MEET US IN MONTAUK: That
was a deliberate
Eternal Sunshine reference to open up Top Chef All Stars, right? Loved, loved anything having to do with Marcel and Dale last night, and the level of drama regarding the outcome was suitably high and tense.
Recap here, but let me highlight two other comments. First,
@FabioViviani tweets:
SORRY GUEST JUDGE if you do the 95% of the knife work means you did all the dish ! Idiot ! Whats left ? Sautee a Pc of fish ? Puree corn ?
Anthony Bourdain:
Who will rise to grab the Crown of Douchedom from the vacant throne? Marcel seems to be doing his best to live up to her standards. Apparently, all you have to do is feed Marcel a little alcohol and he starts thinking he's an OG, flashing a dizzying array of half-assed hand gestures and gettin' all gangsta and shit. And right up in your face, too! It's really an amazement that Marcel has made it this far through life without getting a proverbial pencil in his neck. On the prison tier of existence, he seems designed to be a victim. May you live long and prosper, Marcel. You make good television. Especially your menacing exhortation to your cellies that should they not live up to your high standards, they should just "Get the f--k out tha game!" I tell you, that gave me chills. Reminded me the time Suge Knight held me upside down off the hotel balcony and asked for half my publishing.
It looked to me like Marcel was drinking Bombay Sapphire straight from the bottle: yeesh. He's a mean gin drunk.
ReplyDeleteI'm ready for an individual, not team, elimination challenge. Not looking forward to Restaurant Wars next week.
Reading Bourdain's blog the morning after Top Chef is like the icing on the cake (or the Old Bay seasoning on the Po Boy). I just cut and pasted that same paragraph to forward to a few friends. His ability to craft words possibly outweighs his culinary expertise. Love him!
ReplyDeleteHappy to see Jamie go...suprised Tiffani got the boot this early on...amazed Team One Dish all escaped the chopping block...and predicting a Carla/Dale face-off in the end.
By the way, at the risk of sounded ignorant or over the hill, what's an OG?
Original Gangster. From the 1991 Ice-T album of the same name.
ReplyDeleteMy eyes were temporarily blinded after the random shot of Angelo's underwear during the fishing sequence.
ReplyDeleteSad to see Tiffani go--she's was so good in Season 1 (and she really seemed to be having more fun this season). I am also sad to see more female chefs go.
Still love Antonia and go Hootie Hoo! Her dish sounded awesome.
I, like everyone else in the world, was glad to see Jamie go last night. Well beyond time. I wish it had been Marcel but alas. I was terrified Blais was going to go because of his stupid gastrique so I was relieved with the final decision.
ReplyDeleteMarcel is a jerk. Chastising Carla because she was excited about winning a trip to Amsterdam? Yeah, she could have played it cooler but under the radar is not Carla's MO. Love what Bourdain had to say about him. Nail on head.
Didn't you know Marcel is the only competitor ever to face possible elimination? That explains his unique inability to delight in the triumph of one of his colleagues.
ReplyDeleteWhy won't HULU show full episdoes of this show??????? (First-world problem).
ReplyDeleteYay Carla! I felt rather bad for Antonia - to be told you would proabbly have won if you didn't have two sucky teammates... ick.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why this had to be a team challenge - they could have caught the fish in teams if they were worried about individual fishing ability, or even done something fun like giving them each money to bid on the fish they collectively caught. But I saw little reason to do this in teams.
Last week, in the aftermath of Casey going home after entrusting a difficult dish (chicken feet) to someone else, I posted this: If there's one consistent lesson for future contestants to take from this season, it's "Be selfish and secure your own dish. Do not rely on anyone else for your own continued success."
ReplyDeleteI'd like to add that, if there's one further lesson, you must distinguish yourself from the others during the elimination challenges. It's not that you have to be better than everyone else- that's a given- it's that the judges need to see you through your work. Jaime, among other major gaffes, delivered two fewer meals than most of the other chefs, giving the judges less insight into her body of work. Fabio, Marcel, and Blais are some of the more gifted chefs on the show, but they delivered a dish without a consistent vision that couldn't really be attributed to any one of them.
I was very concerned that we were going to lose Richard. Linda Holmes had an essay some weeks back (I think it was leaked here?) about how some of the Top Chef All-Stars had clearly tried to learn something from seeing themselves on TV. Here was more evidence of that---Dale has taken anger management courses, while Marcel is at least as much of a jerk as he ever was. Plenty of people come into the stew room and celebrate having won. Bah.
ReplyDeleteI just want to reemphasize how much I love these posts, not watching the show, just for highlighting Borudain's journal entries.
ReplyDeleteMy fave Bourdain quote this week:
ReplyDelete"We also learned that when Jamie says "I'm excited," it means she's visibly breathing."
The fishing scenes were nice. It was a nice change to see them all happy and laughing and enjoying each other.
Here's a nightmare scenario: what if Marcel get's drunk and goes MC900FT Teenwolf every week, and the producers just left it on the cutting room floor until they needed to replace Jamie in the villain department?
ReplyDeleteThat's not a nightmare. That's an argument for watching Top Chef on DVR-delay. Bleep-bloop... ahh, Marcel has stopped ranting and I can stop fast-forwarding.
ReplyDeleteMarcel is great television, though. I can't believe no one threw him off of that rooftop. He is going to catch a repeat of that in ten years and find himself humbled by just how stupid he sounds when he tries for "Jay-Z" but hits "Warren-from-Empire-Records."
ReplyDeleteAlso, Jamie said that is was a cop-out for Blais-Fabio-Marcel only made dish. Really?Jamie's going to talk about other people copping out?
ReplyDeleteAlso from Bourdain's blog: "<span> This was the week when Jamie was finally returned to the briny deep from whence she came, to rejoin, perhaps, her beloved scallops."</span>
ReplyDeleteAnd my favorite tweet: <span>ericripert <span>SPOILER! Dear Jamie: Sorry to see you go. But I gladly offer you a free training at Le Bernardin on how to cook a fish. #topchefallstars</span></span>
What's with all of the Carla love? I don't find her cooking interesting at all. And I have several close friends who hosted a party at which Carla came and cooked and they were not impressed. (You see, when she's not on television, she doesn't have a job as a chef in a restaurant, so she has to resort to catering and pseudo-celebrity-type engagements in home kitchens.)
ReplyDeleteI also don't get what Fabio exactly wants credit for. They basically exonerated him from involvement in a dish they didn't like. This is Top Chef, not Top Whiner!
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with you. Just because someone chooses to cater and and work in home kitchens, that does not make them any less of a chef. I know many chefs who prefer to do this because of the satisfaction of seeing people enjoying their food.
ReplyDelete