Quickfire Challenge. The cheftestants are paired up by knife draw and then compete head-to-head to identify the ingredients in a sauce by taste alone. Each cheftestant gets to taste the sauce and then has to bid against their opponent Name-That-Tune style as to how many ingredients they can identify. They compete in a bracket-style tournament and it comes down to Carla, Stefan, and Hosea. For the final three, they all taste a Mexican Mole Sauce and then take turns naming ingredients (like a spelling bee) until only one remains. Carla gets knocked out on the first round when she says peanut butter. Hosea and Stefan go a few more rounds. Stefan says tomato paste, which is incorrect, and Hosea wins with his guess of vegetable oil. He gets immunity and the pleasure of beating Stefan.
Elimination Challenge. The cheftestants are split up into four teams: Old, New, Borrowed and Blue. Their task is to cater Gail’s bridal shower, where there will be forty guests, many of whom are her colleagues at Food & Wine magazine. They have to create dishes based on their team name. The teams and themes are:
Old: Hosea, Stefan and Jeff, who use heirloom tomatoes to make Old World dishes
New: Carla, Eugene and Daniel who make sushi and a bunch of other weird foods, like peach barbecue sauce
Borrowed: Radhika, Jamie and Ariane, who make Indian food, borrowing culture
Blue: Fabio, Melissa and Leah who make seafood to reference the blue ocean
Stefan rubs his teammates the wrong way when he starts barking orders at everyone. Eugene comes up with the brainstorm to serve his sushi deconstructed and let the guests assemble it themselves, which all of his opponents think is insane.
The Old team goes first and their food goes over well, especially Jeff’s sorbet. The New team goes , but Eugene fails to explain how to put the food together and the guests are kind of confused. Borrowed has to wait on Ariane’s not-quite-done lamb and requires the help of the entire kitchen to get their food plated. And finally Blue sends out Fabio to charm the ladies, but they’re not impressed with his underseasoned seafood.
The judges decide that the Old and the Borrowed teams are their favorites, and the individual winner is Ariane. Jamie is really upset; she thought she deserved the win. That means the New and the Blue teams are in the bottom two. While the Blue team made some disastrous decisions, the New team’s food was bad in both conception and execution, according to Tom. But Daniel made a bad dish and he also added unnecessary mushrooms to Carla’s salad, so he is told to pack his knives and go.
The morning after the most recent elimination, Melissa contemplates her mortality in the competition. She interviews that she realized that she could go home and she knows now that she needs to step it up. Ariane, on the other hand, is feeling good after winning the last Elimination Challenge, especially since she's older than all of her competitors. Around breakfast, Jamie shows off her stuffed animal (I think it's a puppy? Or possibly an elephant?) and reveals that Stefan fashioned some little pants for it out of a dish towel. Stefan is like Bob from Survivor with the using found materials to fashion crafts and whatnot. Jamie interviews that Stefan is cocky, but he also makes her presents and has a huge crush on her. She doesn't seem too bothered by it. Stefan interviews that he thinks Jamie is sexy and he loves her. Jamie reminds him, in an interview, that she is, in fact, a lesbian. Stefan is just cocky enough that he probably thinks he can overcome that.
Quickfire Challenge. The cheftestants walk into the kitchen and find Padma alone, with no guest judge. She explains that they're going to play "Identify That Ingredient" in order to test their palates. Jamie interviews that she thinks she has an awesome palate, and while she has come close to winning some Quickfires, she hasn't yet. And she'd really like to. I admire Jamie's confidence, but we haven't really seen if she has the goods to back it up. She's always talking about how she should win, and how great she is, and yet...she doesn't win. The cheftestants draw knives and notice that they end up getting paired up. Stefan is pleased that he gets paired up with his fake-girlfriend Jamie. Once everyone is paired, Padma explains that they will enter the kitchen and taste a sauce. Then they will bid against each other, Name That Tune style, as to who can name the most ingredients in the sauce. The winner of each round will move on, bracket-style.
First round is Hosea vs. Daniel. Daniel interviews that he feels like a winner today, and the immediately loses the coin toss to see who goes first. Hee! They both taste the shrimp and lobster bouillabaisse, and then Hosea claims that he can name four ingredients. Daniel think he can do the same, so Padma has to explain that he needs to go at least one higher. Daniel instead challenges Hosea to name those four ingredients. Hosea rattles off onion, shrimp, lemon, and carrot and moves on to the round.
Jeff and Ariane are up . Jeff ends up having to name six ingredients. He gets fennel and salt but then loses out on crab, so Ariane moves on. She interviews that the soup has thirty ingredients, so really, naming six shouldn't be THAT hard. Except that Jeff chose the wrong shellfish. Jamie and Stefan face off. Jamie interviews that Stefan is an asshole and a button-pusher, but she knows that's his role on the show. That was kind of meta, no? Anyway, Stefan has to name five ingredients, and he names salt, lemon, pepper, lobster, and olive oil. He's right and he moves on, calling it an ass whipping. Eugene and Leah face off. Eugene claims he can name four, but he guesses fish sauce, which is wrong. He heads off to the Stew Room, where he greets the other losers. I think I enjoy Quickfire Challenges more because since no one gets eliminated, the cheftestants tend to have a little more fun with them. The person to make it through the first round is Radhika, who names three ingredients to beat Fabio. Carla claims that she can think of an ingredient and taste it IN HER MIND, because she is awesome. She names three ingredients to take Melissa out.
On to Round Two, where they have to taste Thai Green Curry. Hosea takes out Ariane by naming coconut milk, sugar, Thai basil, ginger, salt, pepper, and Thai chili. Pretty impressive. Stefan and Leah go head-to-head and Stefan tries to play mind games. He ends up naming eight ingredients easily and eliminating her. Leah interviews that Stefan is an asshole and she's pissed that she lost to him. Radhika tells Carla that she can name seven ingredients, but she gets one wrong. She's embarrassed because she feels like her palate is better than that.
In the final round, Hosea, Stefan, and Carla are left. They'll each taste the sauce, which is a Mexican mole sauce, and then take turns naming ingredients like it's a spelling bee. Carla goes first and says peanut butter, which is wrong. I guess she couldn't taste that one in her mind. Stefan and Hosea each name three ingredients correctly, but then Stefan says "tomato paste," which is wrong. Stefan has to name something correctly, and he says "vegetable oil," so he wins. He gets immunity from elimination. Hosea interviews that it was fun to beat Stefan, since he has a huge ego, and Hosea "out-palated him." That's true -- this wasn't a judged competition, so the loser can't even claim that the judges had it in for him.
Elimination Challenge. The cheftestants draw knives and notice that they are each getting words on their knives: "Old, New, Borrowed, Blue." Ariane interviews that, since she's married, she knows the saying about weddings that fits with those words. Really? You have to be married to know that one? Sometimes Ariane seems like she digs her role as old lady/den mother/cougar a little too much. Radhika was really hoping she wouldn't be on Stefan's team -- she would rather be on Satan's team. Luckily, she's not on his team. Stefan's. She might be on Satan's team. It's too soon to tell. The teams gather together and learn that they have to cook food that fits with their assigned theme.
Padma informs the groups that she's throwing a bridal shower for a friend and they'll be doing the cooking. And in walks...Gail! It's her shower. Daniel looks way too excited about Gail being there. He's all shiny and grinning and it's creeping me out a bit. Gail explains that her friends are all good eaters, who know food. Jamie interviews that she doesn't know anything about bridal showers, like they're any different from any other type of luncheon. Except there's gifts. Jamie also thinks "women are picky." For someone who loves women, Jamie doesn't seem to LOVE women all that much. Gail says that she doesn't love veal or black beans, but she's open to whatever food, and she thinks that the cheftestants will want to impress the guests, many of whom will be her colleagues at Food & Wine magazine.
The "Something Borrowed" team is Ariane, Radhika, and Jamie. Jamie immediately suggests that they should make Indian-inspired food and claim that the recipes were borrowed from Radhika's mother. Radhika interviews that she's still worried about being known as the chef who can only cook Indian food, and while her mother cooked Indian every day, Radhika wants to take those flavors and express them in a different way. We don't see Radhika telling any of this to Jamie, so apparently they are just going with Indian full stop.
The "Something Blue" team is Melissa, Leah, and Fabio. Have I mentioned that Melissa is wearing a stupid green trucker hat backwards and slightly sideways? And how much that hat just makes me kind of hate her? I get if she's having a bad hair day or whatever, but...ugh. That hat. They try to figure out how to make something blue, which Fabio thinks is the hardest theme. Fabio suggests some sort of ocean fish, since the ocean is blue. No one else has anything, so they go with that.
The "Something New" team is Daniel, Carla, and Eugene. Daniel's first suggestion is that they pickle something. Because Gail likes it. What? And also, how is that new? Carla asks just that, and gets no answer. Eugene suggests sushi, and comes up with a "surf and turf sushi roll," which would have shrimp inside and seared filet mignon on top. Which doesn't really seem like it qualifies as sushi, and also totally seems like something you would find in Las Vegas. And guess where Eugene is from? Carla interviews that she wasn't too sure about the whole sushi thing, because she doesn't understand how it fits the theme. Eugene asks if they are both comfortable with this idea, and Daniel says he really is, and Carla doesn't say much, but she also doesn't speak up. I guess she's thinking that if you don't have anything better, she should go with what someone else said.
The "Something Old" team is Jeff, Hosea, and Stefan. They immediately decide to use heirloom tomatoes to go with the "old" theme (not to mention that when this was filmed, those were probably totally in season and delicious!). They're planning on each making their own dish to fit the theme. Jeff wants to make a tomato Carpaccio and a tomato sorbet. Stefan immediately shoots down the idea of a sorbet, because he's catered, and he thinks it will be a disaster. He might be right, but he's also kind of being an ass about it. Jeff interviews that working with Stefan on a team will always cause issues. Stefan interviews that he knows what works and what doesn't, and Jeff has no clue. They bicker about it for a while, and finally Jeff says that if his sorbet melts, he'll be the one going home. So apparently that's enough for Stefan and they move on.
Planning is over, and the teams head to Whole Foods, where they have thirty minutes and $800 for shopping. Fabio picks out some sea bass, even smelling it to make sure that it isn't off in any way. The "Something New" team is just a mess. Eugene is running around looking for rice, Daniel is eating peach sorbet samples, and Carla is wandering around yelling, "Hootie?" She explains in an interview that she and her husband yell out "Hootie Hoo!" in the manner of "Marco Polo" in order to find each other in crowded situations. Which is cute and all, but why would she think anyone but her husband would respond to that? I think the editors just love her, because she always has something weird to say in interviews. Meanwhile, Eugene and Danny are picking out ingredients with Eugene taking the lead, because Danny is suddenly really unsure of himself, especially when it comes to sushi. The "Something Old" team picks out their tomatoes, and Stefan starts barking out orders and telling them what to do and which tomatoes to get and whatnot. Stefan interviews that Hosea has immunity, so he doesn't trust him. Stefan is looking out for himself only. That doesn't really explain why he was ordering his teammates to pick certain tomatoes, except that he just loves telling people what to do.
Back in the kitchen, the cheftestants have two and a half hours to prep. Jamie explains the "Something Borrowed" team's menu: Eastern spiced lamb marinated in yogurt, vadouvan carrot puree, wilted kale, and cucumber raita. Radhika explains that she's making the marinade for the lamb as well as the raita, both of which she's made a million times. Ariane is cooking the lamb.
The "Something New" team is making surf & turf sushi roll (Eugene), frisee salad in a won ton bowl (Carla), peach-miso BBQ sauce (Danny), and a yuzu sorbet (Carla, I think). What is the BBQ sauce for? The sushi roll? I don't even understand why that's on the menu. Also, that's all Danny is doing: making sauce. That hardly seems fair. Eugene is using a digital rice cooker to make rice. The timer goes off and he decides to leave the rice in there.
The "Something Blue" team is making Chilean sea bass (Fabio), roasted corn puree (Leah), and Swiss chard (Melissa). It seems a bit simple compared to some of the other menus. Like, what is Melissa doing to the Swiss chard? That's not even a dish, really. Fabio interviews that they will be feeding well-educated women with great palates tomorrow, so it's scary.
The "Something Old" team is making a tomato terrine wrapped in eggplant (Stefan), Carpaccio with tomato sorbet (Jeff), and gazpacho (Hosea). Hosea admits that he's taking a backseat because he has immunity and he doesn't feel right about ordering people around when he's not the one who'll be getting eliminated.
Eugene realizes that his rice is too sticky. He blames the rice cooker but I have to wonder a little bit about his decision to leave the rice in the cooker for God knows how long after it was done -- seems like that could cause sticky rice. Colicchio shows up and starts talking to "Something Blue." Colicchio claims there's no blue food, and even blueberries are actually purple. Fabio says that the deep sea is blue, so that's how they came up with their theme, and Colicchio goes with it. , he goes over to "Something Borrowed" and Jamie explains how they are borrowing culture as well as one of Jamie's secret ingredients that she brought with her. Ariane interviews that lamb is her contribution and she might have to stand to the oven and watch it cook to make sure nothing goes wrong.
Colicchio heads over to "Something New," who explain about their sushi roll concept. Colicchio looks dubious. He tells them they're balancing a lot of different elements, and Eugene claims that it will give the diners a new insight on sushi. Coliccio's still not buying it, but he's going to let them hang themselves, I guess. Finally, he heads to "Something Old," where the guys tell him about their three tomato dishes. He finds out that Stefan's been married twice to the same woman, and they're now divorced again. Stefan is kind of fascinating. I wouldn't want to hang out with him, but I'd love to hear more about his story. Colicchio gives his overview of the teams to the camera. He thinks Blue's dishes seem boring and New's food is a little too out there, which could be spectacular or terrible. Eugene explains that he's had failed rice many times, and he's learned to rescue it with flavors and texture. I've never been able to rescue rice, but I'm not a trained chef. Melissa worries that her team's dishes lack pizzazz. Perhaps they should present it while wearing bowler hats and making spirit fingers?
Back at the apartment, Eugene suggests to his teammates that they present their food by having the diners build their own sushi roll. That's an interesting idea, but I think you have to explain to people how to do it, which might take too much time. And also, at a fancy luncheon, people don't want to get their fingers all sticky and such. Eugene thinks it's a new style so it fits their theme. Stefan expresses doubt and Eugene gets all defensive and starts yelling at him and tells him not to worry about their dish, because it's none of his beeswax.
Weird Interstitial. Stefan hits on Jamie and tries to convince her to kiss him. Jamie just laughs at him and refuses to do so. For some reason, Carla is all up in the middle of the discussion as well.
The day, everyone is up bright and early. Leah and Hosea are playing cards and flirting. Hosea interviews that they flirt, but they both have significant others back home, and they're just friends. I don't know if Leah knows that they're just friends. She seems kind of into him. Fabio interviews that he got married two years ago, and he cooked for his wife's bridal shower. He knows how important bridal showers are for women. Really? Because my bridal shower was nice and all but it's not like it was the highlight of the season or anything. Ariane is also married (don't know if you knew that) and she wants to make it special for Gail. They're all acting like this is Gail's actual bridal shower, and not some fake-y bridal shower cooked up for the show. Like she's not having another real shower catered by real chefs. Please.
The cheftestants arrive at the locale. Radhika is overwhelmed by the beautiful ambience and worries that their food won't match up. "Something Old" is going first. Hosea interviews that they have to make the first impression. He just hopes that the guests finish eating their food and think that it couldn't get any better. Colicchio shows up in the kitchen and says that he wasn't allowed in the shower, so they stuck him in the kitchen. Aw, poor Tom. Fabio interviews that having Colicchio there while he cooks is like if he were a priest and the Pope was in the room. Stefan doesn't think Jeff's sorbet is going to go over well because it's "not sexy." Hosea's hands are shaking badly as he carries some plates out, but he manages not to spill anything. Once the ladies are all served, Padma introduces the guest judge, the editor-in-chief of Food & Wine magazine, Dana Cowin. Jeff explains his dish first, and even the beauty shot looks pretty gross. Stefan's dish doesn't look much better. Hosea's gazpacho looks okay, I guess. That's just a lot of tomato on one plate. There are positive comments all around, although someone says the terrine was a little bland. Poor Colicchio has to eat all by himself back in the kitchen. He wolfs down all three dishes. He practically licks the plate.
"Something New" will be the team to serve. Eugene thinks they have a unique dish, and a unique presentation. He tries to equate the choice of what to put in your sushi to Gail's choice of getting along with her new in-laws? That's a bit of a stretch. Danny cuts up some shitake mushrooms to put in the bottom of Carla's salad. The problem is, he didn't clear this with Carla first. Why would you want a pile of mushrooms at the bottom of the bowl? It would look like a pile of poop. While they are plating, Carla notices Danny putting the mushrooms in the salad, but apparently she doesn't say anything to him about it. Hosea interviews that he thinks they have too much on each plate. When we see the plates, there are little dabs and dots all over the plate, and then a ton of components of the sushi. Danny interviews that he thinks the sheer number of components makes their plate new. They finally take the dishes out and set them down. Eugene explains that all their sushi ingredients are cooked, because sushi doesn't have to be raw. But then no one explains the whole thing about rolling your own sushi. The diners start holding up various parts and asking what to do with that. Gail complains that the shrimp was cold and tasted bad. They all agree that they hope Gail's marriage is better than this dish. Ouch.
Now we go to "Team Borrowed." Jamie really wants to win this one. Are they going to start every competition from now on with Jamie explaining how much she wants to win it? Ariane tries to figure out when her lamb needs to go in the oven, but she has some math issues. Radhika is a little concerned since Ariane hasn't always been at the top of the pack. Ariane checks the temperature on her lamb, and it's not quite ready. Jamie gets all stern and asks when it will be ready. So now they have to wait to plate the food. Hosea and Jeff recommend that they wait a minute or two so their lamb won't be rare. The lamb finishes and they start an assembly line to plate the food. All the cheftestants pitch in, which is actually really nice, because they don't have to do that. And they could also sabotage, but they don't. Jamie explains their borrowed culture theme to the guests. The guests agree that the lamb is delicious and cooked perfectly. They have no complaints. Gail is really happy with the dishes.
The fourth course is set to be served by "Something Blue." Leah interviews that she thought Fabio's fish needed a little more seasoning, but she trusts him. Jamie interviews that their food looked boring. It really does. It's a hunk of fish sitting in a yellow puddle. Not the most appetizing look. Leah interviews that they decided to have Fabio talk to the women, because he's so charming with his accent. So of course, Fabio charms the pants off them, even though he's spouting nonsense about how green and yellow make blue (they don't - - blue and yellow make green and blue's a primary color, which I learned from a record I had as a kid about red and yellow beans making orange beans). Gail thinks it tasted like "old people food" and Dana Cowin wishes the food were a little more challenging, which is a nice way of saying it was bland. Colicchio congratulates all the cheftestants for their work. Meanwhile, Gail thanks all of her guests for showing up. This is why they had to extend the episode fifteen minutes? So we could see Gail getting all sappy?
The cheftestants head into the Stew Room to wait. Padma comes in and asks for "Something Old" and "Something Borrowed" to head out for Judges' Table. Padma immediately tells them that they are both the favorites. Colicchio compliments Jeff's sorbet. Stefan glowers at Jeff. Or at Colicchio. He glowers at someone. Gail liked Jamie's carrot puree, and they all have nice things to say about Ariane's lamb. Dana Cowin gets to announce the winner, and she says this person made "the most flavorful component of the evening." While they pause, Jamie whispers that she really wants this win. Too bad, Jamie! The winner is Ariane! Even Ariane is like, "Me?" Seriously. I mean, she didn't even make the marinade for her lamb, and they're giving her the win because of her flavors? That's bullshit. Especially after they had such nice things to say about Jamie's dish, which it seems like she created on her own. Anyway, Ariane wins a knife set and they are told to send in the other two teams. Jamie interviews that she's bummed because "none of us expected anyone but [Jamie] to win," which sounds really arrogant, but maybe it's just honest? I don't know.
The "Something New" and "Something Blue" teams head to Judges' Table. Gail didn't understand the "New" dish at all. Eugene says that he should have explained how to assemble the dish. He also cops to making the sticky rice, but he wanted to use it instead of waste it. Dana says his tactics didn't camouflage the crappy rice. Carla and Eugene admit that they weren't happy with the dish that their team put out, but Daniel claims that he was. Colicchio lists all the things that were wrong with that dish, and can't believe Danny thought it was good. Padma asks about the mushrooms at the bottom of the salad, and Danny admits that he did it. Padma thought Carla did the salad, and Carla says she did, but she didn't know about the mushrooms, and she didn't taste them. Danny says he did, and he thought they tasted fine. Colicchio, using his very serious "Are you fucking kidding me with this?" face, says that the mushrooms were bad and asks Danny again if he was happy with their dish. Danny still says he is, because he apparently can't take a fucking hint.
So now on to "Something Blue." Leah thought they were creative in coming up with food that fit their theme. Gail explains that flavor-wise, the food was fine, but it lacked texture, and people were calling it "nursing home food." Colicchio says it was blue because it made him sad. It seemed too bland and safe. Fabio can't believe that they think cooking fish perfectly for forty people is safe, but Padma and Tom both think Chilean sea bass is a forgiving fish. Fabio knows that he should shut up, and does. Padma sends the children away so that the grown-ups can have a conversation. Eugene goes back in the Stew Room and says he's going to pull down his pants to show them that he just got ripped a new asshole. I don't know if he did so much as Danny, but whatever.
The judges can't believe that the Blue team would be proud of their mushy dish. But their sins pale in comparison to those of the New team, and Dana points out that each person on the team made "individual, catastrophic mistakes." Padma thinks Carla's salad was the only slightly good dish. Gail thought Carla was holding back her opinions so as not to rock the boat, but Dana and Padma thought she should have spoken up. Dana points out that Danny was basically made of fail. He ruined just about every dish he touched, and they were all baffled about his defense of the mushrooms. They also can't believe that Eugene tried to salvage bad rice, and they question his judgment.
They call back the two losing teams. Colicchio tells Team Blue that their boring food won't win the competition, and in fact, it will send them home. But not today. They are excused. Colicchio tells Team New that they failed in both conception and execution. Eugene overcooked both the rice and shrimp. Carla knew when things were going wrong, but she didn't speak up. Daniel still doesn't think their dish was bad, and his contributions made things worse. Colicchio would love to send all three of them home, but they can only pick one, and it's Daniel. Daniel heads back to the Stew Room and hugs everyone, and people seem genuinely sad to see the big goofball leave.
Okay, I have to transcribe Daniel's parting words, because they are both hilarious and tragic: "I was very upset they eliminated me. I don't think I shoulda been eliminated at all. I don't think the judges got, really, what I was doing. I think if I woulda thrown people under the bus, I woulda been here longer. I do feel like they made the wrong decision, but there's nothing I can do. It's out of my hands. You know, there's wrong decisions in football games, you know what I mean? Barry Sanders runs the ball. The guy grabs the back of his jersey. The ref didn't see it, but all the fans saw it. So everybody's booing, you know what I mean? The ref makes the final call, so there's nothing you can do." Okay, so in this scenario, Daniel is Barry Sanders? One of the greatest running backs of all time? And who is the guy grabbing his jersey? Eugene? Carla? Himself, in some sort of dual role? And presumably the refs are the judges, and the fans are the viewers. Does he think there will be some sort of mass uprising over his elimination? I will miss Danny and his weird facial hair, but he is dumb.
Kim plots world domination, one domain at a time, at her blog Fresh Hell. You can contact her at reedkim@gmail.com.
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