You Suck

After disc golf with Boom to start the long weekend.

There is just something about Top Chef.

Yes, I have always liked food and cooking shows.  Growing up in the environment where both parents cook and one co-owns a restaurant, this was likely unavoidable.  But Bravo’s Top Chef is simply fun.

For one, it has outstanding one-liners.  It obviously has to do with the editing but, really, how do you get better than Padma repeating everything the actual accredited people say about the dish?

Actual person with a reason to be there: “This is an after-school snack”

Padma!: “This IS an after-school snack!”

Actual person with a reason to be there: “This is undercooked”

Padma!: “It’s undercooked!”

Way to contribute!

Then there was this wonderful exchange:

Random Judge: “This tastes like glue!”

Gail: “Yes!”

Perhaps it is seeing the utterly ridiculous decision that supposedly talented chefs make.  In the very first episode of the year, this 21 year old fucker who was still in culinary school (whole other topic, choosing some one still in school, that’s a slap in the face to the accomplished chefs who were passed over) had to make a Chinese dish so he chooses black bean noodles or something like that.  “I’ve never worked with them before, I hope they come out well.”

So it’s the first episode, you’re looking to distance yourself from the people who are around you so you choose a primary ingredient that you have never worked with before?  Guess what?  You lost and got booted because you’re an idiot.  He said he expected the noodles to have more of an udon noodle texture.  Maybe you could have used udon, since you had no idea what to expect?

I’ll come right out and state I could not do what they do.  This si primarily due to the fact I really like to take my time with cooking and baking.  I take my time to get things right and exact, lots of prep time so i don’t have to cross-contaminate (or rather, risk that).  So I’m no good with a deadline, cooking under pressure.

But even I could figure out, under a clock, that the best solution for a BBQ challenge when you are told to produce upscale BBQ/grilled products, grilled pizza is the absolute easiest route.  Considering most of them had no clue how to properly cook meat on a grill, making a simple grilled pizza with, say, artichoke hearts, chicken and pesto would certainly be one of the top dishes.  But whatever, go ahead and lose, asshole.

My final point would be that they never have a dessert dish to make.  Ever.  Anytime someone is forced to into making dessert (be it by choice for some dumb reason, bullied into it by the rest of the team, etc.), you’ll typically hear, “I’m not real good at baking, I hope thsi comes out well, I don’t have any ingredients memorized.”  O RLY?  You can’t make a goddamn cake?  You’re a fucking chef and you can’t make a goddamn cake.  Christ.

Then whenever they talk about souffles, it is in such reverential tones, like it such a difficult dish to create and you have to walk real slowly past the oven, whatever.  Then the guy dumps some freaking corn chips on top of it and serves it.  Hey, let’s make a dish that isn’t that hard but relies upon its puffiness for visual effect and taste but be sure to make it drop before I serve it by smothering it in corn chips!  Never fails.

You would imagine that, when you enter a long-term cooking competition, you would come in with a solid understanding of the different aspects of dinner, so to speak, meaning you can do both appetizers, entrees and dessert.  It’s kind of egotistical to assume you can get by on simply what you already know.

You really need to watch this.  There is an epic amount of entertainment to be had.