We start with the remaining chefs celebrating Michelle’s win last week in the musical memory challenge with a red snapper dish, and mourning the loss of David who just sort of lost his way this season.
The quickfire challenge is a nod to Fort Knox with gold bouillon locked in a case. The judges have to use four clues to unlock the case and procure the gold bouillon which is not gold but chicken, beef, and vegetable bullion and it will be the only seasoning they are allowed to use. No salt and pepper, nothing. I’d be making a soup. French onion maybe, or some sort of Pho with spicy jalapenos and stuff. When the cray came, I suddenly liked my food a lot spicer and things don’t seem as hot as they used to. It’s weird. I put jalapenos in everything now. They only have 35 minutes including the time it takes to open the locked case.
Justin is doing chorizo and clams. Eddie goes with scallops and a caponata with yellow and gold vegetables. Eric has lots of experience with the bouillon and chooses the vegetable bouillon because it is the least salty of the three in an egglant dish. So Eddie and Eric are both doing eggplant which I find odd because I would never have even considered eggplant and yet so far two of the seven remaining chefs are using it. Kelsey is doing some sort of glorified BLT with the bouillon in her vinaigrette. That sounds like a cop out, but also delicious. Adrienne is doing a panzanella salad which is an Italian salad made of croutons and tomatoes. Another vinaigrette situation. Michelle is doing a fried smelt dish. Sara is doing monkfish in broth.
Justin’s was WAY too salty. The rest of them seemed to be passable to the judges. Luckily I don’t think this is an elimination quickfire. Sidenote: I am AMAZED that we have more female chefs than male chefs at the is point. I predict a female chef goes home tonight, Michelle and Justin were in the bottom. Sara, Eric and Eddie were in the top. Eddie won. He gets immunity and he doesn’t even have to cook in the next challenge because it is a team challenge of three chefs each.
The teams are Eric, Adrienne and Justin AKA Team Beard versus Sara, Michelle and Kelsey AKA the girls team. The challenge will take place at Rupp Arena, a basketball court. They are both leaning toward stadium food but elevated. There is a lot of discussion of chicken.
Sara is making tobacco chicken, soaked in tabasco, and in buttermilk and then breaded and fried to be served with waffles. Sara is buying a bag of premixed pancake batter. This is probably a mistake. Did I mention I am on a health and fitness kick and all of this food talk is driving me insane? Kelsey is making dumplings. She has tons of practice making them at her job everyday. She is missing her son, she has missed his first steps and him saying mama for the first time. Michelle is making ribs.
I think Adrienne is also making chicken and waffles and making her waffles from scratch. Justin is making juicy lucys which is a stuffed cheeseburger. He can’t find the slider buns he wants so he is doing an open-faced burger/sandwich. This is probably a bad idea. Eric is doing tamarind chicken lollipops. Maybe. There is a good possibility I have the beards backwards. Nope I am actually right!
A few chefs came back as sous chefs to help the teams. I don’t even remember Caitlin. Adrienne challenges Sara to a chicken and waffles head to head competition and Sara agrees. They are supposed to go first and Sara’s fryer doesn’t work. This is probably a bad thing.
The stadium is full of locals cheering on the chefs. Sara decides to go up against Adrienne first because Sara’s not ready. The chefs love both the dumplings and the waffles. Kelsey wins with her dumplings. Next it is Eric’s chicken pops against Sara’s chicken and waffles. Tom got word from Adrienne that Sara’s waffle mix was from a box. It was actually from a flour bag, just like self rising flour and other flour mixes, but okay. This is going to cost her. Eric taunts her to the crowd and has them cheer “Homemade!” Sara thinks this is unsportsmanlike conduct. Eric wins in a unanimous decision. The teams are tied and it all comes down to the last round. It’s Michelle’s ribs against Justin’s juicy Lucys. again they love both. Justin wins in a unanimous decision. It looks like Sara is going to get eliminated at her favorite basketball teams challenge,
Sara is upset that Eric and Adrienne sold her out to the judges and taunted her to the crowd. Don’t be a bitter Betty, Sara. There is nothing you can do now. To add insult to injury, Eric wins the challenge. Sara cries again over the taunting by Eric and ratting out by Adrienne. She says she was heckled by over 4,200 people. In her home state no less. Perhaps they won’t send anyone home? Sara reluctantly joins in on a group hug.
Then in a shocking twist, Michelle goes home for her soggy, wet ribs. Do they not have wet ribs where Tom is from? Because that is a thing.
Next week: Art Smith! Returns for a fried chicken challenge.
I’m so glad Justin did Minnesota proud! I may be a vegan, but I know how much people love their Juicy Lucy’s and how hard they are to protect. I’ve been with many of people missing the cheese in the middle ?
Perfect. Sorry I put my email in inorrect, TT. 🙂
I was hoping Sara went home–like Adrienne said, ‘boxed waffle mix…on Top Chef?’. I totally agree. And it started out with her having home court advantage, when Padma told the crowd she was from Lexington. The crowd was really behind her and Team Blue. She’s a cry baby–she should have made homemade waffle mix and she probably would have won (except they also said her waffles were soft). She should have been the one sent home. IMO.
Sara is from Paducah not Lexington. she hasn’t done well enough to still be there, but her restaurant is amazing.
I thought Justin was an ass. I doubt he would have pulled this stunt at a judge’s table. Adrienne sold her out first.
Sara should have known from previous seasons that package goods don’t work and waffle mix is easy to make.
I agree it was mean spirited taunting and I would have been upset about it also
I think Tom always makes a big deal out of the boxed products just for drama.
He egged that whole thing on, like he always does, and he did it on mic, so all the people in the stadium could react. Then Justin? starts chanting “home made!” to the crowd, it was mean and unnecessary. I felt bad for Sara. Especially at her home town arena. That sucked!
I’ll bet Tom uses boxed waffle & cake mixes. He’s really full of shit sometimes and so is Padema!
Sara is a good cook. Michelle knew her ribs weren’t cooked correctly, she knew at the beginning with her blanching craziness. So, bye-bye Michelle. I would totally eat Sara’s food and go to her restaurant. Not interested in any of the other chef’s food at all. Nothing I would eat of theirs. Go Sara! Win this whole competition and hold your head high!
Tom and Padma aren’t participating in a cooking competition. Their feelings on boxed mixes in general and whether or not they use them themselves are irrelevant, their opinions on them being used in cooking competition, however, are.
You wouldn’t eat any of the other chef’s food at all? I get thinking Sara deserved to stay vs. Michelle’s ribs, fine, that arguable but saying you have no interest in anyone but Sara’s food? kinda odd to me.
Not odd to me at all. I’ve been a cook all my life. I know what I like and what I don’t.
AND the judges can sway others with their opinions, even if it’s unfounded. In this case the box waffle mix is unfounded. Tom created drama. You can see it in his eyes when he’s being a bitch. AND he was being a bitch about it.
I’ve eaten at Craft. If Tom uses any mixes you cannot tell. Best short ribs ever. Everything was perfection. Even the Chardonnay— because it wasn’t aged in oak.
I don’t really think it was a “stunt”, really. As adrienne said, she was joking/playing around, what Sara purchased is not secret. They outright showed her picking up the bag of premade buttermilk mix. When tom brought it up, rightfully so, as some “trash talking about boxed mix” the guys ran with it.
If you don’t want to razzed on top chef DON’T USE PREMADE BOX MIXES! I mean , cmon. I don’t think adrienne or eric meant to be mean, I get Sara took it hard because it was her home crowd but wtf are you serving your home crowd premade waffle mix? She got her feelings hurt but it was more about letting herself down and she took it out on them for teasing her. Sour grapes.
Adrienne’s “joking around” was shady. When you tell Tom that two of you are making chicken and waffles and she is making her waffles from scratch, you are slamming your competition. She knows that is a “thing” with Tom. Nobody made their own wheat flour. Sara bought a back of flour with the baking soda and baking powder already mixed in. It’s really not that big of a deal. The bottom line is the cast carried Adrienne when she got sick and as soon as she got better she started trying to sabotage people.
On the other hand, Sara has not performed well all season she has been in the bottom more times than anyone else, four times in nine elimination challenges alone.
Here is the exact exchange between Tom and Adrienne
Then Tom comes in with Ed Lee to ask what they are making and starts stirring things up.
“So, you made your own waffle batter and the whole bit? No box mix here,” Tom asks Adrienne, with a sly look.
“Would I come on ‘Top Chef’ to use box mix? I don’t think so.” Adrienne replies.
But Tom is still goading. “You’d be surprised,” he says.
So Adrienne lets fly with this: “I don’t want to throw anybody under the bus. I may have seen some on the other competitors … I don’t know what their game plan is for it.”
“I think you just backed that bus right up over them,” Tom chortles.
That said, trash talking aside, Sara should have saved her tears for her pillow. And I think she is well overdue for elimination. Michelle on the other hand won last weeks elimination challenge, and she had won a quickfire and Sara has not won anything and has been in the bottom more times than anyone.
Eric is the clear frontrunner to win the season.
Yes, exactly!!! Adrienne’s team carried her when she was too sick to cook on the boat challenge. They covered for her and when they went to judges table, none of her teammates blamed her. They easily could’ve. I was actually surprised she wasn’t sent home. Maybe it’s because she conveniently ducked out of judging. So, despite Sarah’s misstep, I thought Adrienne went dirty unnecessarily. It’s not like Sarah used an Eggo. If anyone should be careful about pointing fingers it’s Adrienne. I hope she gets the boot next week.
Well when you lay it all out like that it does sound shady lol
I guess I was giving her benefit of the doubt bc she didn’t strike me as that type of person.
**TT, do you know why I’m having to enter my name/emai/website info each time I post? am i doing something wrong? It used to pre-fill for me.
I haven’t changed anything, but I have noticed that people are having to put their emails in each time because so many keep making minor typos that cause them to go to moderation. Then I sit there wondering why long time users emails are going to moderation…
WordPress is about to roll out a whole new thingamajig which I am dreading because who knows what sorts of things that is going to fuck up. I hope it lets us use graphics in comments. ….but that is probably a pipe dream.
Gotcha, thanks. 🙂
New rollouts always mean new bugs, we dread them at work.
I hope we get the “Like” button back. And the capability to use html coding “lite” for holding and such.
I love that there are still plenty of women in the competition, though I think Eric will win, he has a touch. Hoping Adrienne goes far, she has seemed pretty consistent.
Tom talked to Sarah first in his rounds in the kitchen. He talked to Adrienne after. That’s when she mentioned that the other team was using a box mix. He could have easily gone back at then to razz Sarah about it. He chose to wait until the crowd was there for the drama of course. Adrienne had no control over how he was going to handle it. I took her intentions as honest competitive trash talk….. I don’t think she thought it was going to go to the level it did, but again that’s not in her control.
When Sara practically bragged to the camera that she was buying a mix to save time and that the only difference was that the baking powder and baking soda were added. I understand that often EVERY SECOND COUNTS but knowing mixes are nixes, she should have added those things herself. If she had been playing smart — besides not getting a mix — she could have OWNED IT and told Tom what it was and why she chose it. As for heckling, it fit in with the challenge … that’s what happens at basketball games. Lots of players are friends in the wild but compete full-on when on court. And Sara started with her own braggadocio. I think it hurt more because that was HER team. She could have turned it ALL THE WAY AROUND if her waffles were good.
I’m officially over Adrienne and Justin. I hope Kelsey goes far.
I am over those two as well. I do like Kelsey, too. I feel bad for her being away from her baby. That would be very difficult.
I’m still hoping Kelsey wins.
I felt bad for Sara being shamed in front of her home team but I wish she’d have just sucked it in and held her head high. Ultimately they really did like her chicken.
I want fried chicken in my belly right now, I’m settling and making a chicken and rice casserole for supper, hopefully the skin will be crunchy.
I’m craving anything Kelsey and Sara make! Top Chef is aggravating me this time around. Forget a plate? No problem, you’re in the top! So sick you can’t stand at Judge’s table. Nomproblem, pass on through!
That’s what I would have told Tom and the crowd.
I thought Sara was way too whiny. EVERYBODY knows that the judges do not appreciate pre-made/boxed anything. Their reaction has been the same since the beginning. That said, I really thought the wings looked fantastic and Kelsey’s dumplings looked delicate and delicious. I hope she wins ~ I like her style.
I did a 180 on Brian. I ended up liking him best. It was good to see him back. I think Eddie could be the Dark Horse in this competition.
All waffles will get start to get soft/soggy after being done a while, box mix or homemade. Had the friers been working properly, Sara would have presented first against Adrianne and probably won, you can see at the beginning that her waffles were done, but no chicken. The judges made a point of saying that her chicken was better and the waffles tasted fine, just soft.
Yes, you have to own it, but the mix was a standard mix and she added more, and Adrianne knowingly threw her under the bus. Then to add the boys to taunt someone like that is mean. Justin then kept going later on, seeing that she was upset. She would not have cried had they not continued trying to defend themselves.
Michelle was leaving the moment she stayed with the idea of the ribs. They know at the beginning how much time they would have to cook, knowing this, there was no way that she was going to complete those ribs in time. She knew this, but didn’t change her plan.