A highlight:

ATC: What did you do to prepare for the competition? 


 EG: I looked at past seasons and thought about what I would do for those challenges, both the Quickfire and the elimination challenges. I tested new recipes at the restaurant. I worked on presentation. I memorized recipes and ratios. I did everything I could think of, I reviewed my cookbooks. 


 There were a lot of notecards involved… 


 But honestly, there is really no way to prepare for this experience. It didn’t help!

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Click here to learn more about Eliza’s restaurant, 221 South Oak in Telluride.

Click here to see Chef Eliza’s Cookbook on Amazon.

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Thank you Chef Eliza!

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This week’s Quickfire challenge was judged by food critic for the Grand Forks Herald, Marilyn Hagerty, she of the now-famed Olive Garden review. Apropos to nothing, the cheftestants had to please her palate with sweet and savory holiday dishes that reflect their own family heritage in some way, while using the latest product for placement, Truvia sweetner. Oh boy. Brooke makes an apple pie with cheese, and when Padma calls it “homey,” she figures she is on the bottom. But Ms Hagerty likes homey just fine and gives Brooke the win.

With immunity from elimination, Brooke still takes risks with her winning Elimination challenge dish of lamb-stuffed squid. The premise of the challenge is to prepare a welcome home dinner for Washington natives Anna Faris and her husband Chris Pratt. They are foodies and will eat pretty much anything, even raw squirrel heart, according to Chris. The cheftestants dazzle them with a wide array of wild game and such. Well, “dazzle” might be the wrong word to use for Danyele’s boring boar and Josh’s underseasoned pork. Also for Eliza’s bland elk dish, which earned her a one-way trip to the sequester house (unless of course she wins Last Chance Kitchen).

What did you think about the episode? Please tell us in the comments.

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ATC:  How did this experience compare to season 3?

CJ:  This experience compared in many ways.  I figured that since I had already been on, that I would not be caught up in all of the drama, but honestly it was exactly the same.


In terms of production after seven seasons, it was much tighter.  No more eight hours in the stew room. I was happy that the challenges were more culinarily-driven rather than like skeet shooting like last season.

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Minxeats on Tom is pissed: “The lunch was an unmitigated disaster, and the judges felt bad for the artisans whose products were so horribly tortured in the name of lunch. Tom is in a snit and declares that nobody will win the challenge or the 10K bonus prize and stomps into the stew room to let the cheftestants have a piece of his mind. He tells them that they suck and that a whole team will be going home for its suckitude. And they’ll be further tortured by having to wait until the next day to find out who is going home. The chefs cry.”

A Just Recompense on incompatible: “They’ll stay in their teams, which makes just about everyone nervous. To summarize: Lizzie isn’t sure she knows Danyele well enough to cook intimately with her; Eliza is worried that she and Josie aren’t truly listening to each other; Josie is not enjoying this at all but she’s going to do her chefly duty, it’ll be over soon; Tyler finds CJ’s idea too simple but he’s a veteran so he’s in trust; John knows Josh is just barely tolerating him so is trying not to explode the wrath within; Josh is going along with anything John says just so they don’t start butting heads. I think these people need marriage counseling more than they need cooking.”

Entertainment Weekly on truth in advertising: “Ingredients ranged from pickles to cheese curds (yum), but by far my favorite reaction was when Stefan pulled rose petal jelly. ‘It’s like rose water. It’s a perfume kind of thing. Women in the 1500s put it on them because they were smelling.’ Could you make your eventual meal sound any more appetizing?”

Mary Alice of Charm City Cakes for the Baltimore Sun on deflection: “After Padma dismisses them, CJ starts to say something and then shakes his head. ‘One last thing, CJ?’ Padma asks. CJ turns back and asks the judges what they thought of Danyele/Lizzie’s dessert. ‘Because that thing was an abhorrence. It was a debacle. It was diabolical. It was a travesty,’ he says. To which Hugh retorts, ‘Well, uh-oh, ‘cause your burger was even worse.’ Tom bursts out laughing. Josh reprimands CJ for asking: ‘Stop underhanding pitches to a pro baseball player!’ thus ending what I thought would be the worst but ended up one of the funniest Judge’s Table ever.”

Eater disses the artisan: “Breakfast and sticks and satisfied vendors are all in good fun, but now things get dark. Pike Place is also a farmers market, and as you know, farmers markets are full of ‘artisans.’ Each team has two hours to cook a lunch highlighting a different Pike Place artisan ingredient. Now the word ‘artisan’ can mean a lot of things: it can be someone who has spent half a lifetime perfecting the crafting of bread or knife-making, for example, or it can be someone with a mommy blog who spends every other Saturday afternoon filling cute jars with unusual horse shit only appropriate as a thoughtless gift from and for jerks. Sadly, most of the ingredients our competitors must use in this Elimination Challenge, one worth ten grand, fall into that latter category. This whole thing would be more appropriate for a Quickfire, where they’ve got twenty minutes and who cares if they make a bad Reese’s Pieces ravioli, but to serve an elegant lunch that highlights bagged truffled popcorn, a food Tom wouldn’t let through the back door of his restaurant, is embarrassing for everyone, including me.”

Reality Rewind explains the elimination challenge: “For the Elimination Challenge on Top Chef 2012, the teams will be staying together for this challenge. They draw knives: Sheldon and Bart have Salmon Candy, John and Josh have Truffle Popcorn, Brooke and Stefan have Rose Petal Jelly, CJ and Tyler have Spicy Dill Pickles, Josie and Eliza have Cardamom Bitters, Danyele and Lizzie have Coconut Curry Chocolate and Kristen and Micah have Cheese Curds. They have to make a dish to highlighting the ingredient they have picked and the artisans who created the ingredient will be judging them. They have two hours to create their dish and the winning team wins $10,000.”

Allie is Wired on pairings: “CJ and Tyler throw ideas around, but Tyler looks at CJ to make the decision. I wish this guy would find his testicular fortitude. He is nice, but has no confidence. Those proverbial nice guys always seem to finish last. On the other side of the pairings, Josh is barely tolerating John. Again, I scratch my head at why these two teamed up in the first place? Maybe they have a secret man crush and John pets Josh’s mustache at night while singing ‘Soft Kitty’ to ease him to sleep in the stressful environment. I suddenly want to see ‘Top Chef: After Dark.’”

Reality Tea on burn: “C.J. defends the integrity of the pickle. Tom says, ‘It never crossed your mind… not what goes with pickle but what can we make with a pickle?’ Tom calls out John and Josh, saying their food was what you’d expect from someone who doesn’t like cooking. Hugh says that Stefan and Brooke used so much rose petal jelly, it was like eating a grandmother. Overall, Tom is disappointed that no one fought to make his or her team’s dish better. Gail wonders about the lack of artistry – no garnish, no presentation, etc.”

Hit Fix on artisanal products: “Elimination Challenge! Teams remain the same, and each team has to draw a knife bearing the name of some weird ass ingredient. The challenge? Each team must create a dish highlighting said weird ass ingredient. Oh I’m sorry, these are artisanal weird ass ingredients, which means you can have them gift-wrapped and sent to people you dislike. They will be judged by the people who create these horrible sounding things (coconut curry chocolate? Salmon candy? Rose petal jelly? Blech!), and they have two hours to make them lunch. This may be one of the grossest challenges yet, “Top Chef,” just saying.”

Grub Street on artisans: “Padma introduces us to some of the Seattle artisans: Dale Nelson makes spicy pickles and the rose petal jelly. He looks a little old and square to be an artisan – I can’t imagine him hanging out in Capitol Hill, a hip Seattle neighborhood I just learned the name of by Googling ‘hip Seattle neighborhood.’ Likewise, Kurt Beecher Dammeier, who made the cheese curds, looks like a high-school gym teacher. I thought Seattle artisans would be young and skinny-jeaned. Am I guilty of artisan-profiling?”

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Chef Tyler Wiard talks about his experience on the show.

A highlight:

ATC:  If you could go back, is there anything that you would do differently?


TW:  I’ve had a long time to think about this one and no, I don’t have any regrets.  I have friends who have said that we should have gone with the chowder instead of the pork burger, but it’s like Vegas you know?  You can’t go back, you have to play the hand that you are dealt.


ATC:  You were in the top four for the previous challenge and it seemed like you had some creative ideas for this challenge.  Did CJ listen to your ideas at all?


TW:  His energy and his confidence about the pork burger were so positive that I just said, “Okay, let’s do it.”

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Click here for more about Elway’s.

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The cheftestants gathered at Seattle’s famous Pike Place Market to begin their next challenge. Padma was joined by Daisley Gordon, who has two restaurants at the market. For the Quickfire Challenge, the chefs divided into teams of two. Each team had one hour to create a breakfast item on a stick for 50 hungry vendors. A pantry of food items was provided, but they had to purchase all their cooking supplies from Sur La Table with $500. After the vendors were fed, Daisley Gordon announced that Sheldon and Burt’s Green Forest Breakfast Sandwich was the winner.

The chefs stayed in their teams for the Elimination Challenge which was to create a dish with one of the unusual artisan ingredients sold at the market. The teams drew knives to find out which ingredient they would receive, and they had two hours to shop for ingredients and cook their dish. The dishes would be judged by the artisans who created the products. Apparently, the chefs were not inspired by their ingredients because all the dishes were deemed pretty poor. The winner was to receive $10,000, but in light of the dismal showing, no team was chosen as winner. Instead, Padma, Tom, Hugh, and Gail had the unenviable job of choosing the worst of the bad. After much debate, it came down to Gail breaking the deadlock and the team of CJ and Tyler was sent home for their overcooked burger on a soggy crumpet bun with poorly cooked deep-fried pickles.

What did you think of last night’s episode? Leave a comment below.

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