Tess

Poke made with tofu sounds great. With regard to salads, I was thinking that some Asian salads and side dishes(seaweed, tsukemono, even kimchi) are common enough in Hawaii to seem "Hawaiian." Some of the Japanese salads are apt to be seasoned with bonito so I am not sure about picking them up ready-made. I imagine that vegetarians in Hawaii also eat a certain amount of Thai food but you would have to make it without fish sauce. I am fond of a Hawaiian salad of sliced onion with pink alaea salt but you may not be able to find that salt inexpensively where you are.

Eh, etymological nerd-question here -- I seem to remember that Baked Alaskan was originally a French dish, going by the name Norwegian something-or-other? But was revived in the US, with that new Alaskan name? Would that be a Norwegian Omelet? I tried Googling and that was the sense I got. When I went to post this, I was under the apparently false impression that a Norwegian omelet was a slightly different dessert from a baked Alaska. The only time I recall being served this concoction (multiple times actually) was by a US chef who called it Norwegian omelet; I thought he was trying to indicate it was something different from baked Alaska but I guess he was just trying to sound French or something. It was very boozy and with fruits in it and was really pretty good.

Baked Alaska or "Norwegian omelet." It's especially funky if it has crystallized fruits in it.

I completely agree. It would be irresponsible for anyone to encourage you to crash diet, which is what you seem to be asking about. Do that once or twice, and your body just won't want to play any more. I have friends who pretty much cannot lose weight because they have been yo-yo dieters. Drastic dieting also, in my opinion, screws a person up mentally. You may feel crabby or you may feel euphoric; either way, you are in danger of winding up in eating disorder territory. Much better to get some dieting momentum and then step up your exercise.

Plus, according to Tom's blog, the contestants got numerical scores on each round. (Admittedly, he only came out with this after people questioned the outcome on the boards.) If it was by numbers, a missing dish could cost you big. After looking at the marathon on and off, I don't think they could have promoted David over Tiffani based on overall merit. I think there is a bit of that going on on these shows-- especially towards the end-- and Tom said that's what got Harold the final win. But to do that for Dave would have been unfair. Early on, Dave was close to being dismissed twice in a row for fairly basic mistakes and his wins were mostly team wins. Even when he won the Napa challenge, he was the only one who didn't do a creative quickfire challenge; he just made nachos. He deserved to win the long challenge, but it irked me to see Lee Ann dismissed after her performance in the quickfire. It was like the quickfire didn't count. Well, as burned as I was that Lee Ann didn't get to the final, she came off looking very good here.

That's a major problem with this show as opposed to Project Runway. The viewer is way too dependent on what people say, and generally they don't say it in much depth. It's also hard to keep track of what happened. After each episode of Project Runway, there would be a detailed rundown with pictures and comments on each designer's work. On this show, the blogs were less detailed when you really needed them to be more, IMO. (And, they were more devoted to justifying decisions whereas Tim Gunn, not a judge, could say what he pleased.)

One thing I am quick to notice-- and to be turned off by-- is when the level of workload seems to be very uneven, i.e. some people running their a**es off and others apparently not working. I like a restaurant where there seems to be a steady hum of activity, not a combination of super stressed out servers and a couple of "managers" standing around talking to each other. And if I hear those managers snapping at employees, that's usually about it for me with that restaurant.

No kidding. Another reason why using the money for educational purposes seems like a smart idea.

The traveling sounded like an excellent idea for Tiffani. Maybe she could have worked in some different restaurants around the world. All they said about the money was that it's to "jump=start" your career and that might do it for her. Paying off debts, on the other hand, does not sound like what they had in mind.

I'm glad to see Tom standing up for Tiffani a little bit. She may be a bitch on wheels for all I know, but I think they went overboard in making her the bad guy.

I don't know. Miguel more or less acted the same way when he was confronted about blaming Andrea in the street food episode. Tiffani did herself no favors on this show, but in my opinion a man would not have been portrayed as a villain for acting the way she did. For me, hands down the person who came off worst on this show was Dave.

I wasn't planning on asking the question. I was a little taken aback at the idea that the bartender might be (in effect) stealing from the establishment. That just never occurs to me on the rare occasion I do get a free drink.

I'm pretty sure I have seen people on this board say that bartenders usually have a certain number of discretionary comps. How do I know if that's what's going on or if the bartender is doing it on the sly?

It is looking good for Harold, but even he has screwed up under pressure before. I think it would have been a strange contest between Dave and Harold (or Dave and either Tiffani or Lee Ann for that matter). His cooking is different from the others'; as Stephen said, they represent fine dining and he is more middlebrow. Which is great. Given how opaque the judging has been, though, I don't have that much faith that they would be able to make it fair, i.e. a reasonable combination of judging each on their own terms but with respect to how difficult their attempted tasks were. And it would probably still be apples and oranges to an extent anyway. Harold and Tiffani, on the other hand, are pretty comparable. I was very glad to see Lee Ann and Stephen back and hope they will be cooking on the last episode.

Yeah, ditto if they tried to make it completely fair. They could just award cumulative points for performance in each challenge but who would watch something like that? The competitors are interesting, but not that interesting.

I am fond of Blind Faith Cafe but other people think it's hell. Along non-restaurant lines, if you visit Foodstuffs (very much recommended for a takeout lunch; smoked fish quesadillas are killer) you will be right across from The Spice House (Evanston branch) which is great fun to browse in.

What makes it even more odd is that her last two jobs were in Las Vegas! Something about that challenge must have freaked her out. I was watching this with my SO, who does play poker in LV and hang out in, well, medium-roller lounges. Every time I would say, "Honey mustard wings-- ew! Chocolate-dipped strawberries-- give me a break!" He would say, "No, that's perfect." Agreed, either Harold or Tiffani would pobably be a pretty good boss. I think it would be cool to work for Tiffani. I liked her food best this season except for Lee Anne's. I can see that Harold's is good, just not my preference so much.

I was perplexed by the results too. According to Tom's blog, Tiffani came in second each time, but with regard to the last challenge that must have been because Dave was considered not to have finished. Tiffani has (if I recall right) never come out with a single dish I considered unappealing throughout all the rest of this show, and she delivered several complete duds last night. The worst in my view was putting blueberries in seafood salad, but I know some people like that kind of thing. The food for the poker challenge-- what was she thinking?

Nice job predicting! I was worried last night, thinking Tiffani had lost it. I'm still fan of hers and I'm tired of watching D's facial contortions. More importantly, the final will be more interesting because Harold and Tiffani are a lot more comparable. I would travel to a place where either of them cooked (Lee Ann too) but would be afraid of a mob scene.

I have become enamored with Dr. Praeger's frozen products, especially spinach pancakes and vegetable burgers. These fit nicely into my Weight Watchers program but I eat them even when off the diet. I also buy a good number of frozen foods from a suburban Chicago chain called Foodstuffs which puts WW points on some of their products. Their stuff tastes pretty homemade. In general, being on a diet got me interested in having a few prepared (but relatively natural) convenience foods around. Some of them make a satisfying and fairly balanced meal. Sometimes when you're trying to lose weight you need to be able to go on autopilot just for a rest.

I've seen a lot of this type of thing in rural (and sometimes not so rural) New England in small markets owned by white people. I'd hit some random place looking for a snack, grab a bag of potato chips and it would be dirty. Looking around the store you would see food that was dirty and/or not safe, broken packages and a general lack of professionalism with regard to stocking, rotating, etc. At my nearest market, they were making an effort to clean up their act but anything that required handling would often be spoiled.

Sorry I didn't tell you what those things were. If he eats dairy you will have no problems at all. The one thing I would suggest is not just telling people you are vegetarian and asking them to put plates together because a lot of people are not too clear about what that means. Not just in Greece-- you get people in the US who think chicken is vegetarian. However you can get a plate of mixed mezedes and lots of them will be vegetarian; you can eat the meat ones. Have fun-- wish I was going!

I'm not that big a fan of Stephen although I could come around. Some of his dishes were appealing-- like the dessert in the sex shop-- and he has an interesting skill set. They seemed to want people to make asses of themselves on that reunion show and most of the major players obliged. Edited to add: so I don't think his performace in that one instance is too damning and his apology was really pretty good. As for Ken, I'm surprised someone hasn't killed him yet. What is with the shouting? I can't think of anyone I've seen act that bizarre on reality TV except for Puck from The Real World and he at least had a bit of a sense of humor.

I think the original point wasn't that there is anything wrong with the B-schools, but that where you went to undergrad is extremely important to some people as a social marker. If you say you "went to Harvard" without qualifying that it was the B-school, the K-school or indeed graduate school in the arts and sciences, some people are going to think you're trying to deceive them.

Does he eat dairy? That would help a lot with getting in some protein, and Greek yogurt is fabulous. Even without dairy, it will usually be possible to have a tasty meal based on small dishes; main dishes don't seem to be vegetarian as much. I like briam a lot too. Also melitzanosalata, gigantes, dolmades, tsatziki, and just a plate of Greek olives.