara ... And ice in milkshakes?!

Interesting how the judges did not like Howie's cuban pork sandwich.

And Hung's, omg. What was it again, cauliflower ice cream?

[/ QUOTE ]

Someone on OOT said Howie seasons his dishes with sweat.

What's with the ice in a milkshake? I've never heard of such a thing.

It wasn't that they didn't like Howies sandwich. They said it wasn't really a Cuban.

Hung thinks he's so above everyone else.
He says " they just don't understand" and "a monkey could do that" (refering to the simple cooking styles of others).

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Last night I watched Ramsay's KM, which was a repeat of an older one. The chef was some highly regarded french chef who put together his own top notch team and opened a place in a small town in Scotland. The place was losing a lot of money and they couldn't understand why.

Basically it came down to a menu that the 'simple' people of this quaint town couldn't understand, and he just did too much to the food. He felt adding more, and more made the dishes better, when instead they just ended up being a jumbled up combination of flavors. He had a hard time grasping that 'less is more', until Ramsay basically hit him on top of the head with it. This chef had a huge ego, and couldn't bring himself to make basic/simple food that the locals would enjoy...he was a french chef, and wanted to make his complicated, high class french food.

I think Hung has this same problem. He thinks by making complicated food he shows himself off as a Top Chef, but instead he comes off as an egotistical fool. There's no doubt he has talent, and may be one of the best chefs there, but his ego really hurts his final product. Should we really be surprised though? He is good friends with Marciel (last season) and I guess they cook together all the time.

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I howled with laughter when Howie chose as his protein ... pork. Unbelievable.

Dale's dinner with the guest judge looked weird. The guest judge was bowing his head and expressionless anytime he was anywhere near Dale. I got the idea the dinner was not fun.

Ice cream was a pretty dull challenge, but Hung's cauliflower foam ice cream was idiotic. Howie's caramelizing the berries was a smart touch.

Sara deserved to go just for falling apart so easily and so thoroughly. Sure, Howie was a total dick - this was unexpected? You have to learn to cope with adversity, not completely break down in the face of it. People who are only good when the situation presents no difficulties are pretty worthless as employees. (Make pretty lousy friends and relationships, too.)

The episode was hilarious because everybody's dread of Howie was so total and heartfelt. Bourdian in his blog last week wrote about Hung failing in his quick-freeze dish because none of the other contestants were willing to work with him anymore even to achieve mutual goals, and Howie makes Hung look like a walk in the park bracketed by blowj*bs. People are recoiling from the very idea of him now.

Despite Howie's obvious talent with, you guessed it, pork, I think it's time for him to go. It seems very clear to me that he could only run a kitchen if he was the boss working with mindreaders who just so happened to exactly fit his psychosis. Working with him must be miserable.

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[ QUOTE ]
Last night I watched Ramsay's KM, which was a repeat of an older one. The chef was some highly regarded french chef who put together his own top notch team and opened a place in a small town in Scotland. The place was losing a lot of money and they couldn't understand why.

Basically it came down to a menu that the 'simple' people of this quaint town couldn't understand, and he just did too much to the food. He felt adding more, and more made the dishes better, when instead they just ended up being a jumbled up combination of flavors. He had a hard time grasping that 'less is more', until Ramsay basically hit him on top of the head with it. This chef had a huge ego, and couldn't bring himself to make basic/simple food that the locals would enjoy...he was a french chef, and wanted to make his complicated, high class french food.

I think Hung has this same problem. He thinks by making complicated food he shows himself off as a Top Chef, but instead he comes off as an egotistical fool. There's no doubt he has talent, and may be one of the best chefs there, but his ego really hurts his final product. Should we really be surprised though? He is good friends with Marciel (last season) and I guess they cook together all the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've worked at mid-level hotels, catering mostly to business travel, that have this same problem. It's hard to get good chefs for them, and when you do, you can't really take full advantage of it because business travelers most of all want comfort food. Something they can understand and eat at the end of a tired day, not be challenged by or feel they are forced to pretend to like it. Steak and potatoes? Awesome. Fried chicken? Great. Something French or Vietnamese, no matter how good and easy to decipher? Pass.

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[ QUOTE ]
I howled with laughter when Howie chose as his protein ... pork. Unbelievable.



[/ QUOTE ]

Well the man likes his pork.

Howie is pretty funny to watch. You can tell he's irritated by his teammates. He tries to stuff it all down and not talk with them but as soon as someone says one tiny little thing against him, BAM! He lets loose. Someone needs to tell him that it might work better if he would let off some steam a little at a time instead of saving it up for one gigantic blistering attack. Too funny watching him make Sara cry and then everyone glaring at him like he was a real creep.

Also, agree with you that the dinner with Dale and the guest judge looked a tad awkward. I wonder what was going on.

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[ QUOTE ]

I've worked at mid-level hotels, catering mostly to business travel, that have this same problem. It's hard to get good chefs for them, and when you do, you can't really take full advantage of it because business travelers most of all want comfort food. Something they can understand and eat at the end of a tired day, not be challenged by or feel they are forced to pretend to like it. Steak and potatoes? Awesome. Fried chicken? Great. Something French or Vietnamese, no matter how good and easy to decipher? Pass.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is an interesting topic to me. I'm curious what the most popular dishes are to the traveling business man/woman. Steak for sure, like you said. But what else? I can't remember the last time I ordered a pork dish at a restaurant. Does anyone order pork? I wonder if pasta dishes are very popular. I tend to think of them as sort of fattening and therefore would not guess they would be as popular. I'm thinking fish dishes would be pretty popular as they sound so healthy.

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Just speaking from my limited perspective in mid-level hotels, you really need fish dishes for the occasional Catholic on Fridays and Asian and rare healthy American. Otherwise, it doesn't move much compared to other stuff. People like shrimp though, but it seems more as bar food or an appetizer. Pork was almost never chosen.

Pasta is very popular with the ladies. It got a rep back in the 80s/early 90s as low calorie and a diet food, even though it's not even close, and that seems to have stuck. I've seen the simple, familiar pastas doing best - sphaghetti and meatballs, linguini and clams, linguini alfredo. Pizza really moves.

You're also serving to people who order room service, too, and so you do well with food like pizza that people like to eat while curling up in front of a movie and zoning out.

People are mostly fairly fed up with being stiff and formal by the end of the day, and just want to relax. The exception is the businessman entertaining a client. Sometimes he wants something informal too, but you're usually expected to provide something at least semi-nice to a client, like a good steak.

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[ QUOTE ]
Also, agree with you that the dinner with Dale and the guest judge looked a tad awkward. I wonder what was going on.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sexual tension obv.

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[ QUOTE ]
Basically it came down to a menu that the 'simple' people of this quaint town couldn't understand, and he just did too much to the food. He felt adding more, and more made the dishes better, when instead they just ended up being a jumbled up combination of flavors. He had a hard time grasping that 'less is more', until Ramsay basically hit him on top of the head with it. This chef had a huge ego, and couldn't bring himself to make basic/simple food that the locals would enjoy...he was a french chef, and wanted to make his complicated, high class french food.

[/ QUOTE ]

This seems to be the most common problem with almost every chef on that show, and chefs on TV cooking contest shows. They keep thinking they have to do something completely original and different in order to be successful. They're always like "the menu needs more WOW factor. I don't want to be boring, no one will notice me if it's boring." They think they're God's gift to food, and revolutionizing the restaurant industry with their amazing innovations. In reality, the menu is just a confused clusterfuck of random ingredients that don't work well with eachother. The dishes are presented with stupid gimmicks that don't add anything to the diner's enjoyment of the meal.

The funniest part is their attitude. They believe the only thing holding them back from superstarchefdom is the fact that none of the customers' palates are sophisticated enough to comprehend the sheer brilliance of their food.

What they don't realize is that there's nothing boring about a perfectly cooked steak or chicken breast, even if it's not original at all, and doesn't have an outrageous presentation. All they need to start doing to be successful is just start making good honest food and cut out the BS.