Back in March the marketing department at the LA Times was emailed by our PR department saying there was going to be an LA Times challenge on the forthcoming show Top Chef: Just Desserts and we were all invited to be guests at the challenge that weekend and could invite others if we wanted. Given that the event involved potentially being on TV plus eating a lot of dessert , I would say a good 70% of us signed up. We were given directions to a warehouse where the "party" was being filmed, told to wear nice black and white attire, and showed up, signed a release form, and headed inside.
Once we got inside, we were basically told that we could go station to station in whatever order we wanted, so everyone began making the rounds. Before I watched the episode last night I have to say I couldn't remember all of the desserts. The one I remembered best, was my favorite, and happily the judges agreed with me: Yigit's was amazing. Little factoid - the little lighter chocolate crumbles you saw on top of the cake were Cocoa Krispies. The texture they added was fun and the blackberry compote he made complimented the layers of chocolate really well. It was sweet, but not too sweet, and rich, but not too rich. My next favorite was Eric's (my sister-in-law liked his best) so I was happy both he and Yigit were in the top. As for the rest of the guys, I thought Zac's deep fried whoopee pie was good, but not amazing, and I remember waiting around to get his dessert because he could only deep-fry so many at once, so there was always a bit of a logjam around his station. And while Morgan's was nice to look at, I wasn't all that impressed with its taste, although this many months later I don't remember exactly why (one of my friends says the cake was dry, so maybe the judges got a better batch than we did).
As for the ladies, I remember Danielle's being my least favorite - the 1 in the 128 was far too rich for my tastes, the 2 wasn't light enough, and the 8 just tasted bad. That said, Danielle was really sweet and nice - we talked to her for a while because when the judges were at the station opposite us the producers wanted people in the background, so we stayed and talked to Danielle even after we had eaten the dessert. I don't really remember much about Heather's at all. And I was REALLY surprised to see Erica eliminated - at least because her ice cream was bad. No one I was there with remembers the ice cream tasting like soap - we liked it! So maybe she made two batches, and the judges got the worst of it.
Other behind-the-scenes tidbits: while we mostly had free reign to roam station-to-station, occasionally, as I mentioned, we'd be asked to either stay in one place longer so there were people in the background, or we'd be moved out of line because the judges were going to go to that station.
At one point a friend and I were off to the side eating and noticed the camera aimed directly at us. Our conversation at that moment went something like:
"Camera."A nice close-up shot from that time was featured, but they didn't interview us. I guess we looked better than we sounded.
"Shoot. Let's talk more eloquently about the dessert."
"You don't think we'll be featured saying NOM NOM NOM?"
We actually tasted more desserts than were on the episode. I'm assuming to prevent blabbermouths like myself from knowing which contestants were legit and spoiling things for others. They had three additional stations and we had no idea they weren't real. I only recall one in detail - because it was a brownie that was supposed to have some sort of whipped topping but the chef ran out of the topping by the time I was there, and I thought she might be eliminated because of that (I thought it would be either her or Danielle.) I don't remember much about the other planted desserts, but my friend remembers one was another, more traditional whoopee pie and the other was some sort of pudding - and that seems about right to me.
As fun as eating a bunch of desserts over the course of an hour or so sounds, it certainly has an effect on your body. At one point I remember we were all talking really fast and were super animated due to the massive sugar rush, and on the way home we all started crashing hard - pretty much everyone I know who was there either got a bad headache or took a long nap after they left - I experienced both.
My biggest disappointment? As soon as I heard "black & white desserts" I was convinced there would be a marshmallow/chocolate combo involved. I love marshmallow and chocolate. And I am still sad no one made me a s'more. But other than the lack of s'more, it was a really fun experience and for the most part, a delicious one.
This seems very cool.
ReplyDeleteI'm totally dying of jealousy. This is making me want to throw a Just Desserts party with lots of dessert stations. Of course, that's how most of my dinner parties end anyway.
ReplyDeleteTrader Joe's makes a pretty decent bite-sized s'mores snack.
This does seem cool to be participating in...but oy, does this ring warning bells for me in terms of the LA Times involvement. Not as bad as their fake front page wraparound ads for Alive in Wonderland and Southland, but still...am I being oversensitive to the idea of a news organization being involved like this?
ReplyDeleteYou're right, though, Maret - no black and white s'mores is a major missed opportunity.
ReplyDeleteNo black and white cookies? (Although I can see how that would not make for much of a challenge.) Look to the cookie, Elaine!
ReplyDeleteHaving now watched the episode, I have two comments:
ReplyDelete1. Who was the lady with the fab black hat, seen mostly in shots of Zac's station?
2. Was I the only person who would've been tempted to pour a cherry sauce all over a black and white dessert and make it a play on the old joke: "What's black and white and red (read) all over?"
The fab black hat lady is someone I work with! A creative designer (shocker I know.)
ReplyDeleteStandard black and white cookies aren't that hard to make (I'm partial to the recipe in The New York Cookbook) but you could easily fancy them up. One thing you can do it to make a fancier kind of shortbread than the traditional lemony cookie, cut it into rectangles, use a much classier icing, and pipe them to look like dominoes. They could have done a very playful plate involving black and white game pieces - dominoes, dice, othello, etc.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, I want marshmellow and chocolate if you're giving me black and white.
You were not the only one having the "red all over" thought.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the commentary, Maret! I am so jealous of you and I'm so glad you had fun.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds great, but I totally understand the sugar high. When i was pregnant (both times), i made a date with a friend for "dessert for dinner" at Serendipity. Whoa...what a high!
ReplyDeleteI'm campaigning to have Zac come over to his boyfriend's apt on Halloween so we can get some amazing treats! (Recall from an earlier post...his boyfriend lives one flight up from me and the Cosmos--needless to say, I've introduced myself to the boyfriend and let him know that we are on Team Zac. That being said, well, I won't go into his personality. He was friendly to me, so we'll leave it at that.)
Not to be too stalky and such, but I will be packin' a camera that night (AND A BIB!).
Thanks for the scoop. And so sorry to hear the post sugar crash was bad, but it sounds like the fun and sugar was well worth it.
ReplyDelete