Top Chef New York: Down On The Farm (Or, Chicks And Ducks And Geese Better Scurry)

Top Chef: New York
Episode: Down On The Farm (Or, Chicks And Ducks And Geese Better Scurry)
January 14, 2009

Previously on Top Chef: We were introduced to our new permanent judge, Baldy McQuipperton. Somehow, we managed to all keep our food down through his remarks. Jamie made scallops again and, having finally won a challenge with them, will hopefully retire them for a while. After we had to endure their presence for entirely too long, Melissa and Eugene were sent off to get a more acceptable hairdo and find space for a new tattoo, respectively.

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It's the morning after the last elimination and no one can really recall who got de-knifed last time, it seems. Well, Chef Leah, perhaps. But she doesn't wanna see anyone go so she and showmance buddy, Chef Hosea, can live eternally in the Eden that is a Brooklyn condo.

Over at the breakfast bar, it seems that Hosea has been chosen to sport this week's cross-promotional garment: An "I ♥ Gail Simmons And Wish She'd Come Back Now" t-shirt. (Order yours today!) And Chef Stefan gets to be douche-y to Hosea in what I suppose is Mandalorian. (It's hard to tell, what with the accent and all.)

Quickfire Challenge

The chefs arrive downstairs at the Corporate Kitchen to find Padma standing next to America's favorite bisexual, Vietnamese, monkey-owning sushi chef, Season Three winner, Hung Huynh. And, since the chefs are all aware of The Hung Chef's predeliction for seafood, they naturally assume that the large, cloth-shrouded structure behind the pair is an aquarium.

Which, of course, is just what the producers wanted them to think because, this challenge will be all about not using the freshest ingredients.

Ta da! (Padma does the Carol Merrill move and snaps away the cloth.) They'll have to make a delicious dish using canned, boxed and otherwise un-fresh items.

(Please note that since these items have not paid for the privilege of being dissed on national TV, we have spent the last 16 hours covering over all of the product names.)

Not enthused, Jamie flatly declares this challenge "awesome."

Aaaaand, since Hung is known for being very fast (much to his various partners' distress), the chefs will have only 15 minutes to complete this challenge.

Go!

Instantly, the chefs make a mad dash for the packaged goods and throw elbows and haymakers just for the right to claim a jar of artichokes.

Blocked by Chef Fabio from claiming the prize artichokes, Hosea decides instead to go for the Spam™. Chef Jamie and Chef Radhika declare themselves above ever using such crap. And Chef Jeff again decides to make a trio of something-er-other.

The key moment, however, comes when Stefan runs out of Spam™ and Hosea, his bitter rival, decides to be generous and let him have his remaining canned meat with nitrates.

Before you can say "Hormel Spiced Ham," Padma and the prick arrive and call time.

Judging

• Leah's made fried, crunchy waffles; Hung is not impressed.

• Stefan's baked bean Spam™ soup with a grilled cheese sandwich with Spam™ is a hit.

• Chef Fabio's made some roasted artichoke mac and cheese. Hung enjoys it.

• Radhika's made a dip of some sort with Tahini (which, for the record, is not Indian). And we have some yummy toast! Mm-mm!

• Hosea has a sweet pea soup with Spam™ and crispy onion rings; It is also a hit.

• Jeff with his usual tapas trio, shows us how he likes piña coladas (and getting caught in the rain).

• Jamie's made a "leave me alone, I don't give a shit" Bruschetta. No one cares, least of all its creator.

• Chef Ariane sliced some turkey Spam™ (then how is it still Spam™?), thrown it on some toast and called it lunch. (Hung's monkey is clearly disgusted with this.)

• Chef Carla made her "take" on an Asian salmon cake. It elicits no reaction.

After the tasting, Hung rules that Jamie's "I give up" Can O' Stuff On Toast, Leah's Leggo-My-(Fried)-Eggo and Radhika's "But It Wasn't Indian!" dip with toast were the least inspired. As for the favorites, those are Hosea's Spammy soup, Stefan's Spammy Spam and Jeff's UnSpam x3 are declared tops.

And the winner of immunity who will get the right to coast through the next challenge though making cigarette butts a L'orange is ... Stefan.

Hosea fumes (smokes?) that he shouldn't have given the evil Stefan the processed meat he needed to win.

Elimination Challenge

Out comes the knife block again. Padma says the chefs will be going "back to basics," and the drawing of the knives begins. The knives this time are each labeled "Pig," "Chicken" or "Lamb."

The teams will consist of ...

• Team Pig: Jeff, Fabio and Radhika.
  

• Team Chicken: Stefan, Jamie and Carla.

• Team Lamb: Ariane, Hosea and Leah.

Each team will have to create a "seasonal" meal, served family-style around their designated protein. Conflict arises immediately when Ariane realizes she will be the third wheel between lovebirds Hosea and Leah and when Jamie learns that she'll be forced to work with the immunity-bearing Stefan The Lesbian-Loving Finn/Californian/Frenchman/Czech.

Later, up at Casa Cuisine, the teams gather to decide upon their menus.

Team Jersey Baa's starts the proceedings by choosing to make a lamb roast. Hosea and Leah figure that since Ariane won a challenge by cooking lamb, she should be in charge of doing that this time.

Over in the den, Team Cluck You is having issues right away when Stefan babbles something in Globish about serving a whole roast chicken. This gets Jamie in a lather, which (as you'd expect from a prize-winning douchebag) only serves to turn Stefan on. Meanwhile, Carla is concerned that this "bad mojo" is disturbing her aura and she wonders how she'll be able to create good food with her Ch'i un-centered.

And on Team Oink-N-Wink, Fabio informs us that they have decided to forgo all Indian (Radhika), Italian (Fabio) and Alberto VO5 (Jeff) flavors in creating their pork "launch" offering.

At 11 that evening, Jamie has second thoughts about the menu and how Stefan's commandeering of it could sink her. So, she heads out to the balcony where The Mighty Finn (wearing a Soviet-logo'ed t-shirt which is actually getting right-wingers in a tizzy) is indulging his disgusting, filthy habit which you'd think would adversely effect his sense of taste. The two butt heads and, in that moment we saw in the coming attractions weeks ago, Jamie interprets some remark as Stefan calling her a "douchebag."

She storms off without resolving the issue. Stefan stays outside and contemplates his erection.

Before you know it, it's five in the morning and the chefs get ready to face the day. Overnight, though, Hosea had had some second thoughts about his team's menu thinking it lacks enough "seasonal" and "air quote" items. He and Leah team up and Ariane, odd Ma out, goes along with their new plan for roasting the lamb. With that, Ariane returns to the "what-ever" stance we saw in the first few episodes.

The SponsorMobiles speed off into the early morning darkness. And, since they've been told to appear surprised when they realize that the grocery store is  open before dawn, the chefs tell us they were surpised to find themselves zooming towards the upstate New York town of Ossining (Motto: We're A Gerund!).

Hours later, the chefs arrive at the bucolic setting of Blue Hill at Stone Barns, the farm/restaurant of noted chef and Rogaine spokesmodel Dan Barber.

Barber greets the contestants and introduces them to the team of farmers which provides his restaurant with the freshest ingredients possible. The challenge, he explains, will be to create their dishes using only items from his farm. They'll be serving the farmers, the chefs and the families of the farm-staurant workers.

The teams each head off to see the pretty little farm animals which someone else will (off-camera) kill and pluck/skin for them. It falls to Fabio to explain that though he's not a vegetarian, he still cares about the quality of life of the animals which will be his food.

Somewhere, PETA members throw vegan shoes at the screen and go off to tend to the "sea kittens" they have rescued from the local seafood restaurant.

Wandering the vegetable fields, Jeff spies some green tomatoes on the ground. He quickly picks them up, now inspired to prepare the fried green tomatoes of his Southern roots.

From there, we see the Team Baa frolic with their woolly beasts before (presumably) picking out a spunky one to have gutted and dressed. Team Oink also gets to hang out with their porkers before sending one to its death. And the members of Team Cluck, too, get to mingle with the chipper birds before selecting the ones who will get to be eaten.

(During our 30-second fake-out scene, we see that Stefan likes cock. ... Or saying "cock." ... Stefan is, we suppose, twelve.)

Once they arrive back in the kitchen, the animals have been slaughtered and are now lying, in pieces, on trays. (Did we mention this is the "Have you considered the vegan lifestyle?" episode?)

They get work.

On Team Oink, Fabio opts to make a pesto for his pork ravioli. Radhika is mad that there are no figs for her bread pudding and decides to spend two hours shucking corn. And Jeff is a opts to work with butt.

On Team Cluck, the trio has ironed out its differences and have come up with a compromise for their chicken dishes. And on Team Baa, Leah and Hosea hand over virtually all the work to Ariane so she'll be left to twist in the wind when the time comes.

After visiting with the chefs, Tom reports that he's a bit surprised that the pork and lamb teams aren't "honoring the protein" by leaving it on the bone, rather stripping it down into smaller parts. As for Team Chicken, he's concerned that they're making soup, considering it is a hot day, which is really odd since it's two weeks after Christmas, after all. (Upstate New York must have some really strange weather patterns.)

Back in the kitchen, Hosea and Leah are doing a lousy job of hiding their glee over Ariane's inability to tie the lamb roast. It looks like a complete mess and Leah jumps in to make sure it looks as bad as possible for the judges.

The clock runs out and it's time for service.

The teams present their food and the eating commences. The early impressions are that it's too hot for soup (on this 85-degree January afternoon). One of the diners must be feeling poorly because she identifies the season as "summertime," which we know is impossible if we had Christmas two weeks ago.

Wait. Is there a New York in Australia I don't know about?

Moving on ...

Still, the chicken dishes seem to score, particularly with one of the farmers who I'm convinced is Ellen Green (Little Shop Of Horrors, Pushing Daisies). The lamb, though, is judged to be "a mess." And Judge Sassypants make his obligatory smart-aleck-y remark about "mutton dressed as lamb."

They did not suffienctly "honor the protein," rules Chef Tom.

But back in the kitchen, Hosea blows smoke (he would be good at that) up Ariane's ass saying that their offerings were great and that their salad was "awesome."

Addressing the pork dishes, Judge Sassypants makes another forced analogy saying that the overpowering pesto atop Fabio's ravioli is "like the big bad wolf that ..." Ya know, it's not even worth completing his awful nonsense.

Tom again complains about the chefs having taken the meat off the bone and are even more upset at their having removed the fat. They all do agree, however, that Jeff's fried green tomatoes are grand, adding, "Towanda!"

Then, it's dessert time. The three teams bring out their non-pig/non-chicken/non-lamb/non-relevant desserts. Carla presents a fruit tart which everyone adores. The pork team made a creme bruleé, which isn't particularly good and prompts another stupid quip from the bald Brit. And the lamb team has prepared a trifle which the judges compare to prison/cafeteria/cruise-ship-buffet fare.

Judges' Table

Back in The 718, Padma pops into the Stewed Room and calls up Team Motherclucker. Jamie, having been threatening a Team Rainbow beatdown if she was eliminated this week, is all smiles.

The judges question the three for some reason about who did what for some reason that escapes me, because ... all three are declared the winners of this challenge. Now go enjoy your no-prize and send back everyone else for their tongue-lashing!

Jamie gives the the others the bad news "reluctantly," by which we mean "con brio."

The six remaining chefs stand before the judges and cover their privates for the verbal dodgeball which is to follow.

Jeff get slammed for removing the pig fat. Fabio gets burned for his overpowering pesto. Radhika gets reamed for not doing enough with her time in the kitchen.

On Team Siss Boom Baa, the issue is the removing of the meat from the bone, and who was responsible for the entire mess. Ariane gets the blame for the cooking, but Hosea and Leah each get blamed for being too passive and letting Ariane make a mess of the roast (not to mention helping make said mess messier).

Is it me, or is Leah working hard on her Big Brother/Survivor sabotage/villain skills?

The chefs head back to the Stewed Room to sit in front of strategically placed Sponsorboxes while the judges deliberate.

Back at the table, the four judges discuss who did what the worst and who should pay for it. Each one is eviscerated, though Jeff's tomatoes do seem to ensure his safety.

Still, Judge Smarmyface feels the need to, in discussing his feelings on the pork dish, instill in us the wonderful and beautiful vision of him having lusty, unprotected sex with bacon. Therapy bills may be forwarded to: Andy Cohen, c/o Bravo TV, 30 Rockefeller Center, New York, NY 10020.

When they get to Ariane's responsibility, Judge Quippy McGee snorts that she clearly can't cook, but is shot down by Padma who informs him that Ariane's made some really remarkable dishes in this competition.

And this is when Sassypants remarks that all history with a chef should go out the window and they should be judged solely on the one dish from the challenge in question.

And there he had them.

When the chefs return, the pork team is saved and of the lamb team, it is not Sabotage Susie who goes home, but rather Ariane of the Bridge & Tunnel.

Hosea and Leah immediatly drop to the floor and begin to fornicate wildly while Ariane packs her knives and imagines using them to make some delicious lovebird rémoulade.

Next time on Top Chef: Restaurant Wars! HoLeah's showmance heats up. And, if we're lucky, the medication will finally kick in so I can stop having this recurring vision of a certain quippy Brit porking Porky.