Top Chef MastersEpisode 2: Vending Machines And Smoke Monster DreamsJune 17, 2009Previously on Top Chef Masters: Four seasoned chefs competed in a high-stakes game of cookery for a spot in the “Champions” round. Noted French DJ (and chef) Hubert Keller won the round, scoring well with a troop of girl scouts and knowing how to prepare dinner in a college dorm room (and communal shower) without killing off all the diners. Really. It wasn’t as strange as it sounds.
Each week, four celebrity chefs (by which we mean real chefs who are famous for being really good, not the usual reality TV nonsense of a Scott Baio-who-cooks) compete for a spot in the final round. The winners of the individual rounds win $10,000 for their charity of choice and bragging rights to their foodie friends.
Competing this week are ...
- Graham Elliot Bowles. A chef “of size.” The youngest of the bunch. Tattoo enthusiast. This Chicagoan is known for his adventurous ingredients and has been known to cook with Pop Rocks. (No word on whether he warns people not to eat them with soda.) He’s playing for the American Heart Association. Because a dear, young relative has a heart condition. .... And .... and .... Hmmm, doesn’t it seem like we’re not talking about the proverbial elephant in the room? Anyway ......
- Elizabeth Falkner. Sexy lesbian pastry chef from San Francisco. Best known (to Top Chef viewers) for frightening cheftestants during previous seasons of the show. Enjoys wallets on belt chains and indoor ninja moves. Makes an unfortunate statement about being in a “pink pastry box.” Playing for Edible Schools (which I would figure are considered “temporary structures”).
- Suzanne Tracht. Award-winning chef with crazy mad skills, kids, and no discernible personality. Known for “simple” food. Enjoys farmers’ markets. She is playing for a Los Angeles food bank.
- Wylie Dufresne. Occasional judge in Top Chef seasons past. Molecular gastronomy guru. Pal of Chef Bowles. And an offense to fashion and (visual) taste everywhere with his ridiculous receded hairline, That Girl flip-do and the oh-too-visible chest whiskers. Playing for Autism Speaks.
Host NotPadma arrives to introduce the ...
Quickfire ChallengeAs the Masters will be completing Quickfire Challenges from seasons past, the contestants have a vague idea about what they could be facing. And when NotPadma presents them each with a roll of quarters, they already know the deal: They will be making an amuse bouche out of ingredients purchased out of a vending machine (and a ton of things they can find in the Top Chef pantry).
Graham is thrilled, since he already uses crazy ingredients in his food and he had been hoping for that. But Wylie is worried because the dishes will be rated by ... three of the Season Two contestants who originally competed in that challenge, Chef “TGIFriday’s got my soup” Betty, Chef “Delta House Denizen” Michael and Season Two Winning Saffronoholic Chef Ilan.
As seems the rule, the Masters will be watching the diners eat and comment on their food from the kitchen on closed-circuit monitors.
The Masters drop their quarters and collect their highly-preserved ingredients, making sure to grab all the sponsored Mr. Pibb™ they can.
The four dash about creating their amuse bouches. (Is that the plural of amuse bouche? Amuses bouche, perhaps? Like Attorneys General?)
I’m surprised that these Masters are each creating an appetizer instead of an amuse bouche, since I was under the impression that an amuse was one or two bites at most and these seem to be entire small plates.
As they cook, Wylie gets in a workout, jogging about the kitchen, his greasy hair flowing behind him. When time is called and his dish isn’t nearly the way he like it, he unleashes a torrent of pureed f-bombs.
First up, Wylie’s red onion ham sandwich with a sell-out Mr. Pipp™ reduction. (The man does like to work with chemicals, after all. And carbonated water, sugar/glucose-fructose, carmel color, artificial and natural flavors, phosphoric acid, sodium benzoate,
caffeine, monosodium phosphate, lactic acid, polyethelene glycol
are chemicals.)
It’s not terrible (since these are Masters, after all). But it’s not great. In fact, Betty notes that the soda reduction is too reducted (reduced? redacted?) and is now actually solid. In the kitchen, Wylie chops and grates some more f-bombs.
Next is Suzanne’s fried shallot rings with a microgreen salad and a Can O’ Crap Soda aioli. Everyone loves it to the point of licking their bowls. (I really hope they didn’t
really lick the bowls.)
Third is Elizabeth’s braised beef jerky with orange juice, lemon and (yes) horseradish ice cream. ... The response is what you’d expect from
horseradish ice cream, at least from Chef Betty. Chef
Dickface Ilan, though, calls it a “journey” and says he liked it a lot.
Last is Graham’s tuna salad with pickled shallot, ginger orange bubbbles and beef jerky miso powder and a partridge in a pear tree. The diners really enjoy it.
Afterwards, NotPadma delivers the diners’ ratings results.
- Wylie: 3 stars in a whimsical f-bomb emulsion.
Golf claps.
The Masters are sent out of the kitchen so the producers can set up the ...
Elimination Challenge
When they return, the Masters discover a banquet table set up with a host of raw proteins around a tropical motif. NotPadma reveals that this week’s challenge will be inspired by the super-fantastic ABC show Lost and its stranded-on-a-time-traveling-island-with-‘70s-cultists-living-in-pre-fab-housing theme.
Since the creators of Lost are huge Top Chef fans, they will be helping judge the dishes. And since raw proteins alone aren’t enough to make a meal, the Masters will be shopping from a pre-approved list of canned and bottled ingredients for their meals. (Unlike on Lost, there isn’t a balloon-drop of pallets of Dharma food, so they’ll have to settle for shopping at the Dharma Trader Joe’s™. Directions: Head towards the smoke monster and make a left at the Starbucks.)
Curiously, Suzanne admits to watching Lost and seems to have a clue about the task at hand, theme-wise. The others, though, don’t.
At the Dharma Albertson’s, Wylie and Graham play out a buddy comedy, Elizabeth opts for a spicy menu to stand out and Wylie unleashes a flood of competition show clichés, surprisingly f-bomb-free.
Back in the Kenmore™ Kitchen, the Masters get to work. Graham offers Wylie a taste of his work and Wylie declares it “awesome” before he resumes his 5K kitchen sprint. Graham then discusses his “really unique” upbringing, living in various places around the world where he got to eat monkey and snake, which was “awesome.”
Suzanne makes us nod off for a moment, before we wake to see Wylie showing off his mad scientist/HVAC technician skills to the other Masters.
Before you know it, it’s time to dine. The regular critics arrive, world-eater Jay Raynor, Bob Cratchit and famed gossip columnist, the late Hedda Hopper. They are joined by quirky Lost creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (“Darlton” to their fans) and the other writers of the show.
While the Masters plate, Graham again discusses his heart disease charity and his sickly relative. And he makes an unfortunate comment about how that's putting additional “pressure and weight” on him during the competition. ... (I’m just sayin’ ...)
Wylie adds some jaunty f-bomb foam to his plate while Suzanne is still plating her dishes. But as she’s turning around to put the final touch of sauce on hers, the wait staff takes the plates away.
As Sue Ann said to Mary Richards’ guests, “I'm afraid Mary's mistimed her dinner.”
The Dharma Initiative waitstaff serves the diners, which Carlton thinks is “awesome.” They eat.
Elizabeth serves her wild boar with not-enough-sauce. The reviews are mixed. It sounds like the extra sauce would have helped. Her papaya/yam pudding, though, tastes like baby food.
Next is Graham and his around-the-world trio of tuna. Everyone is mightily impressed, particularly by his coffee-encrusted seared tuna.
Third is Wylie and his roast chicken and poached egg “pun-on-a-plate.” He’s almost undone when AccentJudgeJayJay complains that he didn’t get any chicken on his plate. But since his neighbor accidentally got two pieces, he takes on of his. After the diners eat it, it’s almost universally praised.
Finally, Suzanne presents her everything-in-a-bowl island dish. At first, everyone thinks it’s a mess, with pasta next to risotto and too much of too much. But after tasting it, it gets high marks all around.
Once dinner is done, the smoke monster retreats to the temple and the Masters appear before ...
Critics’ Table
(You know what? I’m putting the apostrophe in. Screw the on-screen graphics and its poor grammar.)
The Masters are quizzed. The critics properly pepper them. Once it’s all said and done, NotPadma delivers the results.
(Now, in the advanced calculus of this game, there’s this whole arithmetic of Quickfire stars added to diners' stars added to critics' stars, so, trust me, these numbers aren’t completely pulled out of a steaming pie-tin of poo.)
After combining the scores, Graham earns a final total of .... 20 1/2 stars.
After combining the scores, Wylie earns a final total of .... 20 stars. Wylie is sent packing. (Hopefully now he’ll have time to buy some much-needed hair clippers.)
After combining the scores, Elizabeth earns a final total of .... 16 1/2 stars. She leaves to her tend to her pink pastry box.
It’s down to Graham versus Suzanne. After combining the scores, Suzanne earns a final total of .... 22 1/2 stars. Suzanne wins and will move on to join Chef Hubert Keller (and the four faceless Hubert silhouettes) in the “Champions Round.” (Why do these people hate well-placed apostrophes?)
The four Masters head back to the Wine Marinade Room for a toast and the comedy stylings of vaudeville troupe Graham & Wylie.
Next time on Top Chef Masters: Four more master chefs I would recognize if I knew the first thing about cooking compete for another spot in the missing punctuation round. People have to eat things that aren’t edible. And we plug a certain Southern California tourist destination which paid dearly for the appearance. ... And we get another French guy.
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