Oh Deer

S01E10

Let's get cooking, shall we? Whitney is working on her roasted Brussels sprouts and enthusing about how she's used to cooking deer. "I'm a southern girl," she giggles, "and in Mississippi, we eat deer like it's going out of style." What you don't know? "Deer" is her nickname for "drifters." Sheetal is trying her hand at a blueberry wine sauce, but is understandably concerned about not being that experienced a hand at cooking meat. David says dreary, self-congratulatory things that I don't feel like typing.

The judges are impressed by the contestants' focus -- they're not running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Instead they're saving that for the challenge, which will be to cut off the heads of chickens. No, no -- that's the blueberry wine sauce talking. By the way, if you had the six-minute mark down as the first time Joe Bastianich uttered the words "restaurant-quality dish," please take your winning ticket to the cashier's window.

Time for Gordon to start checking in with folks. David's going to stick with an on-the-bone filet and use the wine as the base for a sauce. People put off by David's demeanor -- perhaps I'm just speaking to myself here -- will be disappointed to learn that he seems to know what he's doing. Sharone is going a little sauce-crazy, with two sauces for one preparation of the venison and a broth-like sauce for another preparation. Gordon makes a face like Sharone has presented him with a particularly complicated math problem. Joe and Graham have teamed up to check in on Whitney, who's cooking up a pan-seared venison with a brown gravy of some sort. It does not look particularly appetizing, and gravy seems like something you'd thrown on a particularly bland pot roast, but what do I know? Lee is making a coffee-blueberry sauce and braising some of his root vegetables; Gordon is still stuck on why you'd make that kind of sauce for a gamey meat like venison. Apparently, Gordon is easily baffled by sauces.

After the judges huddle for a bit -- they are as put off by the thought of a roux-based gravy adorning that particular cut of venison as I am -- Gordon pops in on Sheetal in time to discover that she's overcooked her meat. "That's going to taste like Gandhi's flip-flop," says Gordon, as he jabs at the deer chunk. Because you're both Indian, you see, so it's a totally appropriate simile. Gordon is also dismayed to learn that Sheetal has yet to start on her red wine sauce. Thankfully, Gordon only scolds her for wasting the first 30 minutes of her cook time and does not declare that her dish will be nigh-untouchable. Because that sort of thing gets people writing letters.