Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Recap Roundup: Top Chef Texas Episode 6

Minxeats on injury time out: "General Zod, who has two years of steakhouse experience under his belt, has taken charge of the steak course. But while he's prepping some bone marrow for Nyesha's compound butter, he stabs himself quite viciously in the hand with an oyster knife. He's all Mr Responsible and shit, so he gets a medic to bandage him up and promises to finish his prep before he heads to the ER for stitches."

Jordan Baker on theme songs: "The chefs head off to Southfork Ranch and we get a modified version of the Dallas theme song because apparently Bravo couldn’t secure the rights to the real thing. It’s so lame. Instead of ba BAAAAM ba BAAM ba Ba Badi Bum Bum! Bum Bi Bum Badi Bum!!! it’s like ba BAAAM badi bum bum! ba badi bum bum! Ba Baaam! (unrelated: I miss when TV shows had long opening credits sequences with iconic theme songs and pictures of the entire, sprawling cast as well as a lot of establishing shots to set up the feel of the show. Related: RIP, HarryMorgan)"

David Dust on mother sauces: "The cheftestants draw either Béchamel, Hollandaise, Espagnole, Tomate or Velouté – which, coincidentally, are the names of the of contestants for RuPaul’s Drag Race - Paris. The chefs are to make a dish with a new sauce that stems from their chosen mother-effin sauce."

Max the Girl on true, dat: "I think I’ve finally figured out the one flaw with this otherwise kickass season of Top Chef: There’s no villain. There’s no 5-star egomaniac, just a series of 2-star egomaniacs. We need that one jerk, that one contestant we love to hate, who throws others under the bus with impunity, who crows endlessly about his or her own culinary prowess, who is bullying, combative, who acts like every personal failure is somebody else’s fault. (In short, we need Stefan Richter from Season 5.)"

A Just Recompense on the Quickfire winner: "Grayson has hollandaise; she’s feeling saucy (grrrrr… at least a writer wasn’t responsible for that). She’s making seared scallops with corn ravioli, and uses hollandaise to make a charred corn sauce, plus a blueberry balsamic reduction. She has a lot of elements to get on the plate, so she’s stressed, but she does it. Dean asks if she used clarified butter, and she says she did not. He likes it a lot anyway, and is very impressed she managed to make ravioli; she wins. She gets immunity, and declares herself the proverbial Force to be Reckoned With. They should have buttons that say that."

My Monkey Could Do That on Bossypants: "Tom time! Heather tells Tom she has the most pastry experience out of everyone, and it’s the smartest thing because now she and Lindsay can 'execute and expedite'. So in case you were wondering, she purposely put herself on dessert and made dessert early so she could spend today telling everyone what to do."

Eater on balance: "The judges eliminated Chuy on last week's episode, and his ouster leaves the chef count lopsidedly female. This is a change, and a welcome one, from the normal progression each season takes, but it's got the boys nervous. I am not sure what they are nervous about, as there is no part of the competition where having more of your gender left is an asset. I guess the guys assume the ladies are over there scheming, syncing up their cycles, and waiting for the boys to propose. Chris Crary brought ten engagement rings to the house just in case. 'Sometimes when I see a big pack of ladies, I wish God gave me more fingers.' Is he talking about engagement rings? I don't know. It's gross the way he really said that."

Hugh Acheson for PopWatch on high steaks: "Ty-lor is a very mature cook. He would take ownership of the mistake, no matter who touched it or mucked it up. It’s his fault at that point. There are people on the show who would have diverted attention from their mistake at the first opportunity and Ty-lor did not do that at all. And given the fact that he cut himself, he was at the hospital all night and he was working on an hour sleep, I think he did a pretty commendable job. But there was the initial mistake he made, which was that he shouldn’t have done individual steaks and that firing of the last steaks was a pretty big mistake. At our table there was such variance in the cooking, but what are you going to do when you’ve got 8 people cooking steaks?"

Entertainment Weekly on Quickfire top 3: "Handsome Chris' seafood-infused velouté and Paul's espagnole-slathered quail came close, but Grayson, who said sauce-making 'ain't no thang' to her, won with a simple hollandaise ravioli. Yay! Grayson strikes me as the type of person who says things like 'Hey, girlfriennnn' a lot, but on her it doesn't annoy me for some reason."

Cliffieland on mis-steaks: "Earlier, Tom and Mr. Pretentious had made the rounds in the kitchen and observed who was doing what and noted that Ty–Lör had chosen to only mark the steaks on the grill before flashing them in the oven before service, something that was apparently a risky (and ultimately failing) move. Also, Invisible Whitney made an appearance to announce that she would be taking two days to make potatoes au gratin, much to the dismay of (at least) Heather and Edward."

Foodie Buddha offers us terms of the week.

...and this week's saucy Top Chef Refire podcast!

Posted on AllTopChef.com

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