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.