Oh we will, don't worry.

Hello all!

LOL seriously that looks completely nasty. Nikki's bear dropping mushrooms have been dethroned easily by the new champion for the nastiest looking food of the season.

Siva, the Thai embassy is on the phone. They want to arrange your extradition to Thailand to face charges of blasphemy. Not even poorly done Thai food looks like Stephie's plate. LOL

The sauces are indeed typically thin, but also heavily flavored. And Stephie does know that, she has a background with some SE Asian cooking.

But this episode, Stephie seemed to be in a state of personal collapse.

I'm 24, and I've never had curry!

When I want Dinner I want something that tasted good. If I want to fill myself with disgusting yet nourishing protien I'll grab my Whey Shakes or a power bar.

For Tom and the Judges to nit-pick Marks dish on one random nutritional qualification while another contestants food looks like the Mob used it to dispose of the body of Mr. Peanut is simply comedic, unbelieveable misdirection.

Mark's exit interview might be described as bizarre.

He calls Padma "Yoko Ono" and accuses her of breaking up the band. Anyone help me understand that reference? I know who the Beatles were and what Yoko Ono is accused of, but tie that to Padma for me?

He also reasserts that a vegetarian meal that includes no protein is "healthy."

It looks mighty dry though, doesn't it? Maybe add some soy sauce.

Well, by all accounts, Mark's dish didn't taste good. And the challenge made it abundantly clear that it was to be a healthy and nutritious meal. So I would not call that nit-picking on one random nutritional qualification, to point out that his veggie dish is neither healthy, nor nutritious. Nor delicious. Stephies dismal chicken does at least amount to a meal. Mark's does not, not by how I define a meal.

Emphasis... they were to create a MEAL. Not a dish.

I realize you have a point to make, but your point can't discredit the fact that I would prefer the unappealing chicken and couscous over the unappealing sweet veggie curry.

Antonia's dish apparently did come with a drizzle of Teriyaki. Which for a freshly stir-fried dish is probably all one needs.

You may have noticed, very often the Camera Plate photos of the food look extremely dry. The cheftestants are responsible for plating those themselves, so they should look their best, but often the photos look like they were taken hours after that food got plated....

Well Well Well...I'm late as usual, but so glad to see that the two most annoying things from the episode were picked up by others.

1. Double dippers. I love The Blais, but he got busted. So did Dale, also during the EC, later in the episode. I am fairly sure that we see him taste off of a wooden spoon and almost instantly replace it into his pan.

2. Calling that dish a Puttanesca, much less making the kid tell the judges that. Tsk Tsk.

Despite all of the conspiracy theorists around here, I happen to agree with the choice for PYKAG. Maybe not because of that episode in particular, but overall it was time for Mark to go. He has been barely hanging on for weeks. I do think that Calicchio kind of tipped his hand a little too, when he mentioned that up to this point Steph has been strong (or something like that) at judge's table. Whether anyone likes it or not, past performance is a factor. Which is also why I think Mark's welcome had finally run out.

Personally, I had The Blais, Dale, and The Beast (Jen) picked for final three for the past month (or so). Obviously I had to readjust that, and I threw in Steph for Jen. Although last night's episode showed a monumental drop in her confidence level. Her thinking and cooking were clearly affected.

Very true... which is why I think Mark just spent the $10 poorly.

Just an FYI, Lee Anne does now have a blog up, and confirms that there was Chef Access To The Pantry. Doesn't mention how extensive she made the pantry this time, but at least they had a pantry to fill in some blanks with.

She also has praise for some (who may not be the expected ones), some criticisms that aren't the same as what we already heard...

And Mark's curry was the least favorite meal among the Child Diners, as well as the Judges. Lee Anne's blog seems to emphasize that explicit expectation, those meals really had to please the kids.

Which I don't understand! This challenge would have been so much fun for me, I don't know why she'd stress to the point she is.

Does anyone know of a tropical deserted island that I can buy? I just heard of a new reality show *Hurl*. They take competitive eaters, have them eat a bunch of stuff and the put them through ridiculous challenges like riding a roller coaster to see who hurls. I thought Springer was bad, and the folks on the court shows. Can't understand the people who go on the clean house show when they live like pigs and the intervention show makes me sick to think about it.

Every time I think we have gotten as shallow as we can get----someone drains a little more water out of the pool.

I keep getting a "video not found" message.

Perhaps. And maybe it didn't come off the way I intended but I happen to find Uncle Ben's and vaudeville blackface fairly offensive and I was snarking on that sort of commercially embedded racism, not trying to be racist (and I used Rev. Wright because the right wing's reaction to him seems pretty racist as well). I did misfire though because I meant to use that other bastion of condescending marketing, Aunt Jemina, instead of Mrs. Butterworth. I guess I probably just saw the Geico commercial featuring her. Plus, I recently saw "CSA", the what-if-the-Civil-War-was-won-by -the-South movie that took racist advertising to its ultimate conclusion.

I guess when I see Uncle Ben, Uncle Remus and Al Jolson (and the famous [expletive deleted] Chicken featured in the great movie, Ghost World), the snark just naturally oozes from the pot to the plate. But you're right - snark falls flat on its face if you have to explain it.

You really think you would like something that Tom called "offputting" and I believe Padma said she detested? Did she say detested?
If that truely is the case then our taste buds are on completely divergant paths.


But to my main point:
Its absolutely nitpicking to call out one random nutritional value when someone else serves something that would cause the ACLU to unleash the lawyers if it was served in prison! LOL. When last week a team ignored a rule of the challenge entirely they skated bye. Mark misses one nutritional point and loses to prison food.

Top Chef indeed!

Apologies Siva, there was an error in the URL. I've corrected it in the original, now just try here.

I encourage you to take this up with the Child Diners. Who apparently are also on some divergent path.

Be forewarned however. Bring that kind of attitude, and those kids know where their chef buddies have stored the knives. LOL

Another Blog up on Pravda!

LOL and the comment cards mysteriously show up again to justify another completely laughable offing.

What episode was it that Tom told the chefs to cook for him? LOL.

Tele, did you miss it when Corporate Headquarters reinvented the figure of Uncle Ben?

I'm serious, they did. It was some major PR initiative. Uncle Ben has been reinvented as a successful corporate chairman, with a corporate history and corporate office you can visit. Uncle Ben's grains of wisdom. Considering the actual history of the Uncle Ben figure, this must be one of the most dramatic and thorough make-overs ever attempted. The brand name remains the same - and the "Uncle" part - but the mythic house servant or waiter is gone. The mythic figure behind the name is now a entrepreneurial pioneer and model of business success.


Aunt Jemima, however, has not had a similar corporate makeover. Yet.

Yes well I don't find it hard to believe that the Children would like chicken smothered in peanut butter better than spicy ethnic food like curry. The parents however are a different story, unless of course were cooking for a family of four on Lord of the Flies Island.

Oh and who the kids liked the best is a red herring. Each table only got their own food.

Whata, I realize that you have a single point that you want to make over and over again.

But if you do so, you must have the grace to allow others to simply disagree with you. Or to care about other points. Or to form other judgments.

The sort of persistent insistence that anyone who doesn't embrace your One Grand Unifying Point is a fool or is impaired or.. whatever... that is both wearing and unfair. And not the very best board behavior ever.

I agree with WhataJoke that Stephanie's was the worst dish for a similar reason. Children need the complete protein, yes, but they cannot benefit from what they refuse to eat. Children today are not required to "clean their plates" and what about the children who are dangerously allergic to peanuts? Many elementary schools will not allow peanuts in the building.

I think some chefs were remembering the "block party" challenge where they were chastized for "dumbing down" the recipes in consideration of the 80 children who were expected to attend.

And another reason why Antonia's dish won was the colorful child-friendly presentation, bright veggies over curly whole wheat noodles! I agree with the poster that described the cous-cous dish as looked like something the cat hacked up with a hairball.

I don't know why none of the chefs made red beans and rice. I found a more upscale recipe than I use at Epicurus.. for gourmets, but it can be simplified for family and you can add leftover meat.. even SPAM!

RED BEANS AND RICE
This variation on the southern staple can be prepared easily with ingredients one usually has on hand. It's hearty, flavorful, and foolproof — a good choice when you come home from work and need supper in a hurry.

Servings: Makes 4 servings.


2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium onions, finely diced
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1 green pepper, finely diced
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup water
A few dashes hot sauce (such as Tabasco)
2 (15-ounce) cans kidney beans, rinsed well in a strainer
4 cups hot cooked rice (from 1 cup raw rice)
Sour cream (optional)
Preparation
1. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions, garlic, and green pepper, and sauté until the pepper is very tender, about 10 minutes. 2. Sprinkle in the chili powder and paprika, and cook 30 seconds. Mix in the tomato sauce, water, hot sauce, and kidney beans, and simmer about 10 minutes, or until the mixture is hot and fragrant. Serve over rice with a small spoonful of sour cream on top, if desired.

Tip: To give the beans a smoky flavor you can add 1 small chipotle pepper in adobo sauce. Mince it on a small plate with 2 knives before adding it to the beans. Omit the hot sauce.


*** Also I would like to add that while I am 100% sure that Stephanie was "saved" based on her superior prior performance, at this stage in the game, is that really wrong? If there are 3 "least liked" dishes, and one of the chefs there has the track record to become Top Chef, while two clearly don't, shouldn't the judges take that into consideration? If Richard was PYKAG'd for the scaley fish, and Stephanie for the vomitous cous-cous, and Antonia for the lack of polish sausage, drunk or otherwise, it would be Dale to win by default? Or if he fouled up, Andrew. The producers want a woman to win this year. Do we want a finale between Nikki and Lisa?

Now the superior dish will usually win, but the eliminations are more flexible, and probably should be. On Project Runway it's "One day you're IN, the next day you're OUT!" But, unlike fashion, a good chef never goes out of style. And I don't mind a successful chef who knows what it takes, making that kind of subjective decision on who should go, worst dish? or worst chef? Does anyone think that if Nikki made the cous-cous mess that she would be staying?

Hmmmm, expecting nutritious in a nutritious challenge seems to neither be a nit-pick nor random. If only the dish hadn't tasted bad and hadn't been a bizarre choice for the challenge. I chalk that last part up to a cultural difference. Curry as an inexpensive everyday family dish might be more common in the rest of the world, but it's not really very common here. If only there were a guest judge who had grown up from childhood with curry and knew what various curries should taste like.

Perhaps Mark might now know why dal and dal dishes are so important to Indian culture. You can't live on vegetarian curry alone. If he had only added some mung beans or split peas to his dish, he might still be around to take bubble baths. Of course, he'd still have to deal with the sickly sweet flavor profile of his dish and the oddball nature of the dish vis a vis the challenge.

Well, if you were playing a drinking game where you did a shot every time someone said f*ck, then you were already toasted after you read one of my last posts as SimpleBear. LOL. I'm sorry about that, guys, but I had had quite enough of the bickering and thought that dropping the f bomb over 10 times would be the only way it would get attention.

And, LOL, it really seemed to work, so yey me!

I thought this was an absolutely adorable challenge. The quickfire said hello to me, as we actually do have both Uncle Ben's and Sateran's (sp?) ready to eat in 90 seconds rice packs in our kitchen. We find that they give Denny the inspiration to make himself a quick snack, and there are som many things you can do with the aid of one of those little packets.

Thus, I loved the quickfire this week. I loved that Spike used the rice to make stuffed tomatoes. My grandmother used to make stuffed peppers as one of her mainstays, and it was one of the first things that I learned to cook. I still make them, in fact. Everybody stepped up to the plate for this, and even the bad dishes, like Stephanie's rice pancakes, were, at the very least, interesting. I love fried rice, and, therefore, I enjoyed Dale's fried rice concoction.

I'm a big fan of Art Smith, and we have the literature. I think he's invoved in some very worthy causes, and, oh yeah, he's a down to earth, and kind of sexy Bear, proof that straight men can be part of the Beartheren.

Drew and I are both good cooks. In fact, if Drew hadn't gone on to be a lawyer, he has the talent to be a very good cook. He also has the intangibles to be a great chef. People want to follow him, so we have taught Denny to be self reliant when it comes to his food. If we're not there we know Denny won't go hungry, as we've always cooked together, and he likes to do it.

The kids were pretty inspirational, and I'm glad the chefs cleaned up their language around them. You could see that everyone really had a good time around these kids, and, as a viewer it was contagious. Last week, and this week, have made me re-think my attitudes toward the chefs. If it's something that inspires them they can be very good.

Nikki stepped up to the plate this week, and both the quickfire, and that one pot concoction were admirable. I was fond of both Antonia and Spike's pasta related dishes, as well. All in all, I think they enjoyed the children and it showed. No one was annoying, and Richard, Antonia and Nikki were fully present.

I did hate Stephanie's combining of tomatoes and peanut butter, which is strange since I've let Denny run with peanut butter as an ingrediant for dishes. It can be done, and she just fumbled it. Curry is something that can be a wow element, and Mark just made so many bad decisions. His dish looked as bad as the judges said it tasted. Lisa's food looked really good, so I was surprised to hear how bland it was. That's a shame.

I think they sent the right person home. I was pretty through with Mark when his station was so messy in the tailgating challenge. I don't think you can cook with a messy station. everything should have it's place, and he's a slob. This time the choices he made for vegetables was suspect to me. The last straw was when he said that "Tom doesn't like me". Was he crazy?

Overall, I loved it, and the show seems to be back on the right track. I can't wait for next week's Wedding challenge.

Am I saying you can't disagree with me? Nope.

I am simply providing counterpoints to the points that you brought up.

• While the children of a family of 4 might enjoy skippy chicken and couscous the Parent(s) may very well be a different story.
• Most American children are not used to spicey curries so their like or dislike may not be reflective of the dishes quality.
• Each table only got their own food so claiming which food "the children" liked best and least is very misleading.

Feel free to form any judgement you want. I'm simply pointing out things that support my argument.

I think the Quaker Oats Man deserves a makeover as well..

Quaker Oats Man - One of the oldest advertising mascots in America, the Quaker Oats Man became the first registered trademark for a breakfast cereal in 1877. Through the years, many have mistaken The Quaker Oats Company mascot as William Penn or Ben Franklin, but in truth, the image of a man dressed in the Quaker garb was purposely chosen to reflect the "Quaker" faith and its values of honesty, integrity, and purity. Surprisingly, the actual Society of Friends (a.k.a. the "Quakers") went to court to have their association with the cereal removed, but they lost the court battle.

The portrait of the Quaker man on the Quaker Oats popular red, white and blue package has been updated just three times since its creation - once in 1946, again in 1957 and most recently in 1972. The original 1877 image was a full-length picture of a kindly Quaker man holding a scroll with the word "Pure" on it.

In 1946, graphic designer Jim Nash developed a new Quaker identity by introducing a black-and-white version of the now-familiar smiling head portrait. In 1957, Chicago artist and illustrator Haddon Sundblom updated Nash's line drawing to a full-color portrait of the Quaker man, and in 1972, John Mills painted the stylized blue and white graphic image that appears on packages today

There's no possible Product Placement Tie-In, but a decent Quickfire I'd still like to see is one I imagined last season. After their initial "Cook These Freaky Odd Proteins" Elimination challenge.

Offer the chefs a counter display full of Asian and Latino fruits and veggies that we know are NOT covered in any Culinary Institute curricula.

Lotus roots, arrowheads, cassava, jicama, malanga, taro, water chestnuts, fresh bamboo, maybe kohlrabi, different choys, amaranth and malabar spinach, taro leaves, banana blossoms, winged beans, bitter melons and winter melons and gourds, nopales, etc.

Ask the chefs to make a savory dish really featuring at least one of those.

Give them bergamot oranges, Buddha's hands, calamondine, star fruit, guavas, cherimoya, durian and jackfruit, sapotes and mangosteens and rambutan, tamarind pods and guanabana, etc.

Ask the chefs to make a sweet dish really featuring at least one of those.

Actually, if you asked them to do both that's a plausible Elimination Challenge.

Expecting nutrition in a nutricious meal is kind of like expecting polish sausage in a meal that calls for....Polish sausage. lol

Sweet Potatoes are widely recognised as a superfood and its easily one of if not the most nutritious vegetables you can eat. And they do provide some protien as well. So lets put an end to the no protien argument.

In other news Chorrizo is still not polish sausage. lol.


But we agree that curry is a poor choice for American children. Your just giving the Judges Ammo to get rid of you at that point.

If only that were the only reason he went home. If only the "polish sausage" dish hadn't actually tasted better than the other least favorite dish. If only there weren't that dratted worst food goes home rule. After all, how can you turn that into an objective standard?

If only...

Well, but no Quaker could find Quaker Oats Man as offensive as everyone should find past incarnations of Uncle Ben. LOL

And if they start making over Quaker Oats Man, they may as well re-examine the University of Pennsylvania's "Fighting Quakers" sports teams. The teams are properly called just "The Quakers" but everyone likes to say "Fighting Quakers."

I get to hear local sportscasters say things like "And the Fighting Quakers brutalized and decimated the Mohawks, it was a bloodbath..."

You mean the same "worst dish goes home" rule that completely went they way of the dinosaurs this week?

Well that's not fair to the dinosaurs, they actually exsisted lol.

And again if you want to go back to the last challenge, it's probably easier to make better tasting food when you can cheat and ignore the rules. No?

Why?

Whata, I'm sorry. I know you will insist on proving Your One Point.

But you are hopelessly wrong. Mark's dish was not nutritious and not healthy, and sweet potatoes are not a superfood in the absence of other complete proteins. So indeed... yes... please put an end to your argument.

LOL funny the Irish never have had a problem with Notre Dame's mascot and logo huh?

Don't give 'em any ideas Simon. U of I lost their mascot because it offended.

I'm a very messy and unorganized cook myself. I spend much more time worrying about perfecting the dish than cleaning my workspace. And I'd definantly need to wear an apron over my chef coat as I tend to wipe my hands off on my shirt, and I'd rather not have to do laundry every single day.

Well, Pita, curries of all kinds are fairly strong, assertive flavors that do not resemble any other flavors in the typical American palette. And curries are strangers to the the typical American palate. :-)

Kids, in general and much more so than adults, just do not take well to foods and strong flavors that they're not familiar with. It can be exceptional food but if it lies far outside their experience, they aren't usually very receptive. I nearly gagged the first time I was fed a PB&J sandwich at 13, it was so god-awfully strange in every way.

The other, more successful chefs played things closer to the familiar. Foods with basic flavors the kids recognize and enjoy, and just a few novel spins and extras here and there.

You can't live on sweet potatoes alone either. I don't think I ever used the "no protein" slam. I would characterize it as a serious lack of protein easily fixed by the addition of a few beans or a separate dal dish.

Since his curry tasted way off-base as well as not being nutritious and being pretty inappropriate to the challenge and didn't even look very good, it seems like his misfires trumped the Sausage Sisters' misfires. At least theirs seemed to taste better than the other misfire dish.

We have chicken a lot at family meal. Sometimes it's dry and oddly seasoned. But I eat it (not gladly). However, sometimes we have a teriyaki version of it and the chicken is naturally tender because it's in a sauce and yet the cook always heavily oversalts it (I suspect he uses both teriyaki sauce AND salt). Despite the fact that it's a pretty typical teriyaki dish, it tastes like a salt lick and I only eat a bite or two of it before I have to give up on it. So I can well understand why Simon might eat the chicken and cous-cous but not be able to gag down a sticky sweet curry that also happens to lack nutritional balance on its own.

Finally, about the sausage thing - that's why I like the fact that they have multiple criteria. Apparently the thing that landed them on the chopping block was the fact that they didn't conform strictly to the rules. And yet, their dish seemed to taste pretty good in general (maybe I'm misremembering, but I don't remember any really serious knocks to the flavor of the dish). So it didn't lose to a clearly inferior tasting dish. In fact, the fact that they didn't use Polish sausage probably was the only reason that the "in-the-middle" dish of Mark's team didn't make it to the chopping block. So, these things seem to work themselves out from challenge to challenge.

loves me some curry. would have to convince my boys to try it though.

Sweet Potatoes Rank #1.

From Organicfood.com



Sweet Potates seem pretty healthy to me. Not to mention the other vegetables that were in there.

Sweet Potatoes also have 2 grams of protien for a half cup serving.

A Glass of Milk would likey make up any lack of protien.

That's why Steph's peanut butter choice seemed like a no-brainer. The thing is, I'm not sure I've ever had a dish that paired a peanut sauce with tomatoes (unless they were maybe just a few small dices or something). That's just not a natural pairing and something that most good cooks wouldn't try to force. Of course, I had never paired jelly with cheese on a crusty roll until I lived in Germany and my fiancee introduced me to it. Now I'm a big fan. So, I'm now officially intrigued to see if peanut sauce and tomatoes can work, although I'm skeptical.

As to the Uncle Ben makeover, no I didn't know that they had done that. How perfectly cynical! Still doesn't change my mind about the branding. next thing you know, they'll be sending Uncle Remus to Harvard and redubbing his voice with James Earl Jones'.

Please. Whatever you do, don't tell my kids that! LOL.

I do see your point. I do. I just think it's a terrible shame that kids aren't introduced to flavors and a great variety of fruits and vegetables at an early age. I just did it differently, I guess.

I was very happy to see kids try and like the fennel salad and the beets. Good for them! I hope those kids make those additions an increasing part of their eating lives.

I suppose I liken the thought that kids don't do well with strong flavors as mind boggling as not cooking with beer and Polish sausage. Other cultures do it all the time. Other kids around the World have eaten and enjoyed plenty of chilies, garlic, onions, vinegars, jicamas, fennel, beets, etc.

I had to lol about your first experience with pb&j. My kids won't touch a pb&j because "it doesn't have any taste". So sayeth the 7 & 3 yo food critics.

One son doesn't like peanut butter and the other doesn't like chocolate milk. Go figure.

And just to add on here, a healthy diet includes a variety of foods.

Rabbit is one of the leanest protiens around but you can't live on it.

I wouldlove to look at Mark's curry item by item to see what was init but given the usual accuracy of Bravo's recipies coupled with last weeks recipie being reworked to include polish sausage it's hardly a reliable source.

Talk about abnormal kids......

Whata, you need to move on. A healthy root vegetable does not now and will not in future consitute a nutritious healthy meal. Not even when paired with other vegetables that all have their own merits as well. He could have added sweet potato leaves to that dish and thereby added a great source of lutein. But it makes no matter.

Instead of a nutritious, healthy meal, that had to account for the kids that would be eating it, Mark fed "a family of four" a nearly protein-free, dish of curried veggies. He was called out for the lack of protein and simply asserted that he didn't see why a vegetarian dish needed protein.

And by all accounts, it wasn't a good dish of curried veggies. And the kids didn't like it.

I'm from Vietnam. We know sweet potatoes. They'll keep you alive for a while till you can get your hands on some protein. (Heeeere doggie doggie doggie... come here...). But no, you cannot assert that was a healthy, nutritious meal.

A glass of Milk would work.

I'm sure if Mark or any other contestants cheated like the sausage sisters their food would taste good.

Their are multipule critera so the judges aren't hamstrung about who they are eliminating. The nutritional argument gave them the tiny sliver of something, heck anything, to get rid of Mark and save Stephanie because she clearly made the worst food.

Pita, when I first got here, all kinds of "normal" and "typical" American foods seemed utterly and completely gag-worthy. I would have welcomed cardboard if it came in a coconut milk/curry sauce.