The Next Iron Chef

[Jane Die]

Battle Butter

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So true. I've got an idea where I'd like FN to put that stick of butter.

It's culinary wrestling.

That is the most accurate assessment of TNIC I've seen yet.

I promise, that's my last pithy remark on the subject.

Really.

[et alors]

I have no problem with the winner, except I'd like to see more Besh *too.* He's a fun competitor, and he and Simon are a blast both. Actually, almost all of them are.

Unhappy moment: Tracy getting the boot in the first round. She had a bad day, the wrong day, because otherwise I think she, like Simon, would have aced the rest of the challenges. Plus a chick who could cook would be nice. Cora keeps losing despite the endless lowering of her competition: it's embarrassing for all of us, and screams tokenism.

I think all the current Iron Chefs should have to hold their own to keep their spots. Maybe an annual re-earning of the title? If your win/lose ration gets bad, you are thrown into the pot?

BTW, if anyone thinks Flay shouldn't be there, they should watch the Iron Chef where he gets electrocuted. I may not like his cuisine (I hate southwestern) I give him points for moxie and creativity.

Finally, it was funny seeing how happy all the chefs were to be there: it was clear they all had played along at home.

Edited November 15, 2007 by et alors (log)

[Shel_B]

Cora keeps losing despite the endless lowering of her competition: it's embarrassing for all of us, and screams tokenism.

Cat Cora has a better won/lost record on ICA than Morimoto:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_resul...on_Chef_America

shel

[mcohen]

i'm surprised more people aren't outraged by the ending. not necessairly because who won (i was more of a morou supporter so i had no dog in that fight), but the way the judging process was handled.

if you read the blogs, its revealed that besh won the paris challenge even though they never announced it. and, that, besh also won the final challenge as well. but, that the judges were going to decide the iron chef on the overall, cumalative performance throughout the series so besh's win in that challenge had to overcome symon's previous victories.

all the three regular judges agreed that besh won the challenge. donatella and andrew thought besh's final challenge blew symon away, and that was enough to make besh the winner. and, let's just say that ruhlman might not have been the most objective judge here, even though he agreed besh won that challenge.

but, what's really perplexing is that the iron chefs also were taking into account the cummulative challenges even though they had never judged those challenges. and, while they agreed besh won the final challenge (the unedited comments that Ruhlman heard by the ICs during the tasting were all in favor of Besh over Symon), the ICs didn't think that it was good enough to overcome his defecit coming into the final challenge. but, wouldn't you think that the three permanent judges who had tested the dishes throughout the competition would have been a better judge if you were going to look at it cummulatively. and, out of those three judges, two of them voted for besh as the next iron chef. ruhlman's blog takes delight in how offended donatella was in this whole sham. (it comes off as somewhat mysogynistic)

my friend refuses to believe this even though that's what two different judges' blog, Knowlton who voted for Besh and Ruhlman who voted for Symon, because that would be too stupid to believe. but, we're talking about food network here.

[Leonard Kim]

if you read the blogs, its revealed that besh won the paris challenge even though they never announced it

I don't think it's correct to infer that a winner was chosen in the Paris challenge but was not announced. I believe it's more likely that no vote was ever made. Ruhlman did write, "I think over all [sic] even Symon would agree that if there had to be a choice of a winner, it would have gone to Besh." Symon (on money.cnn.com) wrote, "The judges didn't declare a winner this time around, though I think Besh would have won if they had." But Knowlton, on his blog, wrote, "If I had to pick a winner last night, it was Symon." On air, Arpaia said that Symon won 4 challenges. It's possible she misspoke, but if she's correct, it only adds up if she personally or the judges informally and collectively felt Symon won Paris. On his blog, Knowlton repeats the winning 4 challenges bit, but bear in mind he presumably wrote that some months after taping, just after having watched the episode in question, so he may have been merely parroting the comment Donatella made on air.

I've refrained from commenting on the NIC finale anywhere before now because everybody is working from the same sources: the episode and the blogs of Ruhlman, Knowlton, and Symon (his own, on the cleveland.com forums, and on money.cnn.com), and these sources have been dissected endlessly even though the blogs were all likely written in haste months after the event in question and the episode obviously presents judiciously incomplete information.

All I can say is that what we can actually claim to know from these sources is, imo, less than what people seem to be taking away.

One specific: I don't think it's given the 6 judges were all considering cumulative performance. Yes, Ruhlman and Knowlton both wrote that it informed their own judging. Yes, Alton, in addressing the three series judges (not the ICs) on-air mentions this factor. But Morimoto, on-air, said that though he listened to the overview given by the series judges, he himself only knew what he saw today and went on to explain his own method of judging. And Ruhlman said at least three times (though not specific to this episode): "i was never instructed how to judge and in each case made my own decision and voted that way," "Steve and Eytan, two of the producers from Triage, always instructed us to judge it as we saw it. I was not surprised by this, but Andrew, cynical jaded New York journalist that he is, professed to be surprised by the amount of freedom we were given to make our choices," "I don't know who said it, but no winner was pre-selected. We were told repeatedly by the producers to vote from our gut. And if they had told me anything else, I would have said, f.u."

Edited November 21, 2007 by Leonard Kim (log)

[BryanZ]

Leonard Kim, you are amazing.

Anyway, watched the entirety of NIC this weekend. It was good. I quite enjoyed. The quality of the cooking was light years ahead of anything else that's on FN (with the exception of ICA itself, of course). I also appreciated the wide variety of challenges. It speaks volumes that Chef Symon was first intimidated by cooking sous vide but then ends up using it in the final battle. Loved seeing Wylie there too.

Perhaps the best part, however, was the complete lack of drama between the chefs. That the producers attempted to edit in sabotage and the like is fine. I was impressed with the camraderie between the chefs. Really, this series was the best thing FN has put out in a very long time.