top chef and top disgusting

i'll get to the recap momentarily, but first i feel the need to share yet another spoke on the wheel of the apocalypse. convenience products are nothing new, and surely it will get worse before it gets better, but these 2 are the ones currently feasting on my tender soul:

first, i give you batter blaster aka - waffles (and pancakes!) in a can. just shake and spray...it's spray cheese for the carbohydrate set.

the site is totally worth checking out - not least of all for the video demo, but maybe best of all - you can download a batter blaster ringtone! do check out the "press" section for lots of "i was initially skeptical, but then i tried it" commentary, and to read the full text of a SF Chronicle interview with the founder. not that you need to. the best quote is here, talking about his now wife when they were dating: "She loves waffles," O'Connor said. "And when we started dating, it was like 'Oh yeah, baby, I'll make you waffles.' That's what got me back into mixing the batter." i find that entire quote deeply, deeply dirty. and it makes me so tired to think that this completely useless product will succeed because a) it's organic and b) the packaging is "environmentally sound"

can i just mention that A BOWL is even more environmentally sound?

and speaking of pesky bowls...the second comes from the fine folks at betty crocker. it's bisquick, but in a plastic jug. you just add water and shake! it's so easy, i want to cut myself. you can see a photo of the product on the homepage linked in a sec. note how very much it looks like laundry soap. it's worth a visit to the bisquick site if only to click on the link for "emergency meals." weirdly, a bunch of people wrote into the bisquick site to tell the makers of bisquick that their "emergency" meal of choice is...pancakes. go fucking figure.

why do people take the time to do this? don't they see that they're just doing for free (providing content) what other people get paid to do? and guess what? "user generated content" is shit content. not that i'm particularly likely to hang out on the bisquick site, but if i did, and happened to click on "emergency meals" i kind of expect to see some mcgyver shit. you know, like, in an actual emergency - bisquick can be baked on rocks in the hot sun and eaten as crackers...or even something as simple as, out of flour? no worries, you can make a cake if you just substitute bisquick and don't add baking powder. something useful. but no. because god forbid you should actually *cook* with an edible product....wouldn't want you getting any crazy ideas and causing a run on bowls at target. the content is moronic. and because it's free for them, the fine folks at betty crocker aren't complaining. and because bus people love to have their photos on the internets, regardless of how stupid it makes them look, we get pancakes. ok

and now onto TC

is it just me, or does this show get more predictable every week? this week, they were back to hawking corporate sponsorship - the quickfire was the "quaker oats challenge" in which each chef had to make something with oats. birdy carla loves the oats (no surprise there). she made tofu and some kind of oat and lentil salad. looked ok. all of the other contestants except the finn used the oats to crust something and then fried it - kind of eliminating any potential health benefits from the whole grain, but what does quaker care? they mentioned quaker oats 20 times...mission accomplished. arrgh!

the winner was the finn - who made...banana mousse parfait, i think? it looked like pap to me. made some ugly little oat cookie and some oat brittle. has he made banana mousse before? it seemed oddly familiar. anyway - the days of immunity have gone, and so his prize was first pick in the main challenge.

in honor of the super bowl, the main challenge was TC5 vs the "all stars" from past seasons. note the quotes, because clearly, TC is taking some liberties with the phrase "all stars." there were no winners, or even place-ers or show-ers in this challenge. we got spike and crazy andrew and the vegetarian and josie and chunk and a couple other chicks. padma was dressed, as she often is, in a slightly porny version of the theme. in honor of football, she looked like a naughty referee. rob said he thought she might have gotten a second job at foot locker. i noted that leather pants were not de rigueur last time i was at FL, though it has been a while. as the winner of the quickfire, the finn got to select which region he would cook, and which "all star" to compete against. he picked the vegetarian, andrea (who isn't even a vegetarian) and chose texas, because, i guess, it's meaty and he thought he could cream the vegetarian. (foreshadowing...)

the rest of the chefs all decided as a team what region they would each cook from, and then faced off against the corresponding "all stars." so...tats mcgee took san francisco (of course), chase-alike took miami (duh), carla took new orleans, hosea (who is realllly starting to bug me, by the way. he said something was ironic when it wasn't and just looks like a dumb-ass more and more frequently) took seattle, leah took NY, and the poor italian got stuck with green bay. judging was split between the judges and audience (culinary students?) weighted toward the judges...though, oddly, if the judges were split, the audience determined all the points - which actually seemed a little weird. i don't know why they didn't keep the points separate - but anyway - this is nitpicking. most of the dishes seemed fine - if boring. tats made cioppino - with crab only - and whoever she competed against made something that looked gross. carla made gumbo with the whitest roux i have ever seen, and then bizarrely served it over polenta, but the judges liked it. hosea and leah both got some points. bottom 3 were the finn, the poor italian and chase-alike. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

then the italian said something else about monkey-ass and added fried bananas, which made me wonder from where in italy, exactly, he hails. i liked the shout-out to bananas, but it lost something in the translation. he overcooked some venison and shredded some cheddar cheese (!!!!) onto a green salad, whereupon it immediately wilted and sweated and looked like something you'd get at an olive garden in green bay. the finn's dish was apparently not as bold as andrea's, so while it wasn't actively objectionable, it wasn't good enough to win (subtext - finn clearly safe) and then chase-alike made ceviche with his usual 86,000 components. he went up against...josie who made "hot ceviche" which sounds, frankly, repellent. it also looked awful, but she got all possible points, leading me to one possible conclusion - which is that chase-alike is a terrible terrible cook who works at a place that sounds like a sex toy. seriously - we're like 15 weeks in, and every time i see "dilido beach club" i omit a letter and get a little start. judges table was bad for both chase-alike and the italian, but the italian was spared (because he's funny). i will say that both guys handled it well - the italian seemed genuinely grateful to get another chance (i give him 1-2 weeks tops) and chase-alike took the responsibility for his loss upon himself rather than blaming anyone else.

but overall - zzzzzzzz.

NO

no
no
no

this has gone too far. i was reading a posting on FB by the lovely and talented chef shannon herman, which linked to the LA Times blog. the blog posting touts bacon as the new outre ingredient for desserts. i've had bacon candy, i've had bacon ice cream and i've had bacon truffles. they're ok. i get it. smoky, salty and sweet. i'm unlikely to be convinced that there's a better iteration of that combo than plain old maple syrup and bacon. but whatever. there are only so many ingredients out there, and chefs and cooks need to mash them up and create new trends, whether i like them or not. though, for the record, please keep your bacon out of my martini. a little further into the blog, i saw a related post listing 1,001 things to do with bacon. so i started scrolling through. i only made it to 19...whereupon i saw something so unholy, so completely wrong, it inspired this posting.

just typing this makes me want to throw up. see what i go through for you? ok, it's a cheeseburger, with a fried egg, and bacon, sandwiched between 2 krispy kreme glazed doughnuts. i'm not making this up. how sick and wrong can you get? first of all, and i know this trend has it's fans, but as much as i adore bacon with eggs, and bacon with cheeseburgers, i think the fried-egg-on-burger is gilding the lily a bit. secondly, KK doughnuts are just too soft and sweet for my taste to begin with. they're like warm frosted wonder bread o's. i can very clearly imagine the sugary, greasy, sludgy, wet paste those doughnuts (and the intrepid fingers holding them) would become. and now, you...you minion of satan, you want to go ahead and put them all together? pass the nitroglycerin.

you can see one particularly unappetizing photo of the monstrosity on the LA Times site. Paula Deen, of food network fame made a version she calls, the "ladies brunch burger." since it was prepared by food stylists, it's much more attractive than the LA Times version. but it's still gross. see it here.

there should be a law that if you eat one of those things, you pay out of pocket for your (inevitable) bypass surgery. my premiums do not need to reflect your callous disregard for burgers, bacon, eggs and your heart.

can i light your...candle?

oh, restaurant wars...the much-anticipated TC episode in which the top 2 quickfire winners get to be the chef-owners of a (non-existent) restaurant for an evening. tats mcgee basically called the episode within the first 15 seconds when she said that the chef of the losing restaurant almost always goes home. she's right. so, frankly, the smart bet would have been to blow the quickfire, or to do what tats did - something fine, but not exciting. after a pretty uninspired 30 minutes, the winners were leah and radhika. given the foreshadowing, it seemed pretty clear that one of them would be going down.

since TC seems to have degenerated into a Rock of Love facsimile, i was a little concerned that "going down" might be more literal than figurative. my fears were at least partially confirmed, as the initial drama was not on the plate, but rather on the divan, where leah and hosea made out on camera. they both awoke chagrined, (one hopes at least not entirely because they were on film) and the ensuing chatter and editing made them both appear unusually distracted and unfocused on the task at hand. for the novice viewer, this might have seemed to be still more foreshadowing, implying leah's (long anticipated and well-deserved) ouster. but not so...experienced viewers glancing at the clock noted that it was nearly halfway through the episode...long past the moment of foreshadow and well into the epoch of red herring. the rest of the prep showed a happy "team radhika," with good food and teamwork. despite a little awkwardness on her part, she and her team seemed confident and ready to meet the challenge. toast.

leah's team consisted of hosea (of course) and the euros. radhika chose first, and picked jaime, then carla, then jeff. she could have chosen the italian, but picked carla instead. bad move. no offense intended to the ostrich, but the italian was made to work the front - which is what he did for leah. none of radhika's team wanted to work in the front, so she took it upon herself to do it, rather than delegating (get chase-alike out of the kitchen!!!). it was a bad move, and one, ultimately that would axe her. the food from her kitchen generally looked (and maybe tasted?) better, but she was a stressed-out hostess, and her FOH staff neglected key details (like resetting silver) that totally pissed colicchio off. rule #1 - do not piss that man off.

meanwhile over in leah's disjointed kitchen, the finn overcame a shit freezer and made great desserts, hosea cooked short ribs (wow) and the italian gets credit for the best bite of the night. granted, it was a sound bite and not a bite of food, but i won't quibble, since this show has less and less to do with food every week. in touting his FOH skill, he said ,"we could serve monkey ass in empty clam shells and win." he's also responsible for the title of this entry, which he said to a pair of ladies, making them laugh in a mixture of disbelief and embarrassment. his charm and the finn's desserts overcame leah's undercooked fish, and a generally less inspired menu, and they did win.

i felt a little bad for radhika...i bet she's a great cook. but she's a bad leader, and that's just never going to win. huge, haunted eyes and great legs can take a girl far, but not to the finale.

rant #1

i was out of coffee this morning. which meant that before my eyes were fully open, i was driving. not the best way for me (or my neighbors) to start the week. i was minding my own business, listening to KUBE, (as i do) when i heard a McDonald's ad. it was for something they're calling a "mini meal." for the uninformed, a "mini-meal" consists of a small soda, small fries and your choice of a double cheeseburger (you read that right) a McChicken sandwich, or 4 chicken nuggets...all for under $3.

to state the blatantly obvious, there's nothing remotely "mini" about that pile of food. the double cheeseburger option and a regular soda will set you back around 870 calories. for those of us without the metabolism and work-out schedule of michael phelps, this a full meal + worth of calories. and of course, they know it. there's a very icky market fast food hucksters are trying to create. not only are they casting themselves as the value option, but they're also giving you an excuse to eat more (and therefore spend more) by manufacturing a need. so taco bell created the incredibly depressing "fourth meal" (read - stoner meal) and now McDonald's has introduced the "mini-meal." all of this begs the question, exactly how many meals a day do we need? and how much money can we really be saving if we eat all of them?

and this shit is cropping up everywhere. i saw an ad the other night for KFC. it was a *box* of food (because, i am not joking, the bag is too small to fit it all!) 2 sides, 1 piece of chicken, something called a snacker and 2 chicken tenders. i can't even remember how much it costs, i was too disturbed by the quantity. wait - i just went to their site. i forgot about the 32 oz. drink. ba-nanas!

subway, which rode the "health" bandwagon as hard as it could, was recently advertising foot-long sandwiches for under $5. i'm guessing the foot-long meatball isn't on Jared's diet, but he wasn't in the ad. instead they featured "real" people. construction and office workers (blue and white collar...hunger and the economy effect us all, man.) giddily singing an inane song about $5 sandwiches. and it's not like i'm disappointed in subway. the notion that fast food can ever be anything more than cheap, empty calories has always been a stretch. but no more than 4 weeks ago, fast food ads all featured their "healthier" options. i can almost hear the sigh of relief as they switch messaging from "healthy" to "cheap." but it's so insulting, since it both implies that they've been fleecing us in recent years, and that when we're poor, we feel the need to overeat. i guess, at these prices, we can hardly afford not to.

posse in effect...

so the usual thursday TC recap gets a special bonus...something else of interest this week!

but first, top e'scallop. tats mcgee finally wins a challenge. and boy did she want it. i can barely muster the energy to wipe the drool off my face to write about it, let alone be bothered to care. sooo boring! even the quickfire was lame and contrived this week, and they've been so good lately. "make a dessert without sugar," sponsored by diet dr. pepper (nooooo!) the contestants didn't need to use DDP, so its inclusion was bizarre, and they seemed to have ample access to every other sweetener in the world. agave syrup anyone? it didn't even need to be a diet dessert, as evidenced by the bread pudding that won. it just seemed half-assed. the QF judge was a pastry chef whose own Bravo show is about to premiere, so it seemed like they just manufactured a way to cross-promote. on the plus side, the finn fucked with him a little. i liked that, but, as i've previously stated, i still hate the finn. he's like a super-villain. radhika's (non indian!!) bread pudding won, giving her immunity.

the regular challenge was a double elimination, since in the holiday spirit (last april, when they taped,) tom gave everyone a pass the previous time. hosea said something really stupid about attrition, making it clear that he, hosea, has a vague idea of what the word attrition means. dude, do yourself a favor - less talking, more cooking, m'kay? the regular challenge was also weird...cook your best, most "you" food, and serve it family style. why family style? i want to see amazing plating. you don't really get that with family style. it felt sloppy or like a cheat, somehow. the new judge is an english food critic, who's supposed to be a total prick. the ostrich (rob calls her urkel) is shown in all the trailers bobbing her head around and squawking for gail. he didn't seem like a prick, though, of course, i have a high threshold. the one interesting bit seemed to be a little disagreement between him and colicchio, and we all know who has the final word at that table. so when newbie seemed inclined to toss the ostrich and keep eug, it was clear the opposite was going to happen. besides, it was her first time there, and he did make daikon fettuccine. enough said. poor sissy hankshaw never had a chance. they hated her tuna tacos, she's been on the bottom a bunch and just doesn't have the spark. she seemed really sweet and gracious and took criticism well, but there was just no way. tats had to battle the finn and milfy for the top spot. she did scallops with orange and fennel. yawn. i saw the italian's face. he wanted to beat her with his bloody lamb chop. so did i.

but instead...i checked facebook. again. as i have been doing even more obsessively than usual. i'm looking for mail and notifications to tell me someone else has joined lafayette-a-palooza.

tuesday night i came home to a friend request on facebook from someone i went to elementary school with. he posted a couple of brilliant class shots - ours were taken in the cafeteria/auditorium of our elementary school. you can actually see the red velvet curtain behind us age as time goes by. i was in one of the three he posted, the kindergarten one, and from the moment i accepted his friend request i have been flooded with memories. a bunch of people from elementary school are also on FB and we've reconnected and have all been indulging in a mini-reunion of sorts. it's a blast. i've been thinking a lot about why i've been so obsessed with it. i mean, it's cool to see the photos and think about all the people i haven't thought about in so long, but my nostalgia is really strong. i asked rob if he remembered his early school years, and classmates, and he remembered some, and not without fondness, but i've been so giddy. maybe it's colored rosier because middle school was so absolutely miserable...maybe it's so fun because we went from being muppets to people and it's so rare to get that full-spectrum view...and my god, were we muppets! rob assured me that if he'd been in school with me, he would have pushed me down on the playground, but i don't know...i was pretty gummy in that shot.

part of what's so intriguing is that we all remember the same events so differently. ok, so that's not a very profound statement but it's so fun to see what people remember, only with slightly less personal eyes. lizzie remembers standing in for me during sound of music rehearsals and being embarrassed because she was so tall and marta, my character, was little. most of my SOM memory is centered around the fact that i never got over the shame of wanting to be maria and losing out to lauren leader. meanwhile, henry and byron remember having to play nazis while wearing boy scout uniforms. i didn't even remember that at all. and that's hilarious. they're black. nice casting!

and i think it might boil down to this: by far the best interaction was a note from josh which told me, in a very funny way, that my memory of something was wrong. and wrong in my favor. and of course, at the time, my reaction was confusing and traumatic for him too. and i realized how many confusing interactions and unintended hurt feelings create these moments that are sort of a cross between a three's company episode and something a little more shakespearean. and of course those moments become our memories. how much of life could be unwound and clarified...perhaps, made easier...or less painful or even just not so serious if we all had a few opportunities like this? and on the one hand i kept thinking - what if you could somehow go back, and not necessarily re-live, but if you could somehow pass a little perspective and a little wisdom to your young self. we'd all rule the fucking world. can you imagine? rob said he would have had more sex in high school. and that was funny, and certainly true, but it's more than that. maybe it sounds cliche - if you knew then what you know now...but how *nice* when you do get that clarity. what a fucking relief. and maybe there's something about all this elementary school nostalgia that feels so indulgent, because it's an opportunity to kind of rewrite history...in a much more positive way. since no one is a bully now, and no one is the smart one, and no one is more or less popular or prettier, and no one's family is more or less fucked up, we don't remember things under that structure either. it's all very lovey. and i think we're inclined to be much more generous to each other and to ourselves than i'm sure we were at the time. it's a nice shift. hosanna facebook!