Chris Hennes

There is a lengthy discussion of the topic over here.

Yeah, I can agree with that. If I were editing the show every single one would basically flow logically, but I think they like to go out of their way to "mix things up." The contestants and judges provided the editors with the perfect fodder for this sort of thing when all the chefs were happy and all the judges were not.

I think that was the whole point of the editing: I figured as soon as they started showing both teams so happy with all the dishes, and then no judge reactions, that we were due for a smackdown. Kinda formulaic, but I guess it didn't really bother me that much. Just gotta read between the lines, I think.

The corndog thing was an amateur mistake, like not correctly seasoning your dish. The appeal of a corndog is the crisp exterior, and the chef clearly knew that, he makes lobster "corndogs" at his restaurant. He also knew that they were going to be held for hours, and he should have known they would get soggy. Really, mac'n'cheese chick should have known the same thing about hers. These are more fundamental mistakes than just "not a great recipe." I don't mind watching it live: I seldom want to rewind anything to see it again... maybe later in the season when you actually get to know some of the characters.

Sometimes the product placement is downright comical, but I understand why it is there (especially when so many people have Tivos). I just thought that last night's planting of products in people's homes was a little over-the-top. Of course, I suppose it is possible that people actually use Velveeta and KC Masterpiece and thus had them in their kitchens... kinda makes me shudder, though.

My wife and I wondered the same thing: he is a restaurant consultant now, so how many gadzillions of dollars would he have charged Bayless for that bit of recipe development? Oh well, those are the rules of the game... good exposure for Chef Blais, to be sure.

And man, Richard got hit pretty hard for the lack of soccarat on his paella! They even said it tasted good, then continued hitting on him to "make sure he knew what a paella is"! Jeez... I'd totally get my butt handed to me...

Is it just me, or is the product placement in tonight's episode particularily egregious? I mean, if some TV crew came into my kitchen and said "Hey, we want to film a segment in here, can we plant some KC Masterpiece in your pantry" I'd tell them where they can put their KC Masterpiece! It feels to me like that's a different level of product placement than just having those items conspicuously on camera in the Top Chef kitchen.

Idle curiosity . The discussion arose in our "Top Chef" thread because there is a contestant this season who swears like a sailor. I wanted to know if this was the norm in the past, and if it is still normal now, or if he was basically just a caricature out of one of Bourdain's books. I want to stress that my question is not "is it acceptable," but simply, how prevalent is it, and is it declining?

Is there someplace you can send a sample of your salt to have it analyzed? I imagine that the safety of your salt will depend on where you got your seawater.

Certainly many famous chefs (Keller included) have a history of violence and profanity in the kitchen. But over the last decade or two we have seen chefs elevated from "misfits hiding in the kitchen" to being very visible public figures. This appears from the outside (where I am) to be influencing the culture inside the kitchen, but I have no personal experiences to back that up. Hence this topic, where I am hoping to hear from chefs/line cooks/dishwashers who have been in the business for a while. It sounds like there is probably no correlation between cursing in the kitchen and the number of Michelin stars. Nevertheless, I wonder if there has been an across-the-board decrease over the last decade as the public image of the chef changes, and places like the CIA put more emphasis on (their idea of) "professionalism," including a reduction in profanity.

I like your friend .

I think Keller is the same way these days (assuming the above means that Robuchon discouraged profanity), but I'm not certain, that's just the way Ruhlman presented him in Reach of a Chef (can you tell I've been reading a lot of Ruhlman recently? ) I'm trying to avoid making any value judgements in this thread: I'm really looking for "reports from the field" about whether swearing has decreased at all over the last decade, and how (if at all) the level of swearing changes from Michelin 3-stars to neighborhood bistros. So joiei, thanks for the report. Anyone else got a report from the trenches? Edited to clarify.

Here is what it looked like:

Oh man, monavano those gnocchi look great! I had a tuna melt:

I've fallen a little behind here... here is tonight and last night. This time I made homemade Russian dressing for the Reuben: And pasta with peas and parmesan:

Again, I don't want to turn this into an argument about social norms, or whether swearing is acceptable or not. It seems from Ruhlman's descriptions in The Soul of a Chef that the CIA at least is making a concerted effort, for better or worse, to project a more "professional" image in the kitchen, and part of that seems to be cleaning up the language. Is this push making its way out of the CIA kitchens into the real world?

I don't really have strong feelings about whether it is "right" or "wrong," but I am still curious about how prevalent it is, and if the CIA's attempts to project a more "professional" image have resulted in any decreases. Has anyone out there been in the industry over the last decade and noticed any change? I'd also love to know if it depends on the calibre of the kitchen, or the chef. Is there less swearing at The French Laundry than at Bob's Taco Shack?

I agree that it is not unique to restaurant kitchens: my current work environment is fairly tolerant of cursing as well, but previous office-type environments I have been in were much less so. I think if in any of them I had cursed as much as Andrew on Top Chef, for example, I would have been asked to tone it down, and "asked" to leave if I failed to do so. In light of the CIA's increased focus on professionalism, however, and the increasing number of "open" kitchens, I am wondering if that culture of profanity is changing in the restaurant industry.

I couldn't find an eG forums thread on the swearing topic, so I started one over here, since we seem to have moved beyond the "Top Chef" topic into the more general topic of swearing in professional kitchens. On a completely separate topic, I am pretty excited to see Rick Bayless as a guest judge on this week's show. I am hoping that at least one chef will push into the realm of Mexican cuisine as a consequence. I love Bayless' books and recipes, but I've never seen any of his TV shows (he did have one didn't he?).

In Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential Bourdain seems to relish the coarse language used in the kitchens he has worked in. In various television shows about cooking there always seem to be at least a few characters whose use of expletives borders on the ludicrous. But in Michael Ruhlman's The Soul of a Chef he speaks extensively about the CIA's attempt to make the professional kitchen more, well, more professional, reducing the rant-fests, the raging chefs, the constant cursing and harassment, etc. My question is thus: is the constant cursing in the kitchen still common? Is it decreasing? Does it depend on the calibre of the restaurant? Would you hire "Andrew" from Top Chef Season 4, with his constant stream of expletives?

I feel like I am turning into "the voice of dissent" around here... I didn't care for this confit: it was much too sweet for my tastes. Something about that combination of spices... Then again, as anyone who knows me will attest, I really have very limited tolerance for sweet things, so YMMV (and obviously does ). I personally would have preferred just a salt and black pepper seasoning, I think.

"An acceptable job"? I think you're "mis-underestimating" (quoting the American President) things. If you're only getting acceptable results, somethings's wrong. ← I hesitate to use superlatives when I have no basis for comparison. Until now, I have had sharp knives because I had them sharpened by a professional. Now, I am sharpening them myself and achieving at least qualitatively similar results. I'm sure I could do better with practice, but I suspect that an experienced pro with a whetstone setup could do better still. I did indeed use the sharpie technique, and again, I got better the more experience I got with the system. To me, "acceptable" is not an insult, it is just not a gushing "OMFG!!" since I am unqualified to be quite that ecstatic.

One tip I read is to use two forks held in a V shape in one hand. That should work for anything four plus inches in length. ← That is way more dexterity than I can muster! I think I will stick to making mine short enough to dip the regular way .

Well, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt, anyway. I simply don't want to believe that a chef in his position honestly does not know what is in a mayonnaise. I think it is at least plausible that his comment was sarcastic, therefore that is what I choose to believe . On the swearing topic, it's sort of an interesting discussion about life in a professional kitchen. I wonder if there is a thread over in the eGullet restaurant life forum?