Top Chef, France & US - random thoughts
Mar. 8th, 2011 01:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sevenswellsOMG! I take back everything I said about Top Chef France, it's actually becoming BRILLIANT! And what was with the last episode of Top Chef US?! It was SO SO EXCITING!
-In Top Chef France they had the most amazing challenge EVER: 17th century cooking, in the 400 year old kitchen of an authentic castle, in the conditions and with the means of the era. I was moved deeply; I mean, I'm the hugest fan of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, and this was the kind of cuisine praised in the play! Cyrano's cuisine! Me ---> ded.
And it was as cool as it sounds; it looked horribly difficult, though. The kitchen was filled with smoke (because, no ventilation system in the 17th century, it figures), the fire in the fireplace was GINORMOUS with PURPLE flames roaring in it, the chefs could barely approach it, and yet they still had to gather hot coals from it to make the stove work so they were practically burned alive, because they constantly had to go back and forth between the fireplace and the stove. PLUS they had antiquities for knives, made of iron (no stainless steel before the 20th century, hah) and blunt on top of that. They were working by pairs, and in the middle of the challenge, the judges came to announce that they had to swap partners and recipes. AS IF IT WASN'T HARD ENOUGH (!!!) Oh my God it was INSANE. And now I have to tell you about my favourite candidate in any version of the Top Chef franchise ever:
Stéphanie "Head Bitch In Charge" Le Quellec, 28, mother of two.
I already loved her as it was, but during this challenge, my adoration for her skyrocketted and exploded. When she changed partners, she was paired with a chef who had gained immunity during the quickfire challenge and was perfectly safe, so Stéphanie herself was in a pretty tough position. The recipe Stéphanie and her new partner had to finish sounded crappy compared to the one she'd started with, plus the douchebag who was there before her had cut the stuffed duck they were supposed to roast like the idiot he is: if you want to spit-roast stuffed poultry, you actually have to leave the bird's ribcage on, it helps to fix more solidly the bird on the broach. If you don't, the whole thing will fall apart as it cooks.
So Stéphanie had to work with the fucked-up duck WITHOUT A RIBCAGE the dumbass before her had left behind, and she STILL found a way to make it work, going all MacGyver on the damn thing; it was a thing of beauty to watch. I don't even know how she did it.
AND SHE WON THE MOTHERFUCKING CHALLENGE. Single-handedly. Like a boss.
If she doesn't win this whole stupid competition, I'm gonna have a word or two with the producers. Using a tetsubo.
She's so cool and badass I think I'm gonna make myself a Stéphanie Le Quellec icon now. Go, Stéphanie!
-In Top Chef US, episode 12 (spoilers for the episode ahead, careful if you haven't seen it yet):
-I think this quickfire challenge featured the most digusting-looking food of any episode of Top Chef ever. Mike's soup? Holy crap. It looked like baby's vomit.
-HAHAHA I'm actually digging this whole "newfound family ties" gig between Mike and Antonia! I don't really like Mike (especially after the plagiarism scandal, which I thought Richard handled much more calmly than he should have), but he became kind of cute when he started calling Antonia his cousin and saying that the cousins should go to the finale together. I loved the fact that they were all "BUT OF COURSE! We're bickering all the time! And he farts and burps on me! It all makes sense now: we're family!"
Only on American TV. Seriously. You can't make up stuff like that. I luuuuuuuurved it!
-Carla and her husband were ADORABLE together! They looked so happy! I felt ridiculously glad for her, she's so sweet, she deserves a man like that in her life. He looked so adoring!
-OMG THE JUDGES' TABLE!! I swear I was literally STANDING ON MY CHAIR FLAILING as I was watching that part, it was absolutely nerve-wracking! And such a fantastic ending! Never before did the judges get such a difficult decision to make, it was so exciting to watch! And I loved Richard's stutter when Padma made him believe he was eliminated (I must admit, my heart stopped too, at that moment): "Wh-Why would you...? Er, thank you!" He looked so outraged! Haaaahahaha
I can't wait for the finale! And next week in Top Chef France is restaurant wars!!! This is going to be huge.
Aaaaah. Cooking TV shows. You make the world a better place to be. ^3^
-In Top Chef France they had the most amazing challenge EVER: 17th century cooking, in the 400 year old kitchen of an authentic castle, in the conditions and with the means of the era. I was moved deeply; I mean, I'm the hugest fan of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, and this was the kind of cuisine praised in the play! Cyrano's cuisine! Me ---> ded.
And it was as cool as it sounds; it looked horribly difficult, though. The kitchen was filled with smoke (because, no ventilation system in the 17th century, it figures), the fire in the fireplace was GINORMOUS with PURPLE flames roaring in it, the chefs could barely approach it, and yet they still had to gather hot coals from it to make the stove work so they were practically burned alive, because they constantly had to go back and forth between the fireplace and the stove. PLUS they had antiquities for knives, made of iron (no stainless steel before the 20th century, hah) and blunt on top of that. They were working by pairs, and in the middle of the challenge, the judges came to announce that they had to swap partners and recipes. AS IF IT WASN'T HARD ENOUGH (!!!) Oh my God it was INSANE. And now I have to tell you about my favourite candidate in any version of the Top Chef franchise ever:
Stéphanie "Head Bitch In Charge" Le Quellec, 28, mother of two.
I already loved her as it was, but during this challenge, my adoration for her skyrocketted and exploded. When she changed partners, she was paired with a chef who had gained immunity during the quickfire challenge and was perfectly safe, so Stéphanie herself was in a pretty tough position. The recipe Stéphanie and her new partner had to finish sounded crappy compared to the one she'd started with, plus the douchebag who was there before her had cut the stuffed duck they were supposed to roast like the idiot he is: if you want to spit-roast stuffed poultry, you actually have to leave the bird's ribcage on, it helps to fix more solidly the bird on the broach. If you don't, the whole thing will fall apart as it cooks.
So Stéphanie had to work with the fucked-up duck WITHOUT A RIBCAGE the dumbass before her had left behind, and she STILL found a way to make it work, going all MacGyver on the damn thing; it was a thing of beauty to watch. I don't even know how she did it.
AND SHE WON THE MOTHERFUCKING CHALLENGE. Single-handedly. Like a boss.
If she doesn't win this whole stupid competition, I'm gonna have a word or two with the producers. Using a tetsubo.
She's so cool and badass I think I'm gonna make myself a Stéphanie Le Quellec icon now. Go, Stéphanie!
-In Top Chef US, episode 12 (spoilers for the episode ahead, careful if you haven't seen it yet):
-I think this quickfire challenge featured the most digusting-looking food of any episode of Top Chef ever. Mike's soup? Holy crap. It looked like baby's vomit.
-HAHAHA I'm actually digging this whole "newfound family ties" gig between Mike and Antonia! I don't really like Mike (especially after the plagiarism scandal, which I thought Richard handled much more calmly than he should have), but he became kind of cute when he started calling Antonia his cousin and saying that the cousins should go to the finale together. I loved the fact that they were all "BUT OF COURSE! We're bickering all the time! And he farts and burps on me! It all makes sense now: we're family!"
Only on American TV. Seriously. You can't make up stuff like that. I luuuuuuuurved it!
-Carla and her husband were ADORABLE together! They looked so happy! I felt ridiculously glad for her, she's so sweet, she deserves a man like that in her life. He looked so adoring!
-OMG THE JUDGES' TABLE!! I swear I was literally STANDING ON MY CHAIR FLAILING as I was watching that part, it was absolutely nerve-wracking! And such a fantastic ending! Never before did the judges get such a difficult decision to make, it was so exciting to watch! And I loved Richard's stutter when Padma made him believe he was eliminated (I must admit, my heart stopped too, at that moment): "Wh-Why would you...? Er, thank you!" He looked so outraged! Haaaahahaha
I can't wait for the finale! And next week in Top Chef France is restaurant wars!!! This is going to be huge.
Aaaaah. Cooking TV shows. You make the world a better place to be. ^3^
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Date: 2011-03-09 08:15 am (UTC)And yeah, last season of Top Chef kind of bored me so I dropped out mid-season, but this one is pretty fantastic; not a dull episode, and lots of likeable characters: get into it!