And We Have A WINNER!!!

It has been a long long while since I have last updated, due to a short trip across the Atlantic... to PARIS! followed by some plain old unproductive summer boredom. Sorry! Anyways, here is an old post that followed the Top Chef, season 4 finale, finally finished and posted for your reading pleasure.

For those of you who might have missed last night's Top Chef Finale, we have a winner. And that winner is a woman! The first female top chef ever! Stephanie clinched the win. And I do believe I predicted that during the first five minutes of the season.

Now for a recap of the actual competition. Back in Puerto Rico, the competition was down to only Richard, Stephanie, and Lisa, who unfortunately beat out Antonia for a seat in the finals. The challenge was to create a four course meal for the judges and guests, consisting of fish, poultry, red meat and dessert. It has become obvious this season that dessert making skills are a must for Top Chefs. Even in the first episode we saw that a Top Chef must know how to bake a souffle just as well as they know how to perfectly cook a Tomahawk steak. Each cheftestant was also paired with a big name chef who was to serve as the sous chef: Stephanie with Eric Ripert, Richard with Dan Barber, and Lisa with April Bloomfield.

Time spent cooking in the kitchen, very little drama involved, until the second day when, alas, all three sous chefs are absent. The cheftestants had to swim on their own this time. Some more cooking followed. And then it was time.... time for a throwdown! Just kidding. Wrong show.

So as the judges and guests waited anxiously for their meal, the beginning of the end... began. The first course was fish, followed by poultry, red meat, and dessert. Richard, who also stood a strong chance at winning, did not do as well as anticipated, even admitting at the end that he had 'choked'. He might not have done his best, but I don't think he did that badly.

Anyways, both Stephanie and Lisa put out some good dishes. And Lisa would go on to point this out in her typical awkward and insulting attitude later in the episode. But that's a different story...

After much deliberation and a shocking lack of real drama, it was time for a decision. In the end, Stephanie's dishes took the cake (pun intended). Seriously, all of her dishes, except for the ricotta pound cake, which Eric Ripert called 'unrefined', were apparently delicious, and at the very least, looked amazing. They were particularly impressed by her lamb medallions with mushroom, olives, and braised pistachios.
Um.... yum. enough said.

So, with all this and the entire season under her belt, Stephanie Izard became the fourth season's Top Chef, and the first female Top Chef! That's it, no more Top Chef, for a few more months. Farewell to a great season, and sorry for the way over-due update!

And by the way, I totally called that Stephanie would win in the first 5 minutes of the season. Just saying...

She's Back!

I missed the beginning of Top Chef! All because the American Idol finale was so shocking that it ran over its usual time slot. By the way, I am sending a huge congratulations to David Cook, the winner, and to all those who voted for him, allowing him to beat baby-faced David Archuleta.

The Quickfire Challenge tonight was working the short order egg station at one of Chicago's favorite breakfast joints, Lou Mitchell's. Antonia won, with an advantage going into the Elimination Challenge, which if you hadn't figured it our from last week's teasers, was Restaurant Wars! Antonia got to pick her team, and surprise surprise, she picked the best, Richard and Stephanie. Which left the other team with Lisa, Dale, and Spike, all three of whom really struggle on a basic human level to interact with others, and to produce good food. So really, I guess this wasn't a fair challenge, with the teams so obviously loaded. But, what can we do? Nothing!
So as you might have predicted: Stephanie, Richard, and Antonia were the WINNERS!!!
Under the guidance of executive chef Antonia, and the extra help from past cheftestant Nikki, this team came out on top. The dishes included linguine with shrimp and sausage, beet salad, trout, braised lamb/lamb loin, and a gorgonzola cheesecake with banana scallop (despite poor plating style). Stephanie came out the ULTIMATE WINNER! with a trip to Barcelona, Spain! She's back in the game with another Elimination Challenge win!
Now that leaves Dale, Lisa, and Spike, the LOSERS!!! And as shocking as this may come out to be, Never have a actually preferred Spike to others chefs and actually rooted for him in comparison.
From the atmosphere and design of the front of the house, to the composition and construction of each dish, this team just didn't have what it takes. I particularly liked how the judges (Padma, Ted Allen, Anthony Bourdain, and Jose Andres) compared some of the decor to the back of Prince's dressing room, or something insane like that. As for the food, two disasters stick out in my mind: butterscotch scallops and whatever the sticky rice dish was intended to be. The scallops just sound weird, and Bourdain thought his plate looked like a melted candy bar. Over shrimp and scallops. Tasty. Not. The sticky rice was disastrous, as one customer called it "baby food garnished with potpourri". The shot I saw of it looked like the bananas I smash before mixing them into my banana bread mixture. That is NOT how rice should look.
As far as team atmosphere goes, it was bitter, and ugly, consisting of lots of yelling, blaming, eye rolling and shaking of the head. Spike was complimented by the judges for his decision to get the hell out of the kitchen and the line of fire between Lisa and Dale. A highlight of this battle was when they both tried to outdo each other by blaming each other with cliches.
Dale: You are only as strong as your weakest link.
Lisa: Yeah? Well You are also only as good as your leader.
In the long run, neither won. Dale was told to pack his knives and go, but Lisa only managed to salvage her place in the top 5, leaving behind any favorable impressions and dignity.
It is just a shame that we didn't see any true humanity from Dale until he got kicked off. Apparently he hates saying goodbyes, and i really going to miss the people and the experience, he admitted while tearing up. Had I known he had it in him to be a human being, he might not have sunk so far down my list.

For more recap, analysis, blogs, and multimedia, check out Bravo's report.

It's bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children's health than the pediatrician. ~Meryl Streep

For those of you who missed it, this past week’s episode of Top Chef was all about healthy cooking and healthy eating. It seems like we are constantly hearing stories these days about increasing obesity rates, especially in children, not to mention other health problems that go along with eating well, or rather, not eating well.

There really doesn’t seem to be any point in denying the problem’s existence. We can no longer chalk it up to personal body image conflicts, though these certainly don’t help matters. So then, what has caused this collective weight gain?
Eating healthfully is not a one step process. Our food journeys through stages of production and harvesting, preservation and handling, buying, preparing, and lastly consuming.
Let’s start at the beginning. Now, I am no expert, but lets see if we can track one food item from beginning to end. How about an apple.
We start at the orchard. There is a seed, and skipping the birds and bees of plant growth, we will eventually have an apple tree. But wait- what about the pests? We might spray a pesticide to ward off those nasty insects. And to ward off all the weeds that might out-compete the tree itself, we add some herbicides to the mix. Nothing can prevent the apple from growing in peace- at least until it is pickin’ time.
This is where it starts to get complicated. The apple has a variety of directions to go, each of which I would like to explore a little.

1. The beautifully plump, red apple takes a short drive down the dusty sunlit lane to a roadside fruit stand. There it is bought, washed, and consumed for a light and healthy afternoon snack. Simple enough, no?
2. That same red apple gets packed into bushels of produce, placed on a truck and shipped 200 miles away. The apple arrives, a little older, and a little bruised, perhaps, but relatively little harm was done (except for the gas emissions resulting from the truck ride). That apple is bought, taken home, eaten for an afternoon snack, or perhaps baked into a pie. That pie, combined with all that butter and sugar (trust me- there’s a lot of both), tastes mighty delicious. One after-dinner slice quickly turns into 3, each decreasing in size, but 3 nonetheless. True, the fruit has vitamins that are definitely good for you, but the butter and sugar are also good for those love handles.
3. That same apple from that orchard gets shipped off to the nearest juice-making factory. They do whatever they do at those types of places, and the next time we see that apple it is in juice form. But don’t forget about the sugar, and high-fructose corn syrup that got mixed in, too. Adds to the flavor, you know- and the tummy.

Food has a variety of avenues towards becoming our enemy these days.
There is always a danger these days of unhealthy pesticides and the like, which affect our heath in different ways- not necessarily in weight gain or cholesterol, but in chemical balances.
There are health dangers in the ways we prepare our food. Often we use too much of certain ingredients, especially in places where substitution is possible. Why not cook with olive oil instead of a stick of butter or find another condiment to use instead of mayonnaise? (Even if Hellman’s claims the health benefits of its product, I am just not a fan of mayonnaise at all.) How about holding back on the amount of sauce you slather across those ribs, or on top of those Chinese noodles.
With all the processing our food goes through these days, you can never really be sure of what you are eating. High fructose corn syrup is one ingredient that I think everyone can live without.

One of the best ways to insure healthy eating is to make your food yourself. I know this is impossible in certain cases- not everybody has a garden for fresh fruits and veggies. But you can make sure that what you make with your food has healthy ingredients, is cooked in a healthy manner, and most of all, you can make sure that your meals have enough of each food group- as cliché as that sounds.

Slice Me a Piece of Cake- We're Safe!

All the favorites are going to stick around for another week!

This week's Top Chef was a team affair- team Quick-Fire and Elimination challenges. The Quick- Fire was a team relay: knife skills, artichoke peeling, fillet cutting, and mayonaise mixing. Team Richard, Stephanie, Antonia, and Andrew came back from a slow start to win the race. Team Dale, Spike, Lisa, and Nikki lost the early lead provided by Lisa's fast knife work. Oh well....
The Elimination challenge was different this year. Where it would have been "Restaurant Wars", there was instead "Wedding Wars". That's right. Wedding. Richard's team took the bride's tastes, and Dale's took the groom's. They each designed a catering menu based on their person's tastes and desires for wedding food. And don't forget- this challenge was to cater a WEDDING. Which means CAKE. Which means pastries and baking, the one thing that every chef on the show hates!
Following the bride's southern tastes, Richard made braised brisket, Antonia made fillet mignon, Andrew made breaded chicken and creamed spinach, in addition to the group-made hors-de-vors. And the cake? Stephanie made the cake. And it was amazing apparently, in look and taste.
Following the groom's Italian roots, Nikki and the gang created a somewhat mediocre Italian menu. What should have been super easy for Nikki- was not. And she was sent home for it, for her lack of direction and poor illustration of her Italian cooking experience. Her hand-made tortellini just didn't cut it this time. It's just a shame whiny Dale didn't also have to pack his knives, arrogance, and attitude and go too. Maybe next week.

But hurrah for Richard, the winner of it all! His brisket and his direction as team leader cinched the win. Stephanie's surprise cake-baking skills also paid off, with a special prize, and a boosted level of respect! She's a fantastic chef. And this is also the second time that her baking skills have shown through. Remember the zoo challenge, with the gorilla team's banana bread- one of the team's only saving graces? So snaps for Stephanie, and super snaps for Richard, who has risen high in my esteem. I started out strongly disliking him, and though I still sometimes refer to him as 'Tweety Bird', I really do like him.
*All pictures taken from Bravo's Top Chef. *

Women in the Kitchen

To the old saying that man built the house but woman made of it a "home" might be added the modern supplement that woman accepted cooking as a chore but man has made of it a recreation. ~Emily Post



I love Top Chef. Absolutely love it! My Wednesday nights are governed by the Top Chef schedule. I have watched with devotion all four seasons. Despite how much I love the show, I admit that there are flaws and overarching issues that really irk me. Mainly, I see a problem in the trend of male winners of the past three completed seasons.

Now, I understand that this is a competition based on skill and talent and the sex of the winner cannot be controlled. But what does it say about the culinary arts, professions, and industry as a whole when female chefs have a history of losing out to male chefs. Does this mean that women cannot cook as well as men? Does it stem from lack of training, or lack of opportunities for training or an arena to display talents?

Whatever the reason, I think that it is extremely ironic that women, who have been so confined to the domestic realm and the kitchen in particular, it is often men who are honored and revered as ‘top chefs’. After all these centuries of cooking, you would think that women would certainly have an advantage over men. It seems, however, that male chefs have managed to turn this daily duty of the home into a successful career that promises prestige and fame.

Look, for example, at the Food Network. I do feel that the hosts/chefs/celebrities/ or whatever you might like to call them are well distributed between the male and female. Take a closer look at the types of shows, then. On one hand we have shows such as Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee, Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller, 30 Minute Meals with Rachel Ray, and Everyday Italian with Giada De Laurentiis. On the other hand we have The Essence of Emeril, Emeril Live, Boy Meets Grill, Tyler’s Ultimate, Good Eats with Alton Brown, and Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Notice anything special? How about the difference between shows hosted by men and women. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love almost all shows on the Food Network, and love watching anything on this channel when I don’t have anything else to do, or don’t want to do anything else. But I can’t help noticing that more shows by women chefs than men are geared towards making cooking easier. Why and how is it that the shows hosted by men seem so intense, filled with complicated and showy recipes and techniques, the science of food, and competition, whereas a large portion of the female chefs are shown in a calm atmosphere in a “naturally” lit set kitchen, easily demonstrating how to make cooking simple enough to handle on a daily basis, while also managing to share lovely anecdotes about their childhood and food. I don’t have any problem with making cooking easier and more accessible to the masses. But seriously, can’t these women add some spice to their shows? All I have to say is, thank goodness for Cat Cora, the Iron Chef who is able to kick some major butt in the intense “Kitchen Stadium”.

And thank goodness for the women on this season of Top Chef, all of who seem very eager to have a woman win the title this time. Stephanie, my personal favorite, is also quite adamant about wanting a woman to win the fourth season. I couldn’t agree more. There are so many talented chefs this season, and I personally much prefer the women on the show to some of the men, who can often come off conceited, or just down right annoying (did you see them in the clip above?). So, personally, I hope that Stephanie wins, and she really has been doing well so far! But whoever ends up in the final 5, 4, 3, 2… I hope the NEXT TOP CHEF will be a woman. It would be about time!

Meet Stephanie