JohnRov

I love that Robin is staying around. I think she probably is annoying and absolutely doesn't have the cooking chops, but anything that annoys the immature, juvenile collection of chefs they assembled is ok with me.

Well, this may be the episode that sours me on the season. From the juvenile red bandana protest to the cancer and salad and crisp statements. On top of that one of the V brothers refusing to applaud when Robin won the quickfire. What kind of little crybabies are these chefs? I really, really could care less about any of them at this point. Ron looked startled when Eli was telling him about the crusty layer of rice in paella, unless that was in the editing.

The one comment from the entire show for me was whichever one of the brothers said after the Quickfire something like, "I'd much rather work with interesting flavors than take the slime off a cactus." There you go, dismiss the ingredient because you didn't do so well. Great chef, but that comment was pretty sad.

I don't think the lack of one technique by a sampling of three chefs denotes any kind of rejection of new techniques. Culinary innovation, IMO, encompasses much more than technique.

I gotta pull for Farmerie, he's from Pittsburgh.

They always do that. According to past blogs their deliberations and comments take place over hours sometimes. They condense that into a couple 5-10 second soundbites.

Chiarello called him "Young man". How does that get Dale so irked? Different people have different management styles, Chiarello's is a little more direct and abrasive, others are more touchy feely. They really edited it to make Chiarello look bad IMO, although he did take the high road and Dale came off looking like a brat. As far as the episode went, it was one of the worst. We usually only get to see a little cooking, but with a million chefs running around and them interrupting them every 5 minutes to throw a wrench into their plans, there was almost NO cooking. It wasn't really until the actual party that we knew what they were doing.

Molto Mario is also being shown periodically on Fine Living Network.

I really have been enjoying the series, I just think it's going to make watching the regular Top Chef a letdown.

The lack of a real villain did make the reunion pretty bland. I guess Nikki heard us ragging on Gail's dress and decided, "That's not right! I'M going to have the worst dress this season!" She looked like an electrocuted canary.

Spike should have gone. Steak with a puree and brussel sprouts? I don't think that's quite Top Chefish. But how about Lisa's sour puss face when facing elimination?! She had to have practiced that in front of a mirror. Seeing Ilan almost ruined the episode for me. Plus, he has the worst sense of style I've ever seen, but at least he was only wearing one hideous watch. And he did seem to have his dress t-shirt on...

Regarding Restaurant Wars- hasn't that been a 3 person per team challenge in the past? Maybe it's coming up two episodes from now.

I think we need to keep the Pittsburgh topic alive! We recently ate at Clifford's, it's in Evan's City and is a decent haul from downtown proper but it is BYOB and was very good, although the creme brulee had us laughing as the brulee was almost impossible to crack through. http://www.cliffordsrestaurant.com/ We also ate at Mio, a newer place that's in Aspinwall right near The Aspinwall Grill. It's touted as a restaurant and wine bar. The food was fantastic and the wine list good, if not a terrific value for by the glass (my wife doesn't drink wine ) http://www.mio-pgh.com/ Also, Richard Chen, whose Wing Lei restaurant in Las Vegas received a Michelin star in 2008, is opening a restaurant here in East Liberty, near another place I like called The Red Room. http://www.redroomcafe.net/

Actually I think Andrews close-to exact words were, "mayo is oil and egg yolks, I didn't know that, so he gave me a recipe" are you serious? this guy is supposed to be a sous at Le Cirque by the way..Amazing, AND he wins the next challenge. I have never worked in any restaurant that hasn't had some form of house aioli in the food. ← THAT had me more stunned than Andrew's f cluster bombs. HUH? Not knowing how to make mayo/aioli?!!! I see Andrew walking the plank pretty soon, despite last week's win. He is way too wound, aggressive and narcissistic, and is a ridiculously bad trash talker, even for a New Yorker. He better be able to deliver the goods to back up the trash he's been talking. Oy. ←

It seems the contestants are stronger this year, and I hope that leads to less contrived challenges. There should be variety and creativeness, but not to the point of it being silly. And yeah, Andrew is my least favorite. I think it said he's 30, but he speaks like a foul-mouthed kid with a 5th-grade vocabulary.

When I was learning, I was roasting a chicken. I was wearing shorts. I slid the rack out and dumped a can of chicken broth on the bird. For some reason the Pyrex (maybe it wasn't) dish pretty much exploded, showering my bare legs and the rest of the kitchen with hot glass. Luckily it didn't come up into my face.

I'm reading Ruhlman's The Elements of Cooking. It's a nice reference especially for people like me who have no formal training.

It was The Frugal Gourmet who used to talk about using the back side of the knife to scrape, that's where I got it. Michael Chiarello annoys me with his insistence that using anything other than grey salt is a sin.

I'd watch it for Taste alone.

I agree that some recipes are a little out there. But I was going to make a thread about wasting turkey until I came upon this one. I got two carcasses to make stock, one that I had carved and another that my wife's aunt had "carved" (hacked is more appropriate). The amount of meat she was going to throw away was in my mind sinful, mainly because she had no clue how to properly deconstruct the bird. I ended up with a dinner plate stacked with meat. After reading Ruhlman's latest blog entry, it upsets me more that people are gluttonous and wasteful on a holiday that is about giving thanks for what we have, not taking it for granted and throwing food away. I just keep it simple and redo the thanksgiving meal, make turkey salad for sandwiches, and have sliced turkey sandwiches.

I dumped it last night. It really didn't smell bad, but it didn't have that nice clean chicken-y smell anymore either.

I made chicken stock. I used some but needed to get containers to freeze and then stuff came up and I went out of town, etc. Anyway, it's been refrigerated for about a week and a half, is it bad or can I still freeze it and use it?

I love thinly pounded pork breaded with fresh bread crumbs, I think they make it much lighter and delicate than dry. Topped with capers, finely-chopped red onion, and a slice of lemon. I like to drink Troegs Dreamweaver Wheat with it. I'm going to try doing the chicken thighs like Fat Guy suggested.

I haven't finished this episode yet but what was very telling to me was that when the chefs on Top Chef get a challenge, they constantly whine about how it's below them. When the NICA chefs get a challenge, they just get at it.

That's my problem with it, there is practically zero critique from the judges shown. One soundbite here or there and that's it.