Thursday, August 19, 2010
Food media ‘TOP CHEF: DC’: Episode 9, “Covert Cuisine”
Posted by Joel Silverman on Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 9:28 PM
The magical elves that produce Top Chef are clearly having a ball in Washington D.C., riffing on political tropes that have included the cold war, foreign diplomacy, and White House farm policy. It’s a lot more fun than the forced gambling theme of last year’s Vegas season, where the chefs won poker chips and had to serve dishes under dripping ice sculptures.
Last night’s Spy Kids theme was introduced in a quickfire where as they cooked, new surprise ingredients were progressively delivered for them by Agent Smith from the Matrix to incorporate into their dishes, sort of like the surrealist game that composers John Cage, Lou Harrison, and Virgil Thomson would play where they would write a measure of music and hand it off to the other to complete. By the time the score came back around, the original vision was obscured by the amendments. It was smart of Tiffany to make a stew out of this. What other dish melds tastes more effectively?
Tiffany started off cautiously, never taking risks that could land her on the bottom at Judge’s Table, learned from the mistakes and victories of others, and now she’s turned on the heat. It’s like watching Michael Phelps swim a race, he paces himself, then explodes in the last 50 meters to a win. Tiffany won last night and thus has pulled a Top Chef double play (winning the Quickfire and the Elimination in the same episode) twice now, something that only Richard Blais and Stefan Richter ever accomplished in previous seasons. A pretty elite club.
It became obvious that Tiffany was going to win again later, at CIA headquarters, when Kelly overcooked her rice (she's a high-altitude cook from Colorado and amusingly didn't realize that jasmine rice doesn't take an hour to cook at sea level) and Tiffany encouraged her not to give up, and assured her that she could make a new batch in the half-hour remaining. It's a great contrast to Kelly's own gamesmanship a few weeks ago where she refused to share her salt with Amanda and lost the challenge as a result (she oversalted her dish to justify needing all of it.) Tiffany, beaming, came up with a piece of Top Chef gospel: "I don't want to win because of someone else's mistake." That's the confidence of a winner. She's probably going to be the next Top Chef.
Latest in Omnivore
-
Local restaurants honor the late Warren Bruno
Percentage of sales will be donated in Warren Bruno's honor.
-
Weekend food events, May 25-27: 3B Fest, a patio party, and more
Weekend events for Friday May 25 to Sunday May 27.
-
Waiting on Shaun Doty's chicken at Ansley Mall
It's a game of retail dominoes
- More »
Comments (0)