Top Chef Season Seven

[Abagadro]

Prediction: Neither Kenny nor Angelo wins this season.

[Khaldun]

That seems very possible. Kenny is clearly technically skilled but he honestly does seem to think that the more shit he puts on the plate, the better it is. It's like a kid who is told to write a 8-pg. paper and thinks that if it's 20 pages, it's automatically better.

Even before the "peagate" episode, I was pretty much done with the season. It's a talentless and listless group of people. None of them actually seems to even like food: I have no sense of what they like or why they like it. Most of them bitch about every little thing: they don't like to make cold food, they don't like grilling, they don't like toothpicks, they don't like swordfish, they can't make a pie. I've scarcely seen anything in the competition that I'd really want to eat or anything I'd want to cook, which even the weaker seasons have had. Most of the competition set-ups have been actively stupid or jury-rigged (switching people in the middle of the exotic foods quickfire was just stupid).

And then the pea thing. Seriously, assholes? You're going to pretend that the producers don't know full well what happened, with cameras up the ass of every contestant? If that guy made a puree himself, he didn't do it automagically in ten minutes during the second cooking session: if you just stick peas in a blender with some broth, you don't get a yummy pea puree, I guarantee you. So either there's footage of him doing the prep or there isn't. If there isn't, he took it. If he took it, kick his ass off the show. Otherwise, let's just go full douchebag and have some of the chefs walk around naked and fight for the immunity idol and urinate in each other's food and so on. At which point I might as well be watching Gordon Ramsey scream at some fuckwit line cook who doesn't know how to burn toast. Colicchio is nattering on at his blog about how they'll never know the truth and it didn't really hurt the competition that week and Alex will just have to feel the horrible secret shame of it if he did it and in the meantime the cockbag producers are all capering about saying how 'peagate' makes the show so exciting and controversial and fun. Over and out for me this season.

[Paelos]

if you just stick peas in a blender with some broth, you don't get a yummy pea puree, I guarantee you.

Very true. I tried this once with some  results. The reality was you have to puree the peas, pass the whole thing through a strainer to dump the skins that make the whole thing gross, and then add a bunch of seasonings, cream or butter.

[HaemishM]

Yeah, the peagate thing was ultra retarded. I'm not sure why the producers don't allow the cameras to shitcan anyone for out and out cheating. Hell, they kicked a guy off for trying to shave Marcel's head in season 2, why the fuck shouldn't outright cheating be penalized in the same fashion?

[Khaldun]

Because the producers this season seem to think they need bullshit Hell's Kitchen style drama editing to get viewers. I'm sure they're in ecstacy about how many people are pissed off about that episode--that was probably what they were trying for. This week they'll either reveal that they knew about it and were waiting to drop the boom or that Ed left his shit in the cooler. If it's the latter, though, it'll be the first time they *didn't* show that during the episode, presumably to manufacture more drama. I think they'd better watch it: this is the kind of shit that drives people away from a show. Not all publicity is good publicity, no matter what the cuntweasels in the culture industry think.

[Nebu]

Because the producers this season seem to think they need bullshit Hell's Kitchen style drama editing to get viewers. I'm sure they're in ecstacy about how many people are pissed off about that episode--that was probably what they were trying for. This week they'll either reveal that they knew about it and were waiting to drop the boom or that Ed left his shit in the cooler. If it's the latter, though, it'll be the first time they *didn't* show that during the episode, presumably to manufacture more drama. I think they'd better watch it: this is the kind of shit that drives people away from a show. Not all publicity is good publicity, no matter what the cuntweasels in the culture industry think.

This.  They must know whether the guy cheated or not.  They film fucking everything and have video evidence. 

If Top Chef becomes Drama Chef, I'm out.  Just cook, damnit. 

[schild]

If Top Chef becomes Drama Chef, I'm out.  Just cook, damnit.

Happened in Season 2. You still seem to be watching.

[Khaldun]

I didn't watch Season 2, actually. But also, this is coming after Season 6, featuring a mostly talented and likeable cast, some attractive food, and a relative minimum of over-the-top drama. What was so wrong with that to the point that the producers decided to switch to a different approach?  If it had gotten poor ratings, that would be one thing, but it was one of their most successful series in terms of popularity.

[Nebu]

Happened in Season 2. You still seem to be watching.

What can I say?  I'm a slut.

[Murgos]

Last season was so much better.  Maybe I am just remembering the main personalities but it seemed last year that if you had given them toothpicks they would have been all, "Fuck yeah!  I'm going to mkae the best goddamn toothpick appetizer you ever had even if I've never served shit on a toothpick in my life.  Also, I'm going to do it better than those other schmucks."

This years it's a lot of emo and there is what?  Two competitors and those competitors are going to compete themselves right out of the competition.

[HaemishM]

Last season had 4 legit competitors, two or three decent chefs and more also rans. This whole season seems like also-rans other than Kenny and Angelo, and I don't think either of them are in the class of last year's top 4. They are just like season 5, only there aren't any compelling, interesting people like Stefan and Fabio to watch, so it just seems like a bunch of whiny douches.

[Abagadro]

One down, one to go (they try to make it look like Angelo is next to go in the preview but that is almost always a fake-out). Alex or Amanda go down in some order the next two weeks.  I actually think Ed has the inside track right now.

[Der Helm]

Kevin Kenny is out ? Had no time to watch since "peagate".

Squeee!

edit: I am bad with names.

[Abagadro]

If by Kevin, you mean Kenny, then yes. If you mean Kevin, as in Kevin, then no.

[Sir T]

A true laywer's answer. 

[Der Helm]

If by Kevin, you mean Kenny, then yes. If you mean Kevin, as in Kevin, then no.

Can't wait to see him getting kicked from the show, though. Was there much drama ?

[Abagadro]

Some. Kevin went sorta bonkers in the "let them get drunk while we talk shit about them room".

[Der Helm]

Never liked him, I am rooting for Angelo  


edit:splleing

[Evildrider]

Alex is like an embarrassment to Top Chef.

[HaemishM]

I'm done. I'm completely uninterested in the rest of this season's contestants. They cook boring food, are annoying to watch and really don't interest me in the slightest. I might pick it back up if there's a next season, but it better not suck like this one.

[Khaldun]

Yup. Also hated Gordon Ramsey's new amateur-cook competition, which just to me seemed to completely miss the point. (Ramsey continues to talk to the contestants like they're people trying to save their business or get ahead in their profession: these are people who like to cook for their families and friends. Different narrative.)

Colicchio is being a total douche in defending this season at his Bravo Network blog for the show, too, which surprises me--just shows you that people only stay classy as long as the prevailing conditions allow them to, I guess.

[NiX]

Yeah, this season is a pretty big let down.

[Der Helm]

Alex is like an embarrassment to Top Chef.

I start to get the feeling that all is staged and rehearsed... no one is such a dick in real life (while being filmed for TV)


"What are you laughing at ?" 

[Fryderyk]

This is a great program i have seen all the shows of it.

[Drai]

Colicchio is being a total douche in defending this season at his Bravo Network blog for the show, too, which surprises me--just shows you that people only stay classy as long as the prevailing conditions allow them to, I guess.

That is surprising - I have not been reading his blog (tuned out this season after three or four epsiodes, but I did catch Restaurant Wars), but in the past Tom would call out the bullshit.  He is probably in coasting mode now though, after so many seasons. 

The post from him that stands out was the one he wrote after season five, in which he all but admitted that Hosea was shit, but he won because someone else always fucked up challenges just a little bit more than he did (like Stephan in the finale).  I think during that season he also called all the chefs together on air and told them to get their shit together since they were cooking so poorly.  Bummer that he isn't doing that anymore.

[schild]

Reminding you all that I called Angelo the winner before the first quickfire ended.

[Khaldun]

Colicchio's most recent blog pretty much acknowledges all the hate the season has gotten and doesn't really try to disagree any longer--but he does promise that the finale will have some good food in it.

Ed's restaurant Plein Sud recently gotten staggeringly raped by both the New York Times and the Village Voice--one of the most negative restaurant reviews I've ever seen from either of them.

I skipped the last few episodes but my wife and kid made me watch the last week's (with Tiffany's elimination). Food looked marginally better, but only just, and the cheftestants are as blech as ever. Angelo is a seriously weird motherfucker though. The spouse told me that he had a whole freakout thing going about his Russian mail-order bride or something like that, she couldn't tell if it was some kind of gay-hiding thing or if he was talking about some woman he had in a pit who gets the lotion or the hose or what.

[Abagadro]

The restaurant’s chef, Ed Cotton, has worked behind Cat Cora on the “Iron Chef” programs, and is a contestant on the current season of “Top Chef.” His food at Plein Sud, vaguely Provençal in inspiration, is camera ready, beautifully composed and ready for its close-up.

But in the full experience of real life, over a number of meals, whether at a crowded dinner or leisurely lunch, the cooking at Plein Sud reveals itself to be lacking in flavor, texture, temperature or interest: room-service fare that leads to increased loneliness, raiding of the minibar, sleepless hours staring at the television in blue light, thinking about home.

From the NYT review. Ouch.

[schild]

That's actually how Ed makes me feel. He's like a sad puppy that you don't want to take home, but rather, take out of his misery.

He's just pitiful.

[HaemishM]

That kind of describes this entire season.

[fuser]

The editing this season has been terrible. You have to read Colicchio's blog, watch the extended judges tables to get real answers.

[Evildrider]

Reminding you all that I called Angelo the winner before the first quickfire ended.

[fuser]

fuck this show

[Abagadro]

[Khaldun]

Winning by not failing.