I am by no means a PETA member; I enjoy eating animals a lot, and while I can get behind more humane treatment of said animals while they are living and in how they are slaughtered, I like to eat burgers and steaks and chicken salad and crab crakes, and I understand what has to happen for those foods to make it in my mouth-hole. I say that because...the crab-killing footage is kind of disturbing. Crabs are chopped in half while still alive. People are removing the shells while the crab is still alive. People are dumping the crabs into boiling water while still alive. People are putting trays of live crabs into the oven. I get that these are all legitimate ways to prepare crab (I guess), but I just wasn't emotionally prepared for Crab Death Watch 3000 during my reality cooking show. What's , they have to do that thing where you kill a chicken by swinging it around by the neck? And the editors seem to miss no opportunity to point out to us that the crabs are still alive, for example, when going into the oven, by showing one little crab waving its claw around like, "Um, could someone turn on the AC?"
Ed and Angelo are both making Asian-inspired dishes. Angelo immediately assumes that Ed is trying to fuck with him, because it's not possible for someone to independently decide to make something Asian. Any time anyone adds lemongrass to their dish, they are fucking with Angelo! Andrea explains that she's used to cooking stone crabs, which are bigger and thus easier to get the meat. Tamesha doesn't know how to pick the meat from crabs, because she was once allergic. I'm starting to think she has no culinary training and only knows how to cook things she made growing up. Last week, she talked about making baby food for her brother, and this week, she's never made crab because she was allergic at one point. How do you outgrow that, by the way? I guess it's possible. Anyway, Angelo gives her a quick tutorial and she's off to cook.
Kenny is very sweaty. I don't know if he's just a person that sweats more than normal or if, because his head is shaved, it just shows up more and he has no hair to soak it up. It kind of makes me never want to eat his food, though. Maybe he should wrap his head in a towel of some sort. He's planning on making a tasting plate with three components, because he is the speed demon and can cook three times as fast as anyone else.
Kevin is making a chowder that apparently involves stabbing the crabs to death first. He explains how being on the bottom last week really hurt him, and how he's there for his family. Again, standard reality show fare. Amanda is making something that sounds very chef-y, and based on what we've seen from her, I kind of doubt she has the technical ability to do so. It's like she's seen other people make it, so she figures she can do it too, or something. She also has an open, bleeding cut on her knuckle so I will add her to the list of chefs whose food I wouldn't eat because gross. Tim is cleaning the crabs like a pro, because I don't know if you know this, but he grew up in Maryland. He denigrates the others who are making dishes that are "dressed all up in Asian influence" since he's going for a clean crab dish. And...time's up!
Padma and Patrick get ready to judge, and they start out with Tiffany, who made a hot and sour crab soup, arbol chiles, and spaghetti leeks. Ed made jumbo lump crab with Thai basil, mango and cucumber salad. Patrick asks if it's Thai-inspired (what gave that away, the name of one of the INGREDIENTS?) and Tim looks all judgmental because he ain't having that Asian shit with his crab because he's from Maryland! Angelo made something pretentious. Okay, it's blue crab broth infused with lemongrass and ginger.
Tim the purist made beer steamed crabs with avocado, passion fruit, and heirloom vinaigrette. I'm so sure his grandmother used avocado and passion fruit in her Sunday crab meals. Because those are native to Maryland, right? Stephen made crab salad in sweet bell peppers with brandy basil dressing. I think Stephen needs to work on his presentation, because even with the colorful bell peppers, his plate looks kind of gray somehow. And wilty. Tamesha made crab chowder with lemongrass, ginger, cardamom, and coconut milk. So she basically made Angelo's dish in chowder form? I see why he's her mentor.
Amanda made crab salad with sauterne, ginger, and juniper gelee. I'm going to admit that I don't even understand half of the words in her dish, and she probably doesn't either. Padma says, "Wow," and Amanda asks for clarification, so Padma says, "It's pungent." That doesn't sound good. She basically said that Amanda's dish stinks. Kevin made blue crab chowder with potato, celery, and espelette oil, and frozen bacon crumble. I wonder why he froze the bacon? What does that do? Isn't bacon pretty crisp already? Or does it do something to the flavor? Mystified.
Andrea made warm crab salad, citrus gastrique, and Mexican red chiles. She doesn't feel great about her dish, because while the flavors are good, she thinks she did too much. Kenny, Master Overkill (hey remember Urge Overkill? What ever happened to them? Sorry, random '90s flashback due to watching Reality Bites on HBO the other day and I have so much to say about that, but I know, stick it in a blog), made crab three ways: Korean crab bisque, crab bruschetta, and warm crab with sesame and mango cream chile aioli.
Patrick (who totally reminds me of Dick Van Dyke, I just realized, sort of crossed with his brother Jerry, who you may remember from Coach) announces that his least favorite dishes belonged to Andrea (heavy potatoes overwhelmed the crab flavor), Amanda (out of balance), and Kevin (confused, and lack of crab flavor). His favorite dishes belonged to Ed (brought out natural crab flavor), Kenny, and Angelo (extremely delicate and showed off crab). Tim looks confused, since all of the finalists had Asian-inspired dishes. Heh. The winner is...Ed! He interviews that he's "coming out of [his] shell" and hopes to keep going. Aw, I just realized he (intentionally or not) made a crab pun. Tim interviews that he was wrong about the Asian influence thing, and should have put some soy sauce in his dish. If he thinks that adding soy sauce makes something Asian, I get why he's not doing so well in the challenges.
Elimination Challenge: The cheftestants will travel to Ayrshire Farms and create a meal for forty local chefs and farmers, and they have to work as one team. They'll be putting out a minimum of six dishes. This is the part I missed before; I thought they were restricted to six dishes total. They won't know the ingredients or equipment before they arrive at the farm, but come on. Can't they kind of figure out what will be available in Maryland in whatever month it is? They each have to be responsible for at least one thing on the table. So how is this a team challenge? They can pair up if they want, but they don't have to. They just have to make sure all of their dishes go together, and since they're all from the same farm, they probably do.
So the chefs all gather at their townhouse to figure out how this is going to work and you KNOW this isn't going to go well. Angelo starts babbling about something and then Kenny speaks up and suggests that they pull names for partners and pull names for a course. I agree on the latter, but not the former; let people cook with whomever they want. So Kenny and Angelo stand up and start arguing and no one else can get a word in edgewise. I enjoy the fact that Tim is standing there with Kenny and Angelo, trying to be part of the leadership, but really contributing nothing. He looks like a bodyguard or something. Kenny interviews that he wants to be "the alpha male presence" and the more Kenny talks, the less I like him. I want to like him, because I hate Angelo, and he hates Angelo, so we have something in common. But come on, dude. Cut the crap. Alex suggests having teams of four and everyone is like, "Hell, no" because they don't even want to do teams of two. Poor Stephen suggests a fresh fruit platter from the team as their dessert and not one person agrees with that idea. So at least they are united on something. Also, that was a terrible idea and he should go home, just for suggesting it. Can you imagine Colicchio's face if they put out a fruit platter as one of their dishes? So the arguing continues.
Kenny floats the idea of each pair doing their own protein, starch, and veg, and Amanda points out that it's really dumb to have six starches. I hate to say it, but she's right. Kenny wants this to be the same as the challenge, and it's not. Tim yells out that they need to check their egos at the door, and thanks Quincy Jones during the recording of "We Are the World," but how is that useful? Kelly points out that Angelo is getting weirdly aggressive and cracking his knuckles while Kenny is a better leader, since he is calm and cool. What she really means is that Angelo's a douche and Kenny is chill. Kenny suggests that they work with the same partners as the challenge. Ed's not down with that since A) he hates Alex and B) he wants to work with Tiffany. The problem is that everyone else is up for it. Ed tries to be diplomatic as he says, "I'm up for working with somebody else." He turns to Alex: "No offense, but I'm game for anything." Nice try, dude. Alex totally knows you hate him now, and as it turns out, no one has the balls to say that they don't want their partner, so Ed is stuck with Alex. AWKWARD.
So that's decided, and everyone looks exhausted. If you've ever been with a group of people trying to decide something, you know that feeling. Usually what happens with me is that I sit there and listen for a while, get progressively more annoyed, and then just tell people what to do. Sure, I get labeled things like "bossy" and "bitchy," but at least I don't have to sit there talking about it any more, and that's what's important. Anyway, they break out into their teams and discuss what to make. Tiffany is with Tim again. Tim thinks their team is awesome. Tiffany feels like she carried Tim on her back last time, and she is willing to do that again. Meanwhile, Ed wanted to work with her. It's not clear if Tiffany wanted to work with Ed or not. I'd like more evidence that this is a two-sided flirtation.
The morning, Tamesha says that she had a hard time with all the yelling and screaming the day, and she thinks that everyone should have acted more mature. She clearly has not watched this show before. Amanda reminds us that they don't know ingredients or equipment, so it's hard to plan. They pull up to the farms and find lots of meat and vegetables. People start grabbing food, and they have to barter for the different ingredients so they don't all end up making, for example, pork loin. As far as equipment goes, they have some grills and some hot plates and that's about it. They also have a "mobile pantry" with stuff from the kitchen like spices and oils and presumably grains and such. Then they have to fight for space on the tables. This seems exhausting and they haven't even started cooking yet.
Kevin and Kenny are paired again, and Kevin is lacking confidence since he's been in the bottom for the last few challenges. He and Kenny talk through what they're going to make and Kevin decides on a cauliflower couscous, which sounds really interesting. Andrea and Kelly are doing a pork loin dish; Andrea will cook the meat and sauce while Kelly does the sides. Andrea thinks it's super cold about, but based on the fact that none of them have jackets on, it can't be THAT cold. And given how hot and humid it is right now, I am jealous of the cold weather.
Amanda and Stephen, who I still can't believe won last week, are working on a soup and salad. Amanda is making a vegetable minestrone, but I guess she has to use boxed broth, which kind of makes the dish seem ridiculously easy. I mean, sauté some aromatics, pour in the broth, and then dump in some vegetables. How is that a dish worthy of this competition? I feel like anything I could make without a recipe shouldn't be on this show. And then Stephen is making a salad. A SALAD. Like chop up some veg and toss them in a bowl. Wow. Stephen also makes up a word: "forefrontrunner." Not sure why he had to add that extra prefix, but okay.
Kelly is concerned because Tim is using three different vegetables, and their produce is limited. She tries to finagle some food from him, either beets or turnips. He's reluctant, but finally agrees. So now he has turnips and asparagus. Ed asks him how he's going to cook the turnips, and Tim says he's going to roast them down. Tiffany interviews that Tim is having trouble figuring out his dish and she's trying to just let it go, and let him sink or swim. He had better come up with something a little more exciting than roast turnip. Again, it's a dish I could make without a recipe, and I don't consider myself that great of a cook.
Hey, Angelo hasn't been gross and inappropriate for a while! So that means it's time for him to be gross and inappropriate. First, he calls Tamesha's cherry compote "sexy," and then he describes how he prepared his duck: "I basically made love to [it]." Whatever you do, don't try Angelo's special sauce. I'm sorry. I had to go there. Alex talks about how awesome it is to cook outdoors while Angelo is busy sneezing (far away from the food, thankfully).
So then, while Tamesha is doing something, Kevin's bowl of cauliflower couscous falls off the table and onto the ground. I rewatched to see if Tamesha bumped it, and she really didn't. She was working on a totally different table, so she couldn't have even bumped the table to cause the fall. Kevin comes over and someone says that was all the cauliflower they had to use, so there goes his dish. Angelo proposes scooping it up off the ground, at least the parts that aren't touching the ground, and while I am a huge proponent of the three-second rule, I don't think that's a good idea. Because, bugs. Luckily, Kevin agrees with me and goes and finds broccoli. He admits that he's never made this dish with broccoli but he needs to take a chance.
Tamesha tells Andrea that her pork won't cook because the grills don't get that hot, and it's too windy. Kevin and Kenny agree. Andrea decides to cut her pork into smaller pieces to get it to cook in time, but she's still really unsure. Tim has a bunch of people tasting his turnip, and everyone has advice for him. He seems to forget that these people are his competition and don't really have a vested interest in him doing well. He decides, instead of making a mousseline (which would presumably involve mixing the whipped turnip with a white sauce) to just serve the chunks of roast turnip and call it country. That worked so well for Britney explaining why she was driving around with her baby in her lap, no? Amanda thinks her soup is really good. Andrea tries to get her pork on the grill, but it's really full with pots, so she's having trouble finding room. Kelly is making a dessert on top of her regular dish, even though she knows desserts are sure disaster on this show.
The farmers and chefs and judges arrive and are seated at a long table in the middle of a field. They are wearing jackets, so I guess it might be kind of chilly. No one is wearing gloves, though.
Weird interstitial. Kenny has a cashmere robe, and struts around the house like he's a pimp. Everyone gets a kick out of Kenny, and he has many nicknames: Black Daddy, Black Lightning, Black Angus, Sunshine, and Beast. And I think Kelly has a little crush on him.
Kenny interviews that he wants to win the challenge, especially since he didn't cook one of the main entrees. He thinks that will be even a greater victory. Ed reminds us that they are serving family style, so they just plop all of the dishes on the table instead of presenting each dish, one at a time. They are, however, judged one at a time, and here they are:
Amanda: Country vegetable minestrone with smoked tomato broth, which the judges find difficult because the vegetables aren't uniformly cooked, mostly because she cut them poorly. Patrick comments on "the rusticity," which I don't think is a word, and I definitely don't think is a compliment.
Stephen: Farm salad of balsamic onion, egg, apple, with a cabernet vinaigrette and garlic dressing. Padma finds it wet and heavy and Tom gets all worked up over the bruised lettuce. But seriously, you're making a salad, and you didn't have time to go through and pick out the best lettuce? What else did he do? Chop some apples and eggs? Is that really cooking? I could make that by visiting the salad bar at my local grocery store. And I would definitely pick out only the best lettuce.
Kenny: hot and sour curried eggplant with peppers and carrot tops served with Kevin's broccoli couscous with lemon zest. Padma calls it "lovely," but Patrick thinks the curry is too hot. Tom disagrees; he likes the heat. And someone points out that the couscous kind of cools off the heat, so it's a great pairing.
Tim: roasted turnips and asparagus with honey, which the judges find kind of blah. If you're going to make a dish that simple, it has to be perfect, or at least you have to add some interesting flavor combinations or SOMETHING. A sauce, an oil, one of the dreaded foams. Something. Tom: "The overall impression is it didn't make one."
Tiffany: collard greens with Swiss chard, turnip, and chanterelles in duck broth. The judges think they are undercooked, especially given Tiffany's Southern background.
Andrea: garlic and five-spice rubbed grilled pork loin with shallot-apple balsamic jus. The judges love it and also love Kelly's five-spice roasted apples and beets. They think the pork is cooked perfectly, as are the side dishes.
Angelo: ginger grilled duck breast with oregano honey, served with Tamesha's cherry compote, red wine balsamic vinaigrette, and grilled asparagus salad. The judges like the duck but think the asparagus was bland. Padma points out that the duck's seasoning are "a beautiful combination." I think Padma might be back on the marijuana.
Alex: Provencal beef tenderloin with ratatouille served with Ed's ratatouille with eggplant, summer squash, and tomato. It was kind of weirdly labeled but I assume Ed made the ratatouille in Alex's dish. The judges think the beef was good, but didn't really understand the pairing. Ripert especially doesn't get the point of stuffing the tenderloin, and Patrick brings up the fact that the French would stuff beef with a truffle. Ripert shoots back that ratatouille is hardly a truffle. Point to Ripert. Meanwhile, Alex makes a joke about how he's worried that his hair is messed up. It's funny, because he's bald! Get it! Ed just rubs his face like, "Why couldn't I have been paired with Tiffany like I wanted?" At least that's how I interpreted that gesture.
Kelly: For extra credit, Kelly made a strawberry-rhubarb crisp with basil scented whipped cream. The judges were impressed. Padma calls the whipped cream with basil and lemon zest "really nice." I feel like they are showing Padma talk about the food more than they used to. It could be because Ripert's accent is hard to understand, or maybe the guest judge this week didn't have much to say.
Stew Room. Everyone discusses what went well and what didn't. Ed has his arm "casually" on the back of Tiffany's chair. Tiffany is leaning forward so that none of his arm is touching her. I really don't think she's into him. Maybe I will be proven wrong. Tim thinks that all of their flavors worked well together and Andrea wishes her pork was cooked a little less. Ironic, since she was worried about it being cooked enough.
Padma enters and asks to see Kevin, Kenny, Andrea, and Kelly. Note that those were four of the bottom six last week. And guess what? This week, they are the top four! Just goes to show how effed up last week's challenge was structurally. Kevin gets to talk about his couscous first. He tells them the story of how his cauliflower couscous bit the dust and he had to scramble. Tom asks if they would rather have cooked a protein, and Kevin says that he enjoyed the challenge. Padma tells him that his dish was done perfectly.
Moving on to Kenny, he explains that he wanted to have eggplant that had flavor and heat, since it was cold outside. Padma liked it, and Tom adds that Padma is usually really tough on curries. Andrea talks about the process of cooking her pork loin, since it was so big and they didn't get much heat from the grills. Tom tells her that her sauce made the dish. Ripert talks about how well the two components worked together to make one dish. Kelly then gets props for the dessert, and Kelly gives credit to Andrea too, saying that she would have made it if she had spare time. But now it's time to reveal the winner, and it is Kenny with his sweet and sour curried eggplant. Tom adds that everything was good, but Kenny's stood out.
Now the judges want to see Tim, Amanda, and Stephen. Tim says that the bottom "never came to [his] mind" and "they can't be serious." I feel like Tim is often in the bottom and he's always surprised. I don't think he can cook as well as he imagines. He might want to check his ego at the door. I don't know what that means, but that's called a callback, because he said it earlier. Padma tells the three losers that eating good food in a beautiful setting made their food seem extra sucky. She's a little nicer about it, but not much. Tim talks about how he ditched the idea of the mousseline, and Ripert points out that the vegetables were cut so small that you couldn't taste the turnip, and it was bland. Tom asks where the asparagus came from, and Tim says that he added it in for some color. Tom tells him that seems very last-minute, so it obviously wasn't a very thought-out dish. Tim has to grant that. To his credit, he doesn't bring up how Kelly stole his beets.
Stephen is up to answer for his salad. Patrick says that serving salad in a bowl is horrible, because a plate allows the diner to toss it as he or she eats it. That is a good point. Patrick adds that the dressing was "gloppy" (what is with the made-up words this week?) and didn't work. Stephen says that he made two different dressings and tried to incorporate texture with apples. Tom says that a big slice of apple doesn't do that, and he should have diced them and scattered them throughout. Stephen's face is like, "Oh, shit. I totally should have done that."
Ripert asks Amanda what minestrone means to her. She says hers had beans, pancetta, Parmesan rind, and vegetables. Ripert points out that it should have pasta too. Amanda stands there with her mouth open for a while and then says that she didn't use pasta. Which we know. Duh. Tom reminds her that the vegetables need to be cut uniformly so they cook evenly, and she has no response to that either. Padma says that her dish "felt amateurish" and Patrick says it was "grandmotherly" and "didn't quite have the polish that you might expect from a chef." Whew. That was tough. Good. I hope Amanda goes home.
Back in the Stew Room, Amanda tells how it hurt to hear the criticism. The judges discuss their options. Tom thinks that Stephen's dish was jumbled up, and the number of ingredients was fine if you could taste each ingredient, but you couldn't. Ripert thinks Stephen had too much time so he was trying to incorporate every technique that he knows. Padma concludes, "Overthought and overdressed." Back in the Stew Room, Stephen makes fun of himself for putting so much into a stupid salad, but even more disturbing is in the background, where Angelo is counseling Tamesha. About what? They are creepy.
Padma moves on to talk about Tim's turnips. Tom thinks that he planned to puree them, so he cut them small, but then changed his mind and was stuck with those finely-cut vegetables, which didn't help. Ripert points out that three hours is a long time to cook to end up with such a simple dish.
Moving on to discuss Amanda's soup, Tom is concerned that Amanda apparently didn't even think about how the vegetables would cook, and Ripert is stuck on the fact that she called it a minestrone when it wasn't. Back in the Stew Room, Amanda says that she was so concerned about developing the flavors that she didn't pay attention while cutting, and calls herself "a fucking dummy." No argument here.
The three cheftestants are called back to find out who's going home. Tom says that there is a cause and effect when cooking, and all three of them are there because of that. Amanda didn't think about the effects of sloppily cut vegetables, Stephen went overboard with his salad, and Tim made a change midstream that ruined his dish. So who's going home? Padma pauses and tells Tim to pack his knives and go. Tim interviews that he's disappointed because he went out on such a lame effort. He advises his fellow cheftestants to season their food. Well, that's good advice. Tim also thinks that these people are lifelong friends. Hope he comes to the reunion and they ask him how many of the people he's actually hung out with since he left the show. I'm going to say...two, maybe three.
Watch scenes from the episode here, then see who we think will win!
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