Top Chef Season 3 Episode 10: Damned Either Way
The chefs are criticized if they send out a bad dish, or they decide not to. Hubris seems a common path to elimination. More often, a chef who think’s s/he’ll blow it out out of the water blows up instead.
I’m glad I wasn’t at episode 10’s boat party; those appetizers looked boring and scant. Even the top ones–Casey’s beef carpaccio, CJ’s seafood sausage, and Sara’s tomato bread pudding–looked good but not great. And the others could have come from a mid-level hotel’s catering service.
The judges were right to call Brian and the chefs on why they went for two items apiece instead of one. From the armchair it seems obvious that doing one great item well, and making tons of it, would be the way to go. Why didn’t the people who had catering experience know this? Hasn’t any of them done a wedding where the servers get mobbed on the way out of the kitchen and can’t even make it to the middle of the room?
I liked Brian’s non-hesitation to take a leadership role, and I empathize with his management mistake of giving people their heads as a way to let their best selves come forward. This is great in theory, but has mixed results in practice. The theme this season seems to be teamwork and leadership. Those who have a strong voice, a discernment about their own stuff, and can work (or learn to work) with others do well, as Sara did in part two of Restaurant Wars. Brian learned nothing from CJ’s and Tre’s mistake of the last episode; he was lucky not to be eliminated.
Howie’s offer to resign was full of bravado and honor, but unnecessary. He thought Brian might get eliminated, like Tre the week before, because of poor leadership. He knew his food was a large part of the failure and recognized he was the one who should go home. I like the responsibility this demonstrated.
So many chefs are in repeat-mistake mode that I see no clear winners and losers. Brian won the quickfire by eschewing his usual seafood and using Spam, then did a conventional tuna tartare for his app. Sara was on the disastrous dessert team in one of the early eps, yet she agreed both to doing a dessert and using cut-rate ingredients. Where was the strong voice of last ep? Hung went spazzy during the quickfire, and conventional during the elimination. Somewhere between the two lies his area of talent. And Dale hamstringed himself by agreeing to do a boring app with Hung.
(Did you know that Spam is made in Austin, MN, where there is a Spam museum? My husband G. Grod was delighted at Brian’s quickfire win.)
I recently admitted to an accidental crush on Anthony Bourdain. I’m enjoying his blog on the Top Chef episodes.
Throwing Things has a recap that may only be hilarious if you’re a football/Eagles fan. Since I do have some of those in my household, I’ve linked to it. (”Ee-yas!” is among 19mo Guppy’s many words.)
September 10th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
I cannot believe there is a Spam museum. Crazy. That totally caught my eye as I was reading this great post.
By the way, I just wrote an entry on my blog that has kind of a “foodie” slant, although in a very weird way. Would love to have your comment on it.
Best,
Kristin