RyuShihan

Id have to partially agree with him, i think great food would be even better if it was cheaper so that the average everyday person could enjoy it without spending their paycheck to go out and eat at such great places. Imagine being able to Eat Keller, Ducase or Trotters food at $10 a plate and its everywhere. The slight part i disagree on is that the term real food can be different to each individual. For instance to me I love Fine dinning but my Dad is a good ole boy from Southern Illinois and to him real food is a t-bone steak and mashed potatoes. Likewise I do agree with Thailands great food, my mom was born NaNoy its in northern Thailand and in our visists i realised that even the guys on the carts had good food, but was it really good or was it just the right flavors that apealed to my palate, whereas someone who didnt like smelly fish, hot spices and bold flavors might not like it as much.

Well if everything turns out I will be living in Avon but working in indianapolis, trying to get a job at a new hotel there. Ironicly i went to the state fair with my wife this year and that pork reminded me of something i saw. Apparently every year they try and deep fry something different, like reeses deepfried, moonpies, kitkats and other candies you wouldn't think of. Wonder if it should be called the deep fry state?

Out of curiosity would that still be considered the Heartland? There might be a chance I might be moving there and sadly I don't know nothing about its culinary scene, does it even have one?

Since i was lucky enough for moto's and Trotters last year I would love to hit up Alinea. Not to mention one or two good Sushi bars while in town. Tru or trio, i get those two mixxed up but i know one of them was on my list last year i missed.

I had seen this event in the ACF magazine i get but had no idea what was really gonna happen. That write up you did really helped out alot. I couldn't imagine that type of calibur chefs and expect anything less, but the visuals are a nice touch.

rebel rose to answer your question from my opinion only, when we had time off we relaxed best we could, for me that meant finding a place to grab something to drink, oddly in my real life time i hardly drink but it wasn't like i had many options not knowing any of the places really we went to. and ppl split up to sorta hang out with who they felt comfortable with at that time. So it wasn't uncommon to see ppl hanging out with different ppl as the show went on. Even from teh first episode i think every one felt sad everytime someone got 86'th but also relieved at the same time. Was very weird emotions imo. Altho I am sure Katsuji would tell you he was just relieved.

To second what micheal said, If you ever got to meet Rieber youll notice one thing, he is very genuine. After watching "The naked Chef" you can tell his style of production is more about real fealings than the made up stuff you see on alot of other cooking shows. AS for Katie, let me be the first to say, she was very GRUF the first few days, but hell so was every person competiting. Everyone was trying to feel each other out and I can still remember the first day how it was like stepping on egg shells. In fact the very first 86 felt like a freight train. You would think after you heard it wasn't you , you might be relieved but i truth you knew only one person was gonna win. So it was more like, "When is it my turn" In the end once alot of us got to know each other better you find out Katie is actually a very careing person, she took interest right away about my wife and child. When we were all sitting up in the room watching "Sideways", the day after the wine competition. I still remember someone saying " Now why didn't we watch this the night before?" was either Autumn or Sara. Because of all of the wine information it had. Katsuji I even found wasn't so bad after you had a couple of beers with him. Russel was by far the funniest person on that trip. Autumn, I only saw her not smile the first day , she was always very happy. In truth, everyone who competed won something....True it wasn't the cool job Katie has but it was one hell of an experience, I would tell anyone if they had the chance to take it. You learn so much from all of the contestants, and you get to play with items you migth not get to normally. So if you trully have a real passion for cooking, this was AWESOME. Hi ,Sara and Katie....btw sara like your new job? Katie, "Get er Done!"

I did it for the competition, there is something exciting about competing I love. For it me goes back to my karate competition days and wresting. once the bug bites, you never let go.

Ronnie, of course it made me better, how could an experience like that not. The amount of pressure, crasy work times, and the stress of waiting was the worst. Also being able to play with some new ingriedients. Originally I would never have thought one of the girls was gonna win. I had predicted JP or Katsuji. In truth JP was trying to stay under the radar till closer to the end. Katsuji because he had some really good ideas, but i persoanlly didn't agree with his flavorings of food. Toward the end I woulda gave it to Sara persoanlly, but like i said before I don't know what the judges tasted. If you look at each contest and see who won which ones, individually its actually kinda surprising how the judges decided on everything. But like it was made clear to me by the producers, each day was a brand new day and nothing was comulative. IF that is truthfully true, then anyone could have won just by whoev er had the most luck. Now if what micheal said earlier was true and the 3 women were plain and simply the best, then that wasn't dictated by each individual competition. by the time episode 5 was picked I had already told JP that i thought Katie was gonna win but I figured she had good experience working for Alain Ducasse. Wish I coulda got so lucky. To answer somone else question the tapings were about 13 days long if you were the final 2. That was in the aplication information on the website, so thats nothing secret.

I'd like to defend the comment about the guys being dolts. being one of the guy contestants, I can't talk for every single one of them but I can defend myself. I wish I could talk more about the schematics of how each contest worked but PBS made me sign a contract and personally I don't want to be sued for saying something I am not supposed to say. (Especially with Michael trolling the boards ;) What I do know is alot of people on the show worked at some really nice places and had alot of skill. I am talking able to work at 4-5 star skill, but in any given circumstance on any given day anyone can win any competition. Those with more skill sometimes do better. Sometimes people with less skill fall thru the cracks. Anyone who has ever worked in a kitchen knows this. Just look at that one boss you thought "Man how in the world did he/she ever get in that position?" In truth, All of the women played very hard. Plain and simple good at cooking. Would I say they were the best, No. Each person has skills that they are strong at, some people were allowed to shine more at those skills, just because the contest fell in their favor. Billy was a butcher, you think if their was a contest on cutting the right cuts of meat he would win? How about Making a real kitchen menu, with Russels knowledge and experince could he control food cost better? Who would have the best knife skills? In fact could any one contest give you enough information to determin ones skill? Alot of great Chefs will tell you you will lose alot before you win and you will lose alot more after youve won. The hardest thing as one of the contestants IMO was not knowing how you did in comparison to your competiton. The actual taste of each item. Personally I made many mistakes. I have had previous cooking competition background. So I had that in my mind the whole competition. I was making sure my cuts were correct, making sure everythign was sanitary, not moving to fast. Anyone who has eer done a ACF competitoin knows that you can gain or lose points anywhere. So I was being overly cautious. Unlike Katie who was throwing caution to the wind and trying new things and experimenting. In the end I belive that is what helped her win. Looking back on it from an outside perspective, if I woulda been a judge, she was showing ingenuity as well as some of Saras dishes. Now why didnt any of the guys do it. I know why I didn't, because I thought if i played cautious till latter it would be better. I know for fact a few others did the exact same thing. So maybe it was the girls "want to win" attitude from the start that carried them to the end. but if you really think the guys were dolts, try finding out where some of them worked or their past experiences. You might be surprised to learn some of their backgrounds. I know I was. To any of the other contestants who might have been lucky enough to read these forums, I know a couple do......I just wanted to say hi, and it was truthly a great experience.

Me and my wife had an extrordinary time their, my best buddy braught us, I would repeat the menu but it seams i had one simular to another I have seen posted above. The walk into the kitchen was beutiful, the silence and constant movement. Lots of room and lack of walkins amazes me. I would definatly rate this in the top 3 best places I have ever eaten, from the experience alone.

Now I have never worn clogs but I have met people who swear by them. My problem like many others is the long standing hours start to hurt my knees if I don't replace my shoes often, 4-6 months Sometimes Dr.Schools helps . Out of curiosity what shoes do you guys wear that you feel are great shoes for your feet. Do clogs really have longivity and arch support or are some of these newer shoes I am seeing just as good? Links to places to find shoes would be greatly appreciated, as well as personal experience with current and past shoes. Btw I am also flatfooted so an arch really helps.

well if anyone is in St.Louis this weekend they are having a bbq bash on the landing. Should be some competition style bbq goiing on all weekend long. I think I will try to check it out on sunday personally.

I work in St. Louis but live in o'fallon illinois. I wish I could say I have had great bbq but aside from super smokers right on the corner from where I live, I havn't found a whole lot in St. Louis but that does not mean they do not exist. I also don't try to run out and eat BBQ here, I will ask around work tomarow and see what people suggest.

It would be ncie to see a fw asian chefs making a name for themselves in the world, I noticed Nobu was on the list but that is located in america. Very hard to belive no great places to eat in the East. Maybe the criteria is surroundings more than the plate. Or places the judges have eaten, guess not enough culinarians are brave enough to head out east and enjoy the cuisines their.

in shows thats what editing does, they take a few takes of good things a few takes of bad things and edit it how they want and as a contestant you have no idea. IN ICA case they would only have the ability to cut out stuff not do double takes. This would make rigging it extreamly hard, not impossible just hard.

one of my best friends has a toq tattoed with the word chef on his back, it looks very nice.

yeah the sauce I make, we use parika, not for the flavor but for the color. Try it once it will give the plate a prettier presentation. I learned it from a Thai Chef who used to cook with the Budhist Monks. He also did something else I found interesting, when we made curreis like masaman, he would use salt instead of fish sauce , which I learned from my mom to use fish sauce for just about everything. When I asked him why he said masaman shouldn't taste fishy at all. He actaully used salt for all of his curries except like a shrimp pineapple red, panang curry blend or if he wanted to add some sort of fish. I agree with him for the most part but I like some curries like a plain red curry with fish sauce its so hot anyways you won't really notice any fish taste. In that case I think it adds a little different depth in flavor.

you can also take the proccedures he showed you on how to make the patte and incorporate some pretty cool flavors. I have tried it with port wine , sweet sake, sweet soysauce, so far almsot anything sweet came out pretty good. I want to try and incorporate a sweet and sour one soon. Just havn't gotten to it yet. To tell you the truth I guess you could do almsot anything you do with regular foi, in the sence of marinating.

My mom is thai so we cook thai food all of the time at my house. As for the beef salad comment basically we grill some beef, mid rare, cut up some thin red onions romain lettuce. We mix the three together then add fish sauce, like you would add salt to a dish, limes to kill the fishy smell and give it the sour taste and some dried smoked hot peppers. Course you could also use tomatoes, I like them but my mom doesn't. Also the great thing about Thai food, is alot of people don't realise Thailand is divided into 4 distinct cooking regions each with there own styles of cooking. My mom was from the Northern region near Chang Mai and they are known for their real spicy style, but my half-sister lived near Bangkok and they eat more sweet style foods like the Pad-Thai. The central region is sweater because thats where Royalty lived and sweats and royalty went hand and hand, I have a question, why is it when I walk into most thai restaurants the Pad Thai is always brown...Normally its kinda red. Are they just using sweet soy sauce instead of making a tamarind based sauce?

sadly I don't measure things out when I am cooking at home but the concept is pretty simple, this is something I make, its between a chineese and thai stew sorta that I use the borth as a reduced stock latter for meats. Start by carmalizing couple cups of sugar, then add star anise, and cinnomen I woul say about 1/2 cup star anice 1 cup cinnomen sticks. You can also add cilantro styems. Now add hot water, if you use cold the sugar will harden, but that jsut meanas you have to wait for it to melt again. Now I add my meat of choice, I prefer either a whole duck or a good chunk of beef, something like a roast. Let this cook for like 10 hours add some hard boiled eggs and you have a great meal. Now take the liquid, its sorta sweet sorta savory, and reduce it down after straining it and you have yourself a pretty cool asian style jus. Add some hot peppers if you want to spice it up a little.

I used to work at a palce in Charleston SC that never took reservations but if you were a somebody you could easily be let in faster, ironicly that place was always busy. So busy in fact we sent people across thee street to the local tavern and the tavern owners would tell the customers once we called them. The owners of the tavern and resturant were completly different but we sent so much busness to the tavern they didn't care.