Well, it’s down to Mustache Joe, Joesph Flamm and Adrienne Cheatham. Here is what it looks like overall. Mustache Joe has the most wins, but he’s been inconsistent in the last half of the season. He has recently gotten his groove back and appears to be the front runner. Joeseph Flamm flamed out and was eliminated but cooked his way back into the game via Last Chance Cooking. Then there is Adrienne, she got off to a rough start landing in the bottom in the beginning and then into the middle in the middle of the season and then, just last week she won her first challenge when it really mattered.
After an impartial review of the stats, I’m still rooting for Adrienne, but I understand why Mustache Joe is there. I’d like to see Adrienne and Mustache Joe in the finale next week.
So the three have arrived in beautiful Aspen, reminding me again I need to do some traveling in the western half of the US. Then they show Joesph Flamm’s package with his wife. I love him too. I’ll be fine with any of these three winning. Then I realize that Joseph got THE PHONE CALL HOME and sometimes that is a bad omen.
In the first challenge they have 40 minutes to catch a trout and cook it. If they can’t catch one, they have to used canned fish. The area is clearly a heavily stocked pond. Both guys catch a fish right away. You can seem fifty billion fish in the water. Come on, Adrienne! You can do this! She finally got a fish with twenty minutes left to cook. Fish is Adrienne’s thing so she needs to win this. It would be her first quickfire. Mustache Joe had a malfunction and thinks his fish is over cooked.
Sidenote: Fan Favorite is down to Chris and Fatima. They are my two favorites of the season, but I really want to see Chris get some money for his restaurant, it was clear all season he was in need of a financial transfusion. And Fatima did just have cancer surgery and works for other chefs. I hope Christopher wins.
Please vote for CHRIS! I implore you to give him 40 votes!
Chris Cosentino winner of Top Chef Masters is judging. Adrienne is up first. He explains to her that bears shit in the woods and shit rolls down hill and therefore trout has to be cooked all the way through. Mustache Joe is laughing when he hears this because he accidentally cooked his longer than he wanted to. This is why it is hard to get behind a Mustache Joe win. He is such a poor sport. Chris refused to eat it and Padma can’t eat it either. Wow.
They loved Mustache Joe’s dish. They ate Joseph Flamm’s dish at least. And then they gave Joseph Flamm the win. Even though they said Adrienne’s fish skin was the best thing of the three.
The final three are cooking for 200 attendees at the Aspen Food & Wine Festival. Chef Daniel Boulud will be the guest judge. He has three or four Michelin stars depending on how you look at it and is a reknowned French chef. The twist is their meals must be VEGETARIAN. Holy crap. That’s bad news. Even worse, they have to cook on cauldrons. Over fire.
They bring back Carrie, Chris and Bruce to help them with their endeavors. Flamm wisely picks Carrie. He also gets to assign the other two as his prize for winning the quick fire. Adrienne gets Bruce and Joe gets Chris. He didn’t want two of the bears, Joe and Bruce, working against him. Mustache Joe and Christopher is an odd pairing. I think Christopher is closer with the other two and he is just nodding and agreeing with everything that Joe says. Flamm has a ton of good ideas. Carrie is supportive. Bruce is trying to take over Adrienne’s dish. Adrienne is really fighting for her own ideas.
Carrie has cooked on a cauldron before. A lot. Of course she has. Because, Carrie. I bet it is killing her to have missed the cauldron challenge. Joe Flamm is such a good guy.
When they start prep, Mustache Joe tells Carrie he is making “fancy toast.” He just can’t let it go. I feel like Bruce is literally sabotaging Adrienne. I’m having flashbacks to all of his problems with team challenges, particularly the food truck one. Carrie and Flamm are working together like peas and carrots. Christopher is just doing what he’s told.
When Tom comes to check in he talks to Adrienne for EVER. It’s like he is trying to sabotage. Hopefully, it is just editing and not more vagicide by Tom. #ConspiracyTheory Adrienne is having lots of issues. Bruce is more about trying to influence her menu than helping with the batter issues. Adrienne is either going to be first or worst. She has a very ambitious menu.
The reviews are not great for Mustache Joe he did not do fancy toast at all. He just had random bread. I hope he loses for doing plain bread instead of fancy toast.
Adrienne gets a lot of positive feedback with some minor critiques. Mostly that she didn’t do enough with the char which was kind of the point of cauldron cooking. Jonathan Waxman, who I’ve never liked assumes that Bruce is the executive chef at Adrienne’s tent. BTW they are not actually AT the Food and Wine festival they are in another spot entirely where everyone has signed releases.
It looks like Joesph Flamm is going to take this. The judges say this is the best use of the smoke and the char. The did have some minor critique. The asshole chefs with Waxman for the most part really like Flamm’s. It seems like he won.
Back at the cabin, Mustache Joe seems to think he has lost. Adrienne says the last time he wasn’t happy with his dish he won. So are they just fucking with editing? I’m on pins and needles here. Adrienne was not thrilled with her execution either. It feels like a Flamm win with the potential of Adrienne moving on.
Judges Table
First the give Adrienne and Mustache Joe mixed results. Then they give Flamm a slightly better critique. But they didn’t like his choice of the small zucchini. They are nitpicking. It could go either way.
When the judges talk alone, they trash Joe’s plain bread. Flamm’s dish needed some tweaking. They loved Adrienne’s flavors but it was missing the char.
Joe Flamm won the challenge! Adrienne is in the finale!
JOE LOST BECAUSE HE DID NOT MAKE FANCY TOAST! HA!
Next Week’s previews show Flamm in trouble, which probably means he wins. I’m fine with either of these Chicago chefs winning. This has been a great season. Please, Please got give all forty votes to Christopher! I love Fatima, but right now, Christopher could do more with his restaurant.
40 votes for Chris- done.
Thanks for letting us know about the fan favorite voting, I usually miss it each year.
Thanks so much. I really love Fatima too, but I think right now it would help Christopher’s restaurant so much more. Fatima needs to recover and win ALL STARS!
I love Fatima too, but you’re right, chris needs this money more! Chris it is, I will vote! I will definitely need to go to BK and check out his place.
Unless she has great insurance, Fatima really needs money.
But never fear, In am not on Facebook, so I will be casting no votes.
If you don’t already have one, I highly recommend getting a Google Voice phone number. I use it as my spam number and now only give out my real number to friends. Helps with the robo calls. I used this number to vote.
Voted for Christopher! I’m not watching the shows, only recaps. Thanks, TT!
another 40 for Christopher! 🙂
Glad Mustache Joe is gone. Never liked that pompous jerk.
40 votes for Chris. I like both chefs but kind of want Joe to win. He fought back from LCK and that is quite a feat. He needs his own restaurant too.
I am so happy Mustache Joe is gone! His shit eating grin during the quickfire made his face so punchable. Ugh.
I was worried after Adrienne had to change her plans but the judges seemed to really like her flavors. I will be happy with either winner in the finale.
exactly, so smug.
I laughed so hard when of course, Carrie was like, “my dad built a cowboy cauldron, I cooked on them all the time” lol. She’s such a wonderful person and solid teammate, Joe Flamm is too.
I was casting and casting and casting, yelling for her to keep casting and casting and casting when Adrianne was fishing! Yikes! That was stressful!
I was sooo happy to see Chris and Carrie back, of course Carrie’s cooked with cauldrons!
Yuck I can’t stand Waxman!
I’m happy these two are in the finale, I hope they are really going to cook their own meal and not have some weird ingredient or hand tied behind their back cooking twist…
That statistics graph is cool and I love the picture! I have a bazillion pictures of my kids with their fingers up their noses!
They usually don’t pull any stunts with the finale meals and let the chefs just cook as they please 🙂 I like them both but I’m rooting for Joe 🙂
I think you’re right I’ve aleady forgotten so much from previous seasons! Thus my love of the spreadsheet, I’ve already spaced on a lot of this season!
I like Joe Flann a lot and won’t be disappointed if he wins but I’m pulling for Adrianne..both are come from behind contestants but Adrianne has really grown on me the last couple of episodes.
whoa! That was an exciting ending, I was actually talking to the TV, which I never do. So happy with the results, though I miss Carrie!
To be fair mustache Joe was not laughing at Adrienne on the quickfire. He was laughing at 1. is cooking his fish too long, was actually a good thing 2. bears pooping in the forest….
And thinking Fatima doesn’t need money because she works for someone else? Medical bills do not solely get paid by insurance.
It’s not that Fatima doesn’t need the money, we all need money. Might point was Christopher was hoping to win Top Chef because he needs money to put into his RESTAURANT. Fatima doesn’t have a restaurant. I can come up with a million reasons for Fatima to need the money. I just feel that they came there fr advertising and hopefully a big check to put toward their chef career . Christopher referred to wanting to make improvements to his restaurant. And to me that made the most since.
40 votes to Chris- ✔ thanks for the reminder, have loved his vibe the entire season…unfortunately his chill vibe, non killer instincts probably worked against him, but I digress…
How gracious was Carrie in her assisting of Joe Flamm! She is another that needs to go rock all stars.
This has been such a great season, with exception of Claudette, I’m sad to see it end.
I love Waxman, what a bummer to see him not know who was head chef…maybe, since Bruce was being pushy with the dish he might have been same come service and came across as one in charge.
Flamm would be nothing without Carrie.
All 40 votes went to Chris. I really hope he wins. I hope to go to his restaurant, Butterfunk Kitchen in Brooklyn soon.
Another 40 votes for Chris!
The weekend after he was eliminated I went to Butterfunk Kitchen. My friends & I arrived 1 minute after the doors opened at 5:31p to be met with an hour + wait.
They have a coffee shop next door called Common Ground where they house parties waiting to be seated. While we were there we ordered his cornbread & biscuits. They were EVERYTHING but if forced to choose, I leaned toward the buttery & flaky biscuit.
Within 30 minutes of opening, Common Ground was filled with people waiting for their table at Butterfunk Kitchen. The atmosphere was lively & filled with love. Clearly we were all Chris/Top Chef fans. While we were waiting my friend & I went up to the counter to order drinks. All of a sudden CHRIS was in front of us! After our initial shock we started cheering & clapping. Before you knew it the whole restaurant was clapping. Just as you would expect he was as nice & gracious as he appears on TV. He came around & patiently took photos with the line of people that quickly emerged to pose with him. People came from all over to experience his cuisine. I even met a Top Chef fan who came all the way from Seattle!
After about 1 & 1/4 wait we were seated in Butterfunk Kitchen. Oh what an experience it was! We had the hoe cakes, corn pudding, fried deviled eggs, kale, mac & cheese, crawfish hushpuppies, pepper pot shrimp & of course his lemonade fried chicken. To say it was good was an under statement. The fried chicken was beyond & the pepper pot shrimp was even better the next day! There was some home made Caribbean hot sauce on the table that was so savory I kept eating it until it snuck up on me. It was an amazing experience & we look forward to going back.
I should also add that it’s in the sleepy, residential neighborhood of Windsor Terrace. Definitely not one of the bustling areas of rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn. To see that many people go out of their way to support Chris is testimony to his talent, cuisine and good nature. As his business grows & evolves, there is no doubt that his many fans will be there to cheer him on. Who wouldn’t the good guy to win? Chris deserves everything great that’s coming his way. If you’re ever in NYC, I highly recommend you take the detour to Butterfunk Kitchen. You will leave with a huge smile on your face!
Yay! This is so wonderful to hear! See? Just one more reason I need to get my ducks in order and make a trip to NYC!
Thank you Bushwick! Could almost taste the food, excellent description!
Thanks so much, Bushwick! I felt like I was right there with you!
All I can say …. yum, yum.
I hope you put that review on yelp!!
That some up my stomach!
Woke Up.
I think I need to up my antidepressant meds. Couldn’t even watch this. Look at that pic at the top, and somebody tell me – would anybody want to be with that grungy self-absorbed hipster (mustache Joe)?
All of them – ugh. Bread with no sauce? Grilled zucchini?? My three-year old could do that. Adrienne’s pepper on a thin sauce?
And Joe Flamm, go get some allergy meds and an adenoid removal surgery.
And that new judge Lupio or whatever? Who is she? Where did she come from with that obnoxiously loud voice?
Clearly you hate watch the show over and over and over. Did you want to be a chef when you grew up or something? This is a cooking show, take the vitriol over to one of the housewives shows you don’t watch.
Guess my antidepressant comment failed to inspire anything but your vitriol. Sorry.
My fan favorite is Carrie, although Chris and Fatima are right up there. I enjoyed how she gained confidence in her skills as the season progressed, but never got full of herself and did her job with a smile and a light heart.
ALL of my votes have gone to Chris, whom I have nicknamed Hottie Yum Yum since the first episode. He seems like such an all around phenomenal person and talented chef. He was also blessed by the genetic gods, and he was instantly my favorite. It is my 2018 goal to hit Butterfunk and try it for myself. I love both of the finalists for the first time in a blue moon, so go Chicago. I LOVE this show.
I would have like to see Carrie in the finale. You are a badass if you can win two challenges with toast. Never liked mustache Joe, I never thought he was as awesome as he thinks he is.