Brown Hornet

I was rooting for Nina all season but unless you can taste the food it's hard to take issue with the final decision, especially since it was obviously a close call. Hindsight's always 20/20 but I think Nina made a tactical mistake by insisting on making a desert after she discovered her restaurant had no ice cream maker. I've got to think she could have come up with a killer dish using the ingredients for her 2 amuse/intermezzo dishes. Regardless, Nick certainly earned the win and I was glad that both Nick and Nina brought their A game to the finale. Overall it was a decent season of Top Chef

It was a pretty decent semi-final episode and I thought the final 4 this year was overall a strong bunch. I'm glad Nina made it to the finals since she's been my favorite all season. I'm fine with Nick, although I probably would ave preferred Shirley or Louis. One thing about Nick that I really appreciate in a Top Chef contestant is that he is always pushing the envelope with his dishes. It often comes back to bite him but I respect that he never coasted through a challenge. Hope its a great finale.

It's a secret because unlike the other LCK episodes they don't unveil the winner of the final LCK until next week's TC. They did the same last year. With that, GO TEAM NINA! Who's with me?

Glad to see Nina and Shirley make it to the finals. Nina's been my favorite all season so I'd love to see her get the win, but Shirley's really a close second. They have all the qualities of my favorite Top Chef contestants -- self-assured and confident without being overbearing, creative and resourceful under pressure, and most importantly they generally cook dishes that I would love to try. Would love to see those two in the final. Between Nick and Carlos I didn't have a strong opinion but I'm not sure why so much vitriol is directed at Carlos. He pulled a bush league move complaining about the oven a couple of episodes back, but Nick basically did the same thing when he implied that someone turned his oven up buring the quinoa. Heck, he pulled the same move this week with the deep fryer. It's clear that by this point of the season neither Carlos or Nick was handling the pressure as well as Nina and Shirley. Nick in particular reminds me a little bit of Jen from the Vegas season -- she started so strong at the beginning and then just sort of cracked at the end. I empathize with these contestants quite a bit since I can only imagine how difficult it is to stay focused through several weeks of a reality competition series. Anyway, it's been a pretty decent season overall and I'm hoping for a strong finale.

Just curious, how does the Ketel one compare to the Bols genever?

Along similar lines, you should check out the recently released Summerland: Recipes for Celebrating with Southern Hospitality by Anne Quatrano. Quatrano and her husband are chef-owners of several highly-regarded restaurants in Atlanta (Bacchanalia, Abbatoir, Floataway Cafe) as well as the book's namesake, Summerland Farm. The book is organized into twelve chapters each comprised of a seasonal menu for each month. While that sounds limited, the book covers a broad swath of recipes and styles, from traditional homestyle fare to refined restaurant style dishes. The book is admittedly quirky in its breadth, but it definitely hits a sweet spot for me -- i.e. the kind of person who doesn't mind having a Monkey Bread recipe sharing cookbook space with wood roasted whole foie gras

The other factor somewhat in Travis's favor is that the judges actually thought his dish with the sausage was at least ok. Most of the time on top chef, screwing up a basic cooking skill, like frying shrimp, will trump a conceptual error.

Very good point Forever Young -- for brining and especially curing, getting accurate weight ratios is critical. Digging, thanks for the percentage of salt -- I was just wondering about that.

Well that was completely predictable. How many times have we seen it on Top Chef -- young contestant gets overly confident because a challenge involves "his" or "her" cuisine -- and then proceeds to completely botch it up. I liked the challenge. Vietnamese food is deceptively simple, but there's a lot going on behind the scenes flavor-wise. I especially liked that they dispensed with the quickfire to spend a day sampling local Vietnamese restaurants and bakeries.

I'm a firm believer in brining turkey and the benefits it provides in flavor, texture and moistness. I have not tried the dry-brining method before, but after reading these posts and the linked articles I am looking forward to trying a dry brine this year. One thing I would note with traditional turkey brines is that many recipes (including Alton Brown's) include some brown sugar. Nothing wrong with this, but I feel that it the addition of brown sugar in the brine contributes to the "hammy" taste that some people notice in brined turkey. It's not a bad taste, but because of that I leave out the sugar on my turkey brines.

Agreed that Kale is overused right now, but I love braised Kale -- especially in the winter. It always seems more flavorful than standard greens. Still, the folks getting Kale as the ingredient definitely got jammed. It was a good challenge in concept, but completely unbalanced. They didn't really take advantage, but the people getting "smoked" had a big leg up since you can smoke just about any ingredient and make it work in a dish. Well, of course our greens are always very flavorful. Thanks to the bacon, of course. Somebody should have done a dish of kale and smoked bacon with an egg on top. I've actually made that exact dish for brunch -- and it is fantastic! A perfect side dish with shrimp and grits. I also live in the south and in my world "braised greens" always infers that said greens are first sauteed in rendered fat from some cured or smoked pork product prior to braising. Back to TC -- I'm still not really into the season (it always takes a 4-5 episodes to get going) but I think Carrie or Nina might be my early favorites. So far the women seem to be outclassing the men by a fairly wide margin.

Agreed that Kale is overused right now, but I love braised Kale -- especially in the winter. It always seems more flavorful than standard greens. Still, the folks getting Kale as the ingredient definitely got jammed. It was a good challenge in concept, but completely unbalanced. They didn't really take advantage, but the people getting "smoked" had a big leg up since you can smoke just about any ingredient and make it work in a dish.

The early episodes of any Top Chef season are always a drag -- and this season is no exception. I don't have any real favorites yet, although Carrie has exhibited some of qualities shared by the chefs I tend to root for. I am glad that they went ahead and got Gumbo out of the way in the early episodes.

I hate the AAA ratings. Even granting the inherently subjective nature of rating restaurants, the AAA diamond ratings seem almost completely random to me. I've given up trying to correlate between AAA and Michelin. Even though Michelin ratings are themselves fairly subjective, you can usually count on any Michelin rated restuarant to meet certain standards. For most US destinations you will generally find better dining recommendations from eGullet forums than the AAA ratings.

Pickled okra is also a treat with no slime.

Ditto what Annabelle said -- if it's not real loose and watery I wouldn't worry too much about it. In my experience, homemade pumpkin puree is generally a bit looser than canned pumpkin puree. That said, although I still make my pumpkin pies from scratch, there's very little difference between using canned pureed pumpkin and roasting and pureeing your own. I just like the tradition of making it myself every fall and also having the seeds to season and roast afterwards.

mm -- you've been killing it with the rabbit/hare dishes this past week! I've had a lot of rabbit dishes recently but haven't tried cooking with it myself -- I may have to give it a shot. Kudos to all the awesome dishes folks have been posting recently -- this thread is on a roll right now (no thanks to me!)

Just a couple of quick points. To core carrots for MC soup I cut the carrot into roughly 2" long pieces, then quarter, and then just cut out the core. Towards the thinner end of the carrot there's not much core anyway so don't bother. I would add though, that I've made the MC carrot soup many times both with and without coring and found no real difference. At least in my experience, the overall sweetness of the caramelized carrots is sufficient to overpower any residual bitterness from the core.

For you perhaps. With the exception of the bile gland, I cannot think of an organ that cannot be made delicious. dcarch While I tend to share your view, I have yet to come across a chitterling dish that isn't absolutely foul. I've tried chitlns numerous occasions, but that seems to be the one part of the pig that repels deliciousness.

Still not working, doing it the old fashioned way: http://www.amazon.com/Summerland-Recipes-Celebrating-Southern-Hospitality/dp/0847841316/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1380081057&sr=1-2&keywords=summerland

Very excited about Summerland by Anne Quatrano [amazon=0847841316][/amazon] For those who aren't familiar with her, Quatrano and her husband Clifford Harrison are chef/owners of several amazing restaurants in Atlanta, including their flagship restaurant Bacchanalia. 20 years ago they moved to Anne's family farm in Georgia -- Summerland Farms -- and opened Bacchanalia serving refined, southern-american cuisine. I guess if they did this in New York 10 years later, they'd be famous like Dan Barber and appearing on Top Chef and giving TED talks and whatnot. Thankfully, they've stuck around Atlanta!

I've happily used a Le Creuset dutch oven for years, but received a Staub dutch oven as a gift about a year ago. Now that I've used both, I think I slightly prefer the Staub -- in particular I like Staub's black matte enameled surface better than the glossier white enamel of the le creuset. That said, there's really not much difference between the two, they're both stellar dutch ovens in my opinion.

When I started cooking sous vide egullet's legendary sous vide thread was absolutely invaluable and was the reason I joined egullet in the first place! Douglas Baldwin's website and materials were also incredibly helpful. You should be able find just about everything you need for sous vide cooking from just those two sources. That said, if you get the chance, borrow someone's copy of Modernist Cuisined to read the chapter on sous vide cooking. It's increadibly thorough but the information is presented in a concise and well-organized format. Opinions vary of course, but I now consider the sous vide cooking time charts in MC as the definitive reference source for that information.

Not sure why there's so much vitriol over WF. I don't shop at WF very often, maybe 5-10 times a year if that, but some of the stuff they carry is decent and reasonably priced -- especially the bulk grains/nuts/cereals. I do find the emphasis on "organic" produce to be highly overrated. Atlanta is such a farmer's market town that if you're relying on WF (or any chain) for all your groceries you're missing out on the best stuff.

Not particularly local to Georgia, but I always miss in-season tomatoes and corn. The regional item I miss most from home when I travel is not any produce item but readily available strone ground grits. I was in California visiting family and they begged me to make shrimp and grits, it was a challenge just to find insipid instant grits, let alone the real deal.