By Chuck
It's a dessert Quickfire, but despite not being pastry chefs (who knew?), everyone does a fairly decent job. Cupcake Johnny Iuzzini judges Antonia the loser, for what looks like a proportional snafu, while Richard wins for his innovative banana scallops and guacamole. A night of relaxation at a Second City improv show turns into the Elimination challenge, with audience members shouting out a color, and emotion and an ingredient. Yellow Love Vanilla, meet Orange Turned-On Asparagus. Oh, that’s Purple Depressed Bacon crying in the corner.
Wait, it gets funnier. The teams of two self-select, but they draw for course and "inspiration." Spike finally gets to make his butternut squash soup, after "improvising" his menu with Andrew, who gets stuck with the hand milling when the machines disappear -- improv! Jen and Stephanie decide to turn their asparagus into a sexy ménage a trois (since Zoi's there with them), while Lisa and Stephanie refuse to touch Magenta Drunken (that most emotional of emotions) Polish Sausage and instead go with sea bass, because that's smart. Tom shows up mid-cook with the news that, despite the fancy dining table in the kitchen, dinner will be served at the Chez Chef, which means cooking will be completed on one six-burner stove.
In the end, presentation helps seal the deal -- if you're a dude. Dale and Richard win with a ginormous Green Perplexed Tofu steak marinated in rendered beef fat (it was pretty impressive). Spike and Andrew's less adventurous soup, while lovely and delicious, can't compete.
Mark, Nikki and their pork manage to escape the judges. That leaves Antonia and Lisa, who served fish instead of drunken sausage, and drank a shot of tequila in front of the dinner guests without offering them any. Jen and Stephanie let bread and cheese get in the way of sexy asparagus, and Jen (bless her heart) kind of misfired on the whole phallic idea. Jen gets the boot. Hopefully now she's doing it to, instead of for, Zoi.
Morning. Yoga mat. Andrew's feeling that "the room got a lot uglier" since "Ryan pretty boy left" -- taking his good looks (depending upon your opinion) and oral diarrhea home to San Francisco. Antonia's feeling the intensity ratchet up, as all the remaining cheftestants have "all had really great training" and are solid competitors (with the possible exception of Nikki, although Antonia doesn't say that). She knows that "there is no room for error when it comes to execution" and that even the tiniest mistake could be grounds for dismissal. Jen's feeling redundant -- in case you didn't know, she's doing this all for Zoi, and she wants to kick some ass. She'll be doing it for Zoi with "blood, sweat, and tears" -- just use a dental dam, OK?
And they're off. A table piled high with a huge array of sweets awaits them at the Top Chef kitchen -- seriously, this thing is like heaven's dessert buffet, with cakes, tarts, cannoli, petit fours. Apparently Nikki sometimes orders multiple desserts when she goes out to eat -- is that really the most interesting tidbit they could cull to accompany the sweeping views of an altar to sugar? Padma, looking like a sexy schoolmarm in a rose-colored blouse and gray pencil skirt, introduces this week's guest judge -- Johnny Iuzzini, author and James Beard Award-winning pastry chef who's toiled under both Daniel Boulud and Jean Georges Vongerichten (his current employer). He's a little cutie, in a Jersey sort of way, and while I'm not a big baker (although I do like making cookies), I always enjoy his appearances on Martha Stewart.
Mark gets a bit mealy-mouthed, calling him "Johnny I-wah-zinni" and mentioning his status as a "pastry icon" in "the New York ree-elm." Mark knows that Johnny will tell you if your dessert sucks -- an observation as obvious as it is boring. Johnny will also tell you what's important about this week's challenge, so listen up: "Advance preparation and organization in a pastry kitchen is imperative. Every quantity has to be just right or else the end result could be disastrous." Which is why I'm not much of a baker -- I inevitably screw up at least one of the ingredients and all the effort turns out to be worthless.
Padma holds up a copy of the Top Chef Cookbook, a white canvas-jacketed book that "contains a lot of original recipes from the first three seasons." Describing dessert as "the Achilles heel of many a contestant," she throws down the gauntlet with a challenge to "make us a delicious dessert." Don't have a dessert recipe memorized? "Improvise."
The winner of the Quickfire will have their recipe inserted (retroactively?) into the cookbook, making them the only Season Four cheftestant to be included. I have a copy, and was immediately bummed that I hadn't paid enough attention to suss out a spoiler, but if you look up the winning recipe, which is on page 235, the "chef" listing just says "Watch Season 4 to find out." If you then look at the Dessert index page (224), however, it says "Richard's Banana Scallops, Banana Guacamole," so I did miss it, and I'll never be the same again. Plus, I don't get the point -- I can't tell if that was intended to be a little treasure hunt, or if someone in editorial just made a mistake.
"None of us are trained pastry chefs," reveals Antonia, although some have more experience than others (she resides in the inexperienced ree-elm). "I'm bringing one dessert to this place," says Dale, as he hacks at a coconut with a knife -- it's called halo halo, which means "mix mix" in the Philippines. It's a shaved ice dish, and Dale's kind of cute as he says, giggling, "it's the only one I know how to do, and I'm gonna bust it out." Years ago, I had a shaved ice dessert in Singapore, called an ice ka-chang, which is apparently a national delicacy, but did not jive with my Western palate. It's a pile of shaved ice hiding a center of beans and corn, drizzled with various syrups, such as rose, and dotted with brightly colored, gelatinous cubes, all topped with a scoop of ice cream. I'm gagging a little just thinking about it.
Lisa, cutting strawberries, self-righteously and sour-facedly proclaims that she swore to herself that she "would never do a pastry during this competition," which is a really stupid thing to swear, even if she does mean pastry proper and not just dessert. She's irked by the technical exactness of it all, which seems to be nagging Jen as well, as she questions to amount of something she's pouring out of a large silver bag. "If you miss an ingredient in a pasta sauce, you'll be able to taste it and you'll be able to fix it right away. If you miss baking powder in a pastry, or in a bread, you're fucked." True and, again, quite obvious.
"I'm not a pastry chef. I don't have a recipe," says Richard, halving limes and separating eggs, although at this point it could be any of them, except that Richard is going to win. He realizes that the banana he's cutting "are kind of shaped like sea scallops," and decides, because he's "very tongue in cheek, very witty" to make banana scallops. Spike, hoping to demonstrate that "this kid has balls," goes for a soufflé, even though he's got a "chocolate molten cake memorized." Wow, look at those balls. He's cooking said soufflé in pineapple halves, for a presumably rustic presentation. Jen's microplaning what looks like coconut, Mark's making small meringues with an icing tube, someone's getting artsy with sauces, Antonia's bruleeing, Spike's constructing his soufflé plate, and then time -- and hands -- are up!
Johnny and Padma start with Spike's pineapple rum raisin soufflé with toasted coconut -- "this looks interesting," says Padma, as she wonders what it is. Johnny gives Spike ball points for attempting a soufflé, but doesn't offer anything regarding taste or texture. Richard did a nice job with the banana scallops with banana guacamole and chocolate ice cream -- Padma pronounces the guacamole "strange and delicious." Says Richard: "Strange is good and delicious is even better." He is terribly annoying, but generally speaking, his talent backs up his talk, which makes me dislike him even more.
Jen went fairly traditional with a chocolate cake accompanied by chocolate dipped frozen banana bites. "That's chocolate," says Johnny, and I'm starting to think they should have called this episode "Obvious" instead of "Improv." Andrew continues the banana chocolate theme with banana and chocolate ravioli -- crusted with lots of golden cinnamon sugar -- and coffee nutella pudding. Looks like he copped a bit of Richard's style after working with him in almost all of the team challenges, but he has not yet surpassed the master. Nikki, perhaps getting it sort of right for once, made a fairly safe but good looking buttermilk cake with a berry sauce -- "blackberry, raspberry and strawberries," she gushes, as if no one had ever thought to combine those three. "This is a very pretty dessert," says Padma, which sounds like a bitchy backhanded compliment.
Stephanie created a chocolate cake (it looks like an ice cream sandwich, with something white and creamy between two layers of fudgy cake goodness) topped with a salted basil ganache -- it looks and sounds yummy. "Very tender," coos Johnny, which is an odd descriptor to use for a dessert. Meat, yes, but calling a dessert "tender" doesn't tell me very much. Dale's "Halo-Halo" looks like a glass of guacamole topped with nuts and greens (according to the caption, it's shaved ice, avocado, mango, kiwi, and nuts), impresses Johnny with its complexity. "A lot of great textures," thinks he. "I taste a lot of the spices." Lisa's recycled the fried wonton trick that helped Stephanie win the block party challenge and paired them with yogurt with fruit puree and strawberries. Her plate looks a bit messy, but neither judge proffers an opinion.
Mark has concocted a delicate looking plate of multiple pavlovas, each draped with artfully composed pieces of fruit. He says the entire thing is infused with wattleseed, which comes from Australia and of which I have never heard. Finally, Antonia "attempted to do a bruleed lemon curd with a light lemon cake." Johnny doesn't react, but from Antonia's delivery and the accompanying slightly ominous music, I'm guessing her attempt fell flat.
Indeed it did -- after expressing his belief that "some of them came into it excited about the challenge, I think others came into it already defeated by it," Johnny chooses Antonia's dish as his least favorite. Spike is on the shitlist, although Johnny does again praise Spike's cojones for choosing a soufflé -- "it shows a lot about your personality." It shows he's a dick with balls and a douchey "I'm the coolest" wink. Mark is the last inductee into the bottom three -- Johnny says "it was a perfect pavlova on its own" but that, as a composed dish, it didn't strike him as a dessert. Everyone else must have acquitted themselves well -- Johnny's choice of Mark seems dictated, more than usual, by the need for three low performers as opposed to a certifiably poor effort. Those pavlovas look like a nice light way to finish a meal, but perhaps they should come after the dessert course instead of as the dessert course.
Johnny dug Dale's "Halo Halo," with its panoply of different flavors that came together nicely. Lisa impressed him with her dish -- those fried wontons must be amazingly tasty. "Really summery to me," says Johnny, who liked the balance of the dish and the fresh strawberries. Fuck you for your attitude and your non-pastry honorable mention, Lisa. Calling Richard's scallops the "most original, conceptually," Johnny praises Richard's playful approach and use of texture as "really smart," and selects him as the overall winner of the challenge, as well as immunity and, of course, the honor of having his recipe included in the Top Chef Cookbook. Richard's pleased to have demonstrated that he's "not a one trick pony," that he's as comfortable with simple dessert preparations as he is with chemicals and technology. Yes, Richard, you are the most awesome chef in all the land.
Elimination details will arrive later, says Padma. In them meantime, "tonight, for a little inspiration, you are all going to see the show at Second City!" Her wooden excitement is met with polite applause and straight faces (except for Lisa, who's sporting a scary grimace from her arsenal of unflattering facial expressions), presumably because they all have at least a vague idea of what's on the horizon. Second City is a legendary improv and comedy teaching and performing institution ("the birthplace of improvisational comedy here in America," according to Padma) -- it's almost easier to list which comedy superstars haven't been associated with it than to list those who have, although Mark makes a half-hearted effort, already dressed in an embroidered taupe shirt in anticipation of the evening's festivities. I went on a cruise last year and was initially excited to see a Second City troupe on the list of on-board entertainers. Unfortunately, they sucked with the power of a billion Dyson vacuum cleaners, and while I certainly understand that a cruise ship is the natural habitat for Z-list talent, the realization that this shining beacon of improv has extended itself into the deepest pits of crapitude was a sad one.
Back at Chez Chef, everyone's gussying up for their night on the town (Richard holds up a pink shirt -- nooooo! -- and Dale squeezes himself into a pair of jeans), as Stephanie enthuses about the change-of-pace "to hang out together as, like, friends, just watching a comedy show." Because that's totally what's going to happen. There's a shot of Mark bending over in his skivvies, as he explains that the boys "don't want to clash," which means matching outfits for Mark and Spike (light brown shirts, dark blazers, jeans) and, of course, pink for Richard.
As the cheftestants watch the show with forced laughter, and I wonder if these aren't actually the same folks from the ship, Antonia appreciates the chance "to relax for just a second and just be entertained." After some jokes about dancing with a monkey and beating a pig, the cast (well, one bald dude in a red shirt who sounds disconcertingly like Ted Allen), asks for "a whole bunch of suggestions in some different categories" from the audience. First category is color, as Nikki, wearing the Captain Obvious cape, explains that improv often includes audience participation. category is an emotion, as Richard extols the genius of improv. up is "an ingredient that you would put into something you are cooking," and, as shouts ring out from the audience, the light bulbs begin to go off over the cheftestant's heads -- there's lots of nervous smiling and laughter. Nikki knows "right away that that's how we're going to get our challenge."
Sure enough, one of the Second City women rips a piece from the large pad on which the shouted suggestions have been scribbled and announces the presence of the Top Chef gang. "What they don't know is that they're going to be improvising for us." By "us," it turns out she means "them," as in the Second City cast (as well as the judges), and not the entire audience, which is both a relief and a disappointment -- while I'd sort of like to see them all scramble to feed another huge group, I'm glad it's a smaller affair. So, uh, thanks. Tomorrow night, five course dinner, consisting of: "Yellow Love Vanilla; Depressed Purple Bacon; Magenta Drunk Polish Sausage; Green Perplexed Tofu; and Orange Turned-On Asparagus." I didn't know drunk was an emotion, but whatever.
"We are fucked," says Lisa. I hope she has to make a pastry.
Back at Chez Chef, there's a powwow in the living room as the gang gets to bypass knife-drawing to choose their own teams -- five of two (based, Nikki explains, on "everyone just kind of looking around and going, okay, who have I worked with, who haven't I worked with?"). When I first watched this, I thought they put both the "inspiration" and the course into the hat and drew for each, but it seems that the "inspiration" got assigned separately, so they just draw for course. Spike, wanting to steer clear of Richard and his immunity, ends up with Andrew and yellow/love/vanilla. Antonia and Lisa have magenta/drunken/Polish sausage, Mark and Nikki are purple/depressed/bacon, Stephanie and Jen are orange (which is a huge gimme since the color is also a fruit that goes quite well with asparagus)/turned-on/asparagus, and Richard and Dale (who are "on the same page" when it comes to flavors and techniques, according to Richard) are green/perplexed/tofu. "There's definitely no room for error," says Stephanie, being not at all obvious.
They've got $150 and half an hour at Whole Foods, where Mark and Nikki (aka Team Sunglasses Inside) eye a glistening pink slab of pork, as Nikki explains that, for Purple Depressed Bacon, they will use "pancetta that's glazed with honey and ginger" with pork loin as the protein, and they'll go from there. Jen and Stephanie pillage the store's asparagus supply, grab large quantities of orange juice, and head for the cheesemonger, where Jen gets her mitts on a large $53 log of bucheron cheese, which should pair well with asparagus and orange. The triple threat leads to thoughts of a ménage a trois, which fits with the turned-on theme, which also works since the curvaceous spirit of Zoi will inevitably be in the kitchen with Jen, all of which leads Jen to overshare the news that "I am feeling pretty good about having a ménage a trois in my future."
Dale and Richard, galloping around the store in his stupid pink Crocs, have green perplexed tofu -- Dale digs green and tofu and says that "perplexed is, a lot of times, what Richard and I bring to a table." They decide to go with a green curry, due to the complexity (or perplexity) of the flavors, and Richard has the very smart idea to ask the butcher for some beef fat, in which they will marinate the tofu steaks. If it works, that's a pretty genius way to embody perplexed -- Richard explains it as a Seinfeld skit (you can recreate the moment by using your best Jerry Seinfeld impression), "This tofu tastes like beef, what's up with that?"
Antonia and Lisa, meanwhile, get all snobby about magenta drunken Polish sausage (Antonia doesn't want to do it, while Lisa makes sure we're aware that "I'm not going to dumb down my food because of what some drunken schmuck screamed out in the audience"). They also don't want to cook with beer (again), even though domineering Lisa claimed to "love" doing just that last week. Because Lisa's experience with Polish sausage has always involved nasty meat and nastier gravy, they decide to serve ... fish. Drunk or not, that makes no sense. They'll use tequila in the sauce for the drunken part, and chorizo, which Lisa maintains in "very similar" to Polish sausage. "We're improv-ing," says Antonia -- hey, I know a cruise ship comedy troupe where you'd fit right in.
Spike and Andrew cruise around the store looking for inspiration or their inspiration -- yellow love vanilla. They're taking the "improv" theme to heart. Andrew explains, "We basically formulate the dish in the Whole Foods" -- hey, it worked for Lisa, Dale and Stephanie -- selecting as many things as they can buy with their allotted budget and figuring it out as they go. At the register, they're over budget, so they have to pick and choose what to forego (goodbye, beets) and what to take back to the kitchen (oh, look at all those butternut squash). Ever impressed with himself, Spike calls it "another ballsy move" and "truly an improvisation."
The fancy dining table that's materialized in the Top Chef kitchen hints at the meal to come, as the three hour cookdown begins. Stephanie's concentrating on the vinaigrette for the asparagus dish, as Jen reminds us that "the struggle to get to the top is quite fierce." Turns out Spike and Andrew will be making a vanilla squash soup for the first course of the meal -- Spike ("so happy") finally gets to make his butternut squash soup, and the whole "improv at the counter" seems contrived. Twenty bucks says he knew exactly what they were going to make before he walked into the store, and put on a show for Andrew's benefit. They goof around their station, trying to figure out how to incorporate vanilla into the soup (Andrew might "split it and then put it under my armpits"), and Spike offers a few more words of cooking wisdom: "If you can make a perfect soup, that's what impresses a chef. That is the fucking truth."
Lisa and Antonia watch the Spike and Andrew show. "If he frickin' wins for that," says Antonia, "I'm gonna, like, vomit in my mouth."
Dale and Richard crank on their green curry with grilled tofu -- Dale's got a pile of greens, and is focused on the curry, while Richard works on rendering the beef fat for the tofu marinade. He grills the strips of fat to bring out the flavor (and to impart a bit of yummy grillness), and to play on the psychological association of grills and meat. Basically, he wants "to get this piece of tofu to really taste like meat." See, I too can be a master of the obvious. Dale heads to the storage area for a large pot, only to discover a sad, empty metal rack where all of the electrical equipment should be. This leads to a lengthy (by Top Chef standards) exchange between Dale, Richard, and Andrew about the probable need to puree the soup and the fact that Andrew will be forced to work with "no Vita Prep, no Robot Coupe, no equipment." Whatever a Robot Coupe (pronounced "roboku") is, its absence seems to mean that the soupmakers are fucked. It seems like they're the only ones, though. I wonder if the producers waited to decide what to take until after they knew what everyone was cooking.
While Jen expresses sympathy for Andrew and Spike's plight, Lisa and Antonia watch the dramedy unfold with unabashed glee. No matter, says Andrew. "They've been making soup since fucking I don't even know when, so I don't need a Vita Prep to make a soup, a bangin' perfect soup." What he does need is a ricer -- I'm not entirely sure what Spike is doing, but Andrew gets saddled with the duty of pureeing the squash by hand, which he thinks will work in their favor, since love is their emotion and the hard labor will make him "feel that much more emotionally connected." Well spun.
Though planning to make his own curry, Dale's using a pre-made base from Whole Foods -- toasting it heavily and adding a bunch of his own ingredients to "bump up the flavor" and "make sure the curry sauce tastes as good as it's going to taste." How Zen.
Spike's straining the soup by wrapping string around a bulging bag fashioned from cheesecloth as Andrew says, "You know how to work a sack, dude." Get a room already, and please take the cameras with you. Mark reveals that the lack of machinery impedes him as well, as he substitutes the side of a pan for spice grinder while Nikki calmly preps brussels sprouts. Jen and Stephanie are hard at work on their ménage, which will also include pre-grilled bread, about which Stephanie is concerned (the bread is Jen's idea). She's worried it will be too big. Jen shows Stephanie her idea for plating, which involves propping the asparagus against the bread -- wait, let her explain: "Our idea was to really encapture the whole idea of orange turned on by asparagus. We definitely went with the sexual connotation of it and utilizes that plating to make the asparagus look a certain way." Just call it Encapturing Erectness. Oh, and "encapture?" What the fuck is that?
Antonia is concerned about the looks of the magenta drunk Polish sausage -- sorry, the sea bass, chorizo and purple potato -- she thinks it doesn't look "elegant and refined," although I think it looks pretty tasty. She should be more concerned about their concept.
Colicchio arrives for his assessment tour -- except this time he's not there to chat about the dishes, but to reveal the twist: the Second City comics are going to Chez Chef, and so are the cheftestants. "You have 20 minutes to pack this up, and then you'll have an hour left to cook when you get back to the house." Out comes the Glad product suite as everyone reacts to the news -- "completely shocked" Lisa also saw this coming and thinks everyone should either deal or perish, Spike feels confident that his "team will prevail," while Stephanie sets the stage for the final hour of cooking. "The kitchen that we have," she explains, "is like six burners, maybe, it's not very big, there's not really that much space." While I'm loving all the wrenches thrown into the works, this is getting a bit ridiculous. Richard dislikes being forced to pack and move, but says "as long as there's fire and water, we're going to knock it out of the park."
It's still light out as the cheftestants lug their army of coolers into the house, past the "real" dining table and into the kitchen. Looks like they've got plenty of wine on hand, which is good, since comedy comes from a deep sadness. They get to start in shifts, in order of service, it seems, so Andrew and Spike get a precious few minutes by themselves in the kitchen, which does look both small and chaotic once everyone gets in and starts milling around. Andrew makes a "too many cooks in the kitchen" reference, so I don't have to. Nikki, back with the rat-hive, reiterates that there's no room for error, which is good since I'd forgotten, while Spike spends the final half hour "layering flavors" -- a pinch of salt, a drop of broth -- because "that's what I love about cooking." Blah blah blah.
The comics arrive and join the judges at the table (Padma, Colicchio, Ted Allen and Johnny Iuzzini) as service begins -- the cheftestants themselves are serving, and immediately after Stephanie reminds everyone to serve "ladies first," they cut to Ted receiving his bowl. Ha. Andrew and Spike, the "vanilla love" boys, ham it up a bit for their presentation of butternut and acorn squash soup with vanilla crème fraiche. They're pleased with what they served and think they've got a chance to win. Ted notices "a little spicy heat coming from something" but isn't sure if it's in the crème fraiche or the whole soup. "The soup," says Johnny. Colicchio comments on the note of bacon -- a "smoky background" -- while Johnny compliments the texture and the bite, while complaining about the largesse of the portion. "I think that vanilla really brings out the love," says one of the Second City women, who clearly stumbled into Chicago from some dopey ashram. Colicchio likes the simplicity and deliciousness, while Padma maintains she'd lick her bowl but for the presence of cameras. Licking your bowl gets resin all over your tongue, silly. "I'd lick all of your bowls," offers one of the Second City gents.
As Jen and Stephanie get ready to serve their asparagus, Jen reiterates the phallic appearance they hope to achieve; Stephanie's confident, but still dislikes "the stupid crouton" with the bad texture. Their "sexy" presentation (which is actually not sexy at all, but does get laughs from the table) of the ménage a trois of orange with goat cheese, asparagus, salad and olive tapenade (which sounds more like a ménage a cinq) makes Spike and Andrew look like demure nuns, as Jen mentions "orange sex-ions" and Stephanie describes using "a nice, long, hard log of aged goat cheese." It looks like they cooked the goat cheese (it's got a golden crust) and placed it on top of everything else, largely obscuring the penile aspects of the hot, plump, firm, glistening spears of asparagus. To enjoy, just dip the asparagus in the orange sauce, and slide it all the way down your throat, then wait half an hour, and pee on your partner.
Everything seems groovy until people actually eat the dish -- it's oily, the bread is too difficult to cut, and I swear Johnny says "I hate biting my food," but I think he says "I hate fighting my food." Ted thinks the ménage "is more of an orgy," with too much frottage happening on the plate. Ashram Lady makes an irrelevant orgy joke, and it's back to the kitchen for Dale and Richard's tofu course. Their last minute prep includes frying eggplant, which Dale's immersed in a "corn starch slurry. It's a Chinese method that I've never seen before," says Richard.
"I'll never understand the food that Richard does," says Spike -- yes, that and a whole lot of other things. I will say that they've gone with a massive tofu steak, which I would find unappetizing were it placed in front of me (that is a mighty big piece to stand alone). Richard acts like "perplexed" douche while explaining the dish (officially speaking, it's a tofu steak marinated and beef fat with green curry, but y'all already knew that) -- it's interesting to see all of the other cheftestants milling around the table, eyeballing the different dishes and deliveries. He gives Dale credit for devising the dish (well, he calls Dale "the brainchild behind the dish," so I think that's what he means), and Dale returns the compliment by explaining Richard's beef fat marinating trick, which creates a perplexing identity crisis for the tofu -- am I soy, or am I beef? Dale cites "a lot of elements to that dish that I felt were, like, good" as justification for this post-service optimism.
His confidence is validated by the reception at the table -- Ted thinks "the curry is terrific" with good heat, and that the guys responded to the "perplexed" (and most perplexing) part of the challenge with dexterity. Colicchio's impressed because, while he would be dejected if he had to cook tofu in a competition, "these guys just went for it and they made the tofu center stage and I think they did a great job." Ashram Lady -- oh, sorry, Amanda Blake Davis -- appreciates their consistent complimenting of each other, since "giving credit to everyone" is an important part of improv.
Antonia's cooking her fish at the last minute in an effort to make it as good as she possible can, as everyone helps plate her and Lisa's Polish sausage -- er, fish. Spike, always a supportive teammate, says the plates "went out cold, and looked like turds." For someone with so much self-professed confidence and talent, he makes a lot of disparaging comments about other people's hard, if at times misguided, work. Lisa says "we got drunk magenta Polish sausage" before they explain their sea bass with purple potato puree ("kind of that magenta, we didn't want it too purple," says Lisa), chorizo and tequila sauce. This is starting to sound like an Ionesco play -- "You asked for a fireman, so of course I brought you a rhinoceros." And then, in a moment of inspired brilliance, Lisa and Antonia hoist two shots of tequila. For themselves. "No tequila for us?" asks Johnny, and in case you didn't know they just made a huge gaffe, the clunking music makes it abundantly clear. "No tequila for you guys. Sorry," says Lisa, and it's obvious that she is really, really sorry. I'd have stopped everything right there and sent that bitch home, but instead a bunch of pissed off diners dig into a fish that's supposed to be a sausage.
It tastes good, says Ted, but if your lead ingredient is sausage, then why put a big piece of fish on top of it? Better yet, says the bald Second City Ted Allen sound-alike (sounding less alike than he did onstage), "when your primary ingredient is Polish sausage, to use chorizo is interesting, but it's not Polish sausage." Yeah, and they didn't give us any tequila, says another Second City-er. "I don't think they sort of carried out the whole drunkenness in this dish at all," suggesting a wine braise or the like. Or how about a delicious sausage cooked in, and served with, beer. The bald guy points out that the other teams took their inspiration seriously, while for Lisa and Antonia, "the suggestion was a burden." "I love Polish sausage," says a Second City dude, looking, of course, at Ted, and continuing, "Don't take this the wrong way." Because sausage looks like cock, and gay guys love cock -- any cock. Ted responds with a quick, "No problem, man, I'm not Polish." Ba-dum.
The appearance of Mark and Nikki, plating the final dish, comes as a slight surprise since they've been mostly invisible for the entirety of the cookdown. Explaining their "sexy" interpretation of purple depressed bacon, Mark says to the diners, "The bacon is very depressed that it has to share the plate with brussels sprouts." Cute. Their final presentation is roasted pork loin with sweet potatoes, concord grape sauce, jus and brussels sprouts -- uh, and bacon, hello. Solid, if not envelope-pushing, flavor combos -- Colicchio seems to agree. "It's a nice plate of food," says he, perhaps impressed with the execution but unmoved by the safety of their choices. Ted likes the glaze on the bacon -- "it gives it this mega-crispiness and the sweetness and salty pork." Ashram Amanda calls it "comfort food" and agrees that it would help cheer her up if she was depressed -- something tells me she knows of what she speaks, and another woman thinks it'd be swell if they made the sauce from their tears.
As service ends, Richard thinks it's going to be a tough round of judging because "all the food was good," as Jen calls packing up her knives "a bad omen." I'm going to have a bruise from being hit so hard by that asshole foreshadowing.
Dale, Spike, Andrew and Richard get summoned first, bringing a different kind of sausage platter to the judges' table. Quelle surprise -- they're the best of the night! About the conceptualization of their dish, Spike (who shook Andrew's hand when he leaned in for a hug, which is shockingly un-bro-like) tells Padma, "We took the challenge literally, we didn't sit and write prep notes the night before," which makes sense since Spike knew what he wanted to do all along. "Really well-balanced," says Johnny, before singling out "a lot of sugary sweet notes" that they tempered, luckily, with "just enough salt." In fact, Colicchio thinks the soup is "the best-seasoned dish we've had all season," so good for them. Ted wonders if they worried that soup would be too simple, and you can feel Spike's joy at being asked the question -- his mother (also a chef -- I'm surprised he hasn't mentioned that about 80 times before) told him "one of the best tests of a chef is to make a really good, simple soup." Ted points out that, as "love" was one of their inspiration words, soup was an inspired choice, with which I will begrudgingly agree. It "makes you think of mom," to which Spike replies, "That's just in me, all the time. And Andrew. My mom loves you too," which cracks up Colicchio, because it's pretty funny.
Tofu time. Richard emphasizes their collaboration, crediting Dale with the curry idea and calling green curry "the most complex, perplexing green flavor." Colicchio wonders about the idea of marinating the tofu in the beef fat, for which Richard deservedly takes credit, while Johnny praises the fact that they "came out as a team and really just stood by each other" and selects them as the winners. It's interesting to me that this was a team victory, since usually there's an individual winner, even in team challenges. I wonder if they would have given Richard the win for the beef fat technique, but decided to let Dale enjoy the glory as well since Richard had immunity. The prizes are getting better -- each of them receives "$2500 worth of Calphalon kitchenware, courtesy of Calphalon," says Padma (uh, yeah, like Johnny's actually handing everything over to them right now). It would be amusing if they got $2500 worth of Calphalon kitchenware, courtesy of All-Clad.
Dale explains that while Richard "came up with some concepts and some ideas," he let Dale drive -- tit for tat, since when Dale had immunity and worked with Richard, he let Richard drive. Tell yourself what you will, Dale, but I think the beef fat technique won the challenge for you. But Richard even lets Dale take the lion's share of the credit when they return to the group and call Antonia, Lisa, Stephanie and Jen to the table, which is generous of him.
Lisa, as usual, has a nasty look on her face, as the interrogation starts with her and Antonia and who made the choice to substitute chorizo for Polish sausage. When they say both of us, Colicchio has a hard time believing that they both came to the same decision at the same moment, but they stand firm. Lisa takes pains to explain that the only version of Polish sausage she knows -- a tangle of sausage, mashed potatoes and sauerkraut (oh, the horror!) -- is not "something I would ever dream of putting on a plate." Antonia doesn't enjoy Polish sausage either -- oh, I had no idea she was a dyke as well, ha-ha. Right, Ted? She maintains her poker face as Colicchio tells them that they really should have incorporated the Polish sausage, while Johnny mentions how much he loves "to cook sausage in beer," and how that could have been a wonderful way to take it. "From now on, trust me, I'm gonna be, like...," starts Antonia, before Colicchio cuts her off with "If there is a from now on." Snap. Lisa then expresses frustration that her first time on the chopping block is due to "a slight wording thing," by which I assume she means "a blatant disregard of the elements that were to inform our dish." Calling it "a technicality," Colicchio says that's all they have to go on, since the dishes were good. Yeah, a technicality and the fact that you two bitches stood in front of everyone and did shots without offering them to anyone else, which never gets mentioned during this portion of the judging, and which strikes me as the height of rudeness.
As for the evolution of the turned-on asparagus, Stephanie explains that both she and Jen "really like cheese" and that "the bucheron, when it's cooked that way, it has a nice orange" that could tie everything together nicely. Colicchio felt the cheese had the lead role, shoving the asparagus and the orange into the wings. He chides them for their line of thinking, from ingredients to ménage a trois to having too much happening on the plate. Of the presentation itself, Johnny thinks "the composition of the plate was a train wreck," which visibly surprises Jen, who explains, with hand gestures, the "kind of phallic" vibe they were after, which understandably amuses Colicchio (who's been a bit of a giggle box this week). "The asparagus were meant to be erect?" wonders Johnny. Yes, and the bread, says Jen, which Ted found "a little difficult to cut." "The bread, for me, was a clunker," seconds Johnny -- too big, "toasted on one side, soggy on the other." Jen admits that perhaps they took the sexuality concept too far, and that a few alterations would have made the dish "more refined." For Johnny, it "lacked finesse." In terms of individual responsibility, Jen did the bread and cooked the cheese, while Stephanie made the vinaigrette and did a lot of the prep.
After being sent to simmer in pre-verdict anxiety, loveable Lisa gets up in arms, again, that she might have been better off cooking a sausage in some "fucking" beer, and that she was bound by things shouted by "these fucking people that were drunk in a comedy club."
Back at judges' table, the debate over decent food/disregard of main ingredient versus yucky food/embrace of concept ensues. After Colicchio delineates the missteps, Johnny opines that "they were using the word improv a little too loosely to their advantage -- you can't change the terms of the challenge because you don't like the ingredient." Cut to Lisa, grousing that if they'd served Polish sausage, they'd have raked over the coals for cooking "bar food." Whatever the case, Colicchio simply enjoyed the fish dish more than the asparagus, and, by allowing the cheese to overwhelm the asparagus, Jen and Stephanie didn't exactly nail the challenge, either -- although it sounds like an attempt to justify the fact that Jen's going to take the fall. "Of the two dishes, this was my least favorite taste-wise," says Johnny.
Before erecting -- oops, ejecting -- the loser, Colicchio slams Antonia and Lisa for being "too far off track" of the challenge with their fish dish, and Jen and Stephanie for the same shortcoming, here realized with cheese. Calling them all "very accomplished," Colicchio says, again, "this technicality is all we have to go on right now," so they have to go with their least favorite dish -- isn't that what they do pretty much every week? Why is this one different? Jen took the lead on the least satisfying dish, so off she goes. "I thought that was a great dish," says Jen through tears, "and I thought we improved with it well" -- certainly they did a better job on that front than Lisa and Antonia. Jen thanks the judges for the opportunity, and walks back to the rest of the group with the news that she's out the door. In particular, Richard (now sporting Dale's green headband) seems genuinely surprised, repeatedly calling her "a great chef" as they have a group hug with Dale -- but everyone seems shocked that she's leaving. I am too -- the endless Zoi talk was terribly annoying (which continues until the very second she's gone), but Jen seems talented, the food at her restaurant tastes good, and there are other people I'd rather see leave. "Rock it out, cook your own flavors, be top chefs," she offers as parting words to her comrades, says some generic upbeat stuff to the camera, and then she's off to diddle Zoi's skittle.
"She scared me when she cooked, I thought she was so good," says Dale.
This week's valuable takeaways? Edgy food trumps well-seasoned traditional fare, while bad food with better adherence to the challenge is a bigger sin than a tasty dish that totally ignores the concept. Lesbians should perhaps steer clear of building penile dishes. San Francisco yielded a poor crop of cheftestants -- four out of four (Eric, Ryan, Zoi and Jen) have been sent packing. Oh, and with four out of the five remaining women in the bottom four (and none in the top), maybe a woman's place isn't in the kitchen.