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Top Chef Chicago Season 4

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All TC4 fans note that this week's episode is one of those 75 minute ones. It will be from 10pm EDT Wednesday until 1115pm EDT if you are setting a VCR.

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EPISODE 9

QUICKFIRE
The evening starts sedately with the judge for the Quickfire being the esteemed Tom Colicchio. That gives it away that a major twist is coming. It's a return of the Relay Race, with the items changed up a little from last season to keep everyone on their toes. Knives are drawn for the teams of the evening:

Dale, Lisa, Nikki, Spike
Richard, Antonia, Andrew, Stephanie

Now, this was random but you have the 2 lowest performers on the same team and the 2 highest performers on the other team. Dale is an unhappy camper about being stuck with his teammates for the entire episode.

It starts with orange peeling and cutting into small precise pieces. Antonia is slow and Lisa gives her team a huge lead. Dale takes it and zooms through the cleaning and filleting monkfish with his team's lead maintained over Richard. Spike has brought a peeler with him and he is zooming further ahead on peeling 5 artichokes UNTIL a stem breaks and he has to do one over. He finishes in a dead heat with Andrew. It's all up to Nikki vs. Stephanie, which I expect to be an easy win for Stephanie given Nikki's earlier questions to the total group about how to make mayonnaise(which then became her task). Stephanie steadily pulls ahead by whisking harder and Richard tells her to do it "Chicago style" and  she wins for her team. They are promised a valuable advantage although there will be no more immunity for the rest of the season. The fourth judge will be Gail Gand, noted Chicago pastry chef.

ELIMINATION CHALLENGE
Teams are introduced to Corey and JP, whose wedding is the next day. Corey and JP are both in the restaurant/catering business and will be assisting in the judging. The winning team is given the choice of catering the Bride's side or the Groom's side for a 125 guest wedding. Richard boldly states that they will choose the Bride, which is sure to be harder because it is her day. His team doesn't shoot him. The winning team consults with Corey and learns that she is from the Atlanta area (so is Richard) and her that her tastes are meat and potatoes. she mentions several individual dishes that she would like to see on the menu for her guests (you will see that menu later). The losing team consults JP and learns that he is from the Chicago area and Italian. He has several specific dishes he wants to see on the menu for his guests. He wants it buffet style. Teams then go off and briefly plan detailed menus:

Bride's Menu - prosciutto on flatbread, pulled pork sandwich with fresh pickle, braised short ribs and blue cheese in phyllo with almonds, beef brisket, filet mignon w/ horseradish sauce and red wine syrup, creamed spinach w/ star anise, almond and basil crusted chicken breast, potato gratin, dark chocolate and lemon cake

Groom's Menu - sausage pizza on flatbread, assorted flatbreads, mixed vegetables and cheeses, filet mignon w/ potatoes and horseradish cream, chilean sea bass w/ artichokes, capers, olives, tomatoes, pork and beef orecchiette w/ragu, , chocolate hazelnut cake


Teams were given 1 hour to shop at  a Restaurant Depot store plus back briefly to Whole Foods for a few flowers.. The Groom's team got $3000 and the Bride's $2000 wich I infer to mean that the Groom had about 75 of the guests and the Bride about 50. Now we come to the big controversy of the food preparation.  Teams then were left with 14 hours to prep and cook before one half hour into the wedding, when the food was actually needed. One notable event  was that Dale took over anything he could get his hands on, not doing them well but getting them done. Spike claimed back from Dale the cooking of the fish. All chefs apparently stayed up all night to get it done. This took a tremendous toll on them, particularly on Dale who when questioned by Tom Colicchio could not give a coherent answer. Why did the chefs have to work 14 hours straight? Let's assume that there was that much work per person, then why couldn't they have started 8 hours sooner so they could get some sleep? Was Tom Colicchio just playing a devilish test their endurance game? I don't see the value of that and think that TopChef creators (Tom and Gail Simmons) had better rethink their strategy when they have tasks designed to be all-nighters when that should not have been necessary. Tom volunteered his perspective on the difficulties of the respective teams. He thought that the Italian food would be the easier task because "meat and potatoes is so simple that it needs to be seasoned perfectly and really delicious". Watch what happens, as BRAVO would say.

Bride's team set up was Richard and Andrew serving, Stephanie as runner, and Spike in the kitchen(complaining as still banging it out). Groom's team set up was Nikki, Lisa and spike serving and Dale in the kitchen(no doubt they did not want him to piss off the guests). Comments from the judges while eating the groom's food were "uninspired, unoriginal". Uh-oh.

Judges table quickly decided, with prior input from the Bride and Groom, that the Bride's team had won, even though the judges played with that team a bit before telling them of their win. they asked who did what and found out that Antonia did the pizzas and Stephanie the wedding cake, which was a 5 tier production admired for its beauty(but not for its flavor). They didn't ask Andrew or Richard, I guess because they already knew what they had done. The winner was a surprised Richard. Based on the commentary I thought it would be Stephanie. However, Richard is magnanimous and has already had several victories. he insists that the victory be given to Stephanie instead. She wins $2000 in gift certificates at Crate and Barrel.

Losers group is interesting. It isn't going to be Lisa, who did a fine job on the wedding cake, whose flavor was judged superior to Stephanie's cake and whose cake appearance was limited by the Groom to be drab in comparison to the Bride's cake. The choices were Spike (who had not done a lot but who had done what he had done competently), Dale(who had taken on way too much and underperformed in general as a result), and Nikki(who as an expert in Italian food should have stepped up and been the leader on this task but totally refused to do so). I thought that Spike was safe for sure. I thought that Dale was probably safe because of his past record of high performance. I thought Nikki was in trouble because of her past record of low performance(most observers considered her overdue for elimination) and because she failed a crucial leadership opportunity. The decision was for Nikki to pack her knives and go.

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The news is in that Sam Talbot, 3rd place finisher in TopChef 2 and chef most including me had picked to win it all, will be back as a judge this week.

It's worth a moment to speculate on who the next eliminee will be? I think the choices are:

Lisa
Spike
Andrew

They will not be Richard, Dale(even though he did poorly last week), Antonia or Stephanie. Those women are going to be kept in as long as possible, but Lisa just doesn't have what it takes for the Final 4. Spike is too up and down. Andrew can be brilliant at times, but he can't compete consistently.

I will hazard the guess of Lisa as the next one out, but that has just more than a 1/3 probability.

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Episode 10 has 7 cheftestants at its start. The Guest Judge is the esteemed Sam Talbot, who most people including me thought had a lock on TC2 but faltered on insufficient flavor at the end. The Quickfire is to put "sexy" back into salad(what a joke!). Chefs had 45 minute to create and produce a salad of great appeal.

Lisa - grilled squid and lobster tail (Antonia complains here that Lisa is looking like serious competition; I have a totally different opinion of this nasty, churlish chef), bananas, yuzu vinaigrette
Antonia - "fatty" poached egg and mushroom w/ bacon vinaigrette and squash blossoms
Stephanie - "fall duet" pear, vinaigrette, poached pear, watercress; it was meant to have artichoke chips but she neglected to get them on the dish
Richard - ceviche of fruits and vegetables
Dale - poached chicken w/ nori paste, mirin, sake, rice wine vinegar (somebody observed that Dale has only one cuisine - Asian)
Spike - "sensual beef" skirt steak w/ pinaeapple, radish and cucumber
Andrew - Thai fruit salad w/ mangoes, strawberries, raspberries, sriracha sauce(as an aside, I finally found this in the local ShopRite. it is expensive at $3 for a small bottle, but tasty; now that I know precisely what it tastes like I am going back to regular less expensive hot sauce; this sriracha is imported from Thailand so I don't expect it to become reasonably priced)

Losers group was Lisa, Stephanie and Richard.
Winners group was Dale, Spike and Antonia. Spike was chosen the winner for his unusual combination.  He does not win immunity but gets a significant advantage.

ELIMINATION CHALLENGE

Sam introduces this because he is diabetic and needs low sugar. Low in cholesterol and carbs are also part of the rules. Not mentioned up front but worked in later are the requirements of "hearty, nutricious and delicious" quoting Tom Colicchio. This challenge is to develop lunch boxed for the Chicago Police Training Academy.
Whole Grain
Lean Protein
Fruit
Vegetables
The boxes are to be labeled including instructions on reheating.

Spike's advantage turns out to be 2 separate things:
1. Exclusive use of one ingredient from each of the 4 categories. Spike picks chicken, tomatoes, bread and lettuce. This was viewed mostly as a defensive move to block the others from using those ingredients rather than a strategic move to use them effectively in his dish. I don't think he really used bread, lettuce or tomato much if at all so he was open to serious criticism by Tom and Ted.
2. A 10 minute head start on shopping over the others.
The shopping limit at Whole foods was $175, with 30 minutes to spend it.

Stephanie - mushrooms and meatballs soup w/ barley, edamame, vegetable puree, fresh berries, yogurt
Lisa - shrimp stir fry w/ brown rice and spicy pineapple hot sauce
Richard - grilled tuna w/ chinois and lentils on a rice paper tortilla
Andrew - salmon roll, parsnips, pine nut rice, pineapple, pickled ginger wasabi(sushi and wasabi for policemen?;  what was he thinking?)
Antonia - curry beef w/ filet mignon, jasmine rice, berries and figs w/ grape syrup
Dale - lemongrass bison lettuce wrap w/ brown rice,  and herb(cilantro and basil) salad
Spike - chicken salad w/pita and crudites

Two things happened in the kitchen while cooking these dishes. Lisa had brown rice burn on her from high heat. She states unequivocally that someone turned up the burner when she was not looking. Others believe that Lisa just made a mistake and needed to cover it up to stay in the competition. I'm not sure what to believe, but it may not matter. Padma really dislikes the burned rice and Lisa explains that when it occurred with 12 minutes left it was too late to start cooking a new batch. Andrew apprently (was he brain-dead?) lost the challenge rules and lost sight of the requirement to have a whole grain in his meal. The judges noted when sampling his meal that there was no grain and this was a violation of contest rules. They did not say how they were going to deal with it, leaving viewers in suspense. We'll pick up the story later at Loser's judging.

When Richard presented his meals to the police trainees wandering by, he used a lot of salesmanship and showmanship. Spike complained on camera about this, but he was way off base. Richard was doing what real chefs sometimes have to do to effectively stay in business. If Spike doesn't like that, then he can try another profession besides chef.

Winners' group here was Dale and Stephanie. From the comments I thought it might be Stephanie but Dale was selected once again(obtaining redemption from his bad performance in episode 9). he wins a trip for 2 to Rutherford Hill winery in Napa Valley, California.

Loser's group was Spike, Lisa and Andrew. Readers note the 100% congruity of this list with the ending of my recap for Episode 9 when I predicted that these are the lowest 3. Spike was criticized for his hoarding of ingredients and failure to use them effectively in his dish. Lisa was criticized over the rawness of the shrimp and the rice and lack of flavor. Andrew was criticized for insufficient flavors and poor fit of flavors(sushi?) with the needs of a police trainee. Tom said that someone eating Andrew's lunch box would need to get get some delicious fast food afterward. Lisa wanted to give herself every advantage so she went after Andrew for his not following the rules. I think what happens is that chefs get a pass on that if their food tastes just good enough; if it doesn't they are gone. Lisa knew she was vulnerable because she was the only chef to be in both losers' groups this week.

The prelude to the announcement of who got eliminated was a summary by Tom Colicchio of the various meals:
Andrew hit the mark on the nutritional content but he didn’t on providing substantial, tasty fare.
Spike had weird crudités, bread, tomatoes and lettuce hardly used, and the questionable flavor combo of olives and grapes.
Lisa’s dish wasn’t a stir-fry but steamed vegetables and she should be checking on things more often.
So, as I have asked before, whose was the greater sin? No contest! Andrew got the boot, totally expected based on having 2 major sins this episode. There was a lot of verbal jousting between Andrew, who accused Lisa of throwing him "under the bus" and Lisa. It was just fluff for the cameras and did not amount to a hill of beans(have I reached my cliche limit yet?). I think Lisa was right to point out the infraction; in any case it was meaningless since the judges already were aware from counting ingredients in the meal that Andrew had failed to follow the rules. Andrew effectively let Lisa off the hook, as a double loser is almost always eliminated unless there is more than one.

It won't be long before Lisa joins him.  Spike may have some exceptional dishes from time to time, but he is not competitive with Richard, Dale, Antonia and Stephanie. Destiny waits one of those 4.

TexasLady:

--- Quote ---It won't be long before Lisa joins him. Spike may have some exceptional dishes from time to time, but he is not competitive with Richard, Dale, Antonia and Stephanie. Destiny waits one of those 4.
--- End quote ---

I agree with your assessment. Richard in particular is standing out for me, the other three as well. I cannot stand Lisa,  and frankly a chef with eyebrow piercings and messy hair is not something I'd like to see whether eating my dinner or watching it be prepared.   

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