Posted on April 5th, 2008
©2008 Harry Kenney
So why haven’t I talked about Top Chef more? Wny not give a weekly recap or review? You see, if you have a show like Hell’s Kitchen or Last Restaurant Standing or some of the others, you get one chance of seeing what you missed the following week. With Top Chef, however, let’s admit it, Bravo gives you three more chances the very night; you heard me, within the first six hours of the first episode of that week you have no less than three more chances. And then, over the course of the week before the next episode? Dunno, something crazy like it’s on 27 or something more times? … That said, hey, a month has passed, so here’s a little TCB “What’s Happenin’ on Top Chef” score card for you.
Top Chef, Season 4. The standings at the end of Week 4. 
Super quick Top Chef recap of the past month:
Week 1: Welcome to Chicago; Zoi and Jennifer are lesbian lovers; Nimma majorly over salted her food - First casualty. Rocco Dispirito and Anthony Bourdain guests. Week 2: “Zoo Food”: Valerie made bilinis to serve a couple hours later - Goodbye; Tom is a bear. Wylie Dufresne judges. Week 3: “Block Food”: A-hole Eric (who thinks he knows more about Mexican food than judge Rick Bayless) made corn dogs to serve several hours later. - See ya, genius! Week 4. “Film Food”: Spike came up with stupid food idea; teammate Manuel went along; the judges decide that passively going along is a worse sin than actively making a stupid decision. - So Manuel is gone. Not the best judgement they’ve ever made, not the worse either. Solomon would have cut each chef in half. Daniel Boulud is guest.
Posted on March 25th, 2008
A lot of new brand new shows coming as well as returning old ones. For a quick run down.
In one week, Hell’s Kitchen returns with season four on Fox. Come June, A&E is debuting Rocco to the Rescue with Rocco Dispirito. In July, Emeril Green on the (not launched yet) Green Network. Also in July, see below, Grill It! with Bobby Flay. In April, as mentioned already, four new Chefographies, plus one of the three new shows on the Food Network who are going bang, bang, bang with a new show in April, May and June. For details, we’re taking this straight off the press release:
• Cooking For Real
Premieres Sunday, April 6th at 10:30AM ET/PT
With an understanding of everyday life and that real people deserve down-to-earth delicious meals, Sunny Anderson serves up solutions for easy-to-prepare, fantastic-tasting menus. Sunny’s fresh, uncomplicated approach to classic comfort foods, along with her passion for interpreting the flavors from her unique travels, brings a bright style to delectable, down-home dishes. Every recipe is designed with an eye toward real life budgets, easy-to-find ingredients and time saving tips to make preparation a breeze. From her spicy yet sweet Shrimp Pot Pie from New Orleans, her favorite bistro-inspired Wilted Green Salad with Warm Bacon Vinaigrette, or her mouth-watering take on Germany’s finest, Baked Apple with Crisp Topping, Sunny elevates the everyday meal in Cooking for Real!
About Sunny Anderson: Growing up traveling the world as an Army brat, Sunny indulged in many local cuisines. When she joined the Air Force, she continued her culinary world travels and also discovered she had a desire to explore music, becoming an award-winning military radio host and news reporter. Sunny continued her broadcast career playing radio host at stations in New Orleans, Montgomery, Detroit, and finally, in New York at hip-hop radio powerhouse, HOT 97. Sunny also served as Food & Lifestyle Editor at Hip Hop Weekly Magazine and previously ran her own catering company, Sunny’s Delicious Dishes. She debuted on Food Network back in 2005 as a special guest on Emeril Live, and in 2007, Sunny co-hosted Food Network’s series of specials, Gotta Get It.
• Chic & Easy
Premieres Sunday, May 18th at 10:30AM ET/PT
Whether it’s a ladies-only soiree, a posh picnic, or big movie night, Mary Nolan proves that successful entertaining results from mouth-watering menus and stylish, welcoming atmospheres. Her exciting twists on the traditional create entertaining delights like Stilton-Stuffed Dates, Sweet and Smoky Popcorn, and Chocolate Cheesecake Cupcakes with Ganache Frosting. Whether highlighting her practical approach to using local produce, showcasing a single splurge ingredient, or impressing guests with a unique flea-market find, she always offers crowd-pleasing and affordable solutions to make memorable entertaining Chic & Easy.
About Mary Nolan: Born and raised in Davenport, Iowa, Mary Nolan was inspired by a creative and food-loving family who exposed her to hands-on epicurean adventures including working on her grandparents’ rural farms, preparing meals, and culinary-focused vacations. While studying journalism at The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Mary enrolled in nutrition and food science courses and began catering bridal showers and parties. Spending a semester in Italy provided yet another source of inspiration for Mary’s cooking. After graduating from college, Mary moved to New York City to become an assistant at premier culinary magazine, Gourmet where she eventually became an advertising copywriter. Dedicated to sharing her fresh perspective and passion for accessibly chic entertaining, Mary is currently attending The Institute of Culinary Education.
• Secrets of a Restaurant Chef
Premieres Sunday, June 29th at 10:30AM ET/PT
With extensive experience as a top restaurant chef and a lifelong passion for food, Anne Burrell takes the mystery (and apprehension) out of the professional kitchen and highlights the practical techniques necessary to create delicious at-home meals. Based on her love for rustic food with simple ingredients and intense flavors, Anne prepares surprisingly achievable dishes such as Herb-Crusted Leg of Lamb with Roasted Fennel, Artichoke, and Red Bliss Potatoes and Brined Grilled Pork Chops with Parmesan Polenta, Sautéed Swiss Chard and Bacon. With stand-out recipes perfect for a party but easy enough for an everyday meal, Secrets of a Restaurant Chef will make the viewer’s dinner table the hottest reservation in town.
About Anne Burrell: Now serving as Executive Chef at New York hot-spot Centro Vinoteca, Anne Burrell has always stood out in the restaurant business for her remarkable culinary talent, bold and creative dishes, and her trademark spiky blond hair. After training at New York’s Culinary Institute of America and Italy’s Culinary Institute for Foreigners, she gained hands-on experience at notable New York restaurants including Felidia, Savoy, Lumi, and Italian Wine Merchants. Anne can also be spotted battling on Food Network’s Iron Chef America as Mario Batali’s energetic and reliable sous chef. Additionally, Anne taught for three years at New York’s Institute of Culinary Education and recently took over the kitchen at New York’s Gusto Ristorante e Bar Americano.
Posted on March 21st, 2008
Why do so many other people come up with much better food reality programs that the Food Network? Is it they’re so close to the subject matter they can’t see the forest from the trees? Or in this case the parsley leaves from the bushel? Aside from Bobby Flay’s Throwdown and Dinner: Impossible, yeah FN does fine with it’s dump-and-stir programming, but reality? Eh.
Let’s face it FN to this day whines — and I mean whines a non-stop pathetic blue streak — that Bravo stole Top Chef from their Next Food Network Star. But if that’s true than FN stole FN Star from the British version of Hell’s Kitchen UK, the original one. And everybody stole everything from the original Japanese Iron Chef of the Nineties. — So there!
Where was I? Ah, original television food shows …. Seems the best of late have come from non-FN sources, and one of the best of those has been the BBC with such fare as: Hell’s Kitchen and Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares … And who’s behind those two shows by the way? Grenada Productions. And what did I spot over at NBC’s casting page this week? Why, this:
Granada America, the producers that brought you Nanny 911, Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares are seeking two-person teams, with pre-existing relationships, who have always dreamed of opening their own restaurant! Have you and your spouse, friend, family member, business associate or colleague dreamed of opening your own restaurant? Is one of you a whiz in the kitchen while the other is a front-of-the-house superstar? Do you have what it takes to open and run a successful restaurant? Has financing always been a problem?
In case you don’t get it yet, we’re importing another one. Yep, America is going to get it’s own version of a show I reviewed here a couple weeks ago that I love, Last Restaurant Standing.
Aside: Interestingly enough, in the UK this show is called “The Restaurant”. Here it’s called “Last Restaurant Standing”. We already had a television show in Amercia called “The Restaurant” and that was the one which five years ago introduced Rocco Dispirito to the world. Oh and interestingly enough yet again … Fox’s Reality Channel on cable just started reshowing the original 2003 The Restaurant shows this week!
Posted on March 14th, 2008
Dozens of celebrity chefs at Common Thread’s Third Annual World Festival on Monday, March 17 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
The annual event takes place the Monday of the Housewares Show, in order to bring national celebrities who serve on the Chef Advisory Board to the festival. This year Padma Lakshmi of Bravo’s acclaimed Top Chef will serve as the honorary chair and mistress of ceremonies.
From ABC 7 Chicago:
Festival guests will be treated to global delicacies by renowned chefs including founder Art Smith, TABLE fifty-two; David Burke, David Burke’s Primehouse; Tom Colicchio, Craft; Gale Gand, Tru; Ken Oringer, Clio; Marcus Samuelsson, C-House; Jacques Torres, Jacques Torres Chocolates; Rocco DiSpirito and Ming Tsai, Blue Ginger.
[….] Common Threads, a not-for-profit organization, was founded in 2003 by Art Smith, personal chef to Oprah Winfrey. The organization employs cooking and the arts to teach children cultural diversity, nutrition and personal well-being
From The Trib:
If you want to nibble on dishes prepared by Ming Tsai and Paula Deen, be prepared to shell out $500 for the VIP reception at 5 p.m. (where Tsai will produce caviar-topped blinis along with Dennis Joel of Blue Water Grill) and an after-event party hosted by Deen (she’s making banana pudding and minty brownies) at The James Hotel, 55 E. Ontario St., complete with a special performance by John Legend, the Grammy Award-winning singer.
General admission tickets are $250; VIP package, which includes the preview receptions and post-party are $500. For tickets and more information, call 312.752.2692 or visit OurCommonThreads.
Posted on March 13th, 2008
©2008 Harry Kenney
Ahh, so good to be back. To have “them” back: I’m referring to Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio, of course. (Not time for Ted Allen and Gail Simmons yet.) The judge for the first Top Chef Quickfire was Rocco Dispirito. He joined Padme and Tom again for the Elimination Challenge segment which included Anthony Bourdain as the fourth chair.
As this was Chicago, the QF had to do with making the best Chicago-style deep-dish pizza that also reflected your personality or cooking style. With a few exceptions, none really sucked, though they still divided it between 1/2 good and 1/2 not good. Which lead to the Challenge portion that paired two against each other in eight classic dishes.
Long story short, the one that freaked me out the most was the two contestants who tried to make Chicken Piccatta. I know chicken picatta. It’s so easy. The name actually means sharp, and may even have come from the same word as picollo. One uses lemon and capers. The basis of the dish is it must have that sharp, acidic taste.
The guy, Ryan, who lost that one never got what it was supposed to be the entire show. That was driven home after successive judicial interrogations. So when they had the four worse to choose from what did they do? Natch, got rid of the woman who put too much salt in her shrimp scampi, Nimma. Apparently too much salt in a dish is a greater violation then being totally freaking clueless as to what a classic dish is made of to begin with! Huh??? Yes, the season has just started and already I’m starting to disagree with the judges (somewhat). The only thing that doesn’t get me majorly pissed is it’s the first show and I haven’t made any attachments to anyone yet.
That said, really, is over salting is worse than making a totally different meal? When you’re watching on the television set, it seems obvious the totally wrong meal is the worse offender. But, I can imagine, if, like them, I were there eating it, and one was an edible wrong dish prepared, and the other one was so salty I could not eat it, that yeah, the totally unedible meal would have to be the loser between the two. So, in the end, I guess I’ll side with the judges.
One thing else though. Going through the website’s bios last week, it seemed everyone was some kind of sous chef, executive cook, even restaurant owner. But Nimma’s resume said only “cook”, and during the show we found out she was a “line cook”. That said, not even sure why the producers let her on the show. I mean hey, line cook isn’t that far away from dish washer, let’s face it.
Other news you should know is Zoi and Jennifer are lovers. Mark the Kiwi put Vegemite into a pizza and made it work. No one there wanted to get the souffle category. Even Tom Colicchio knew that so it must be some universal thing amongst chefs. Andrew has a Ramsay-esque dirty mouth that shocks some viewers but I find entertaining and real to life. One thing about Andrew though — and isn’t this as bad as the piccatta? — he didn’t seem to know during the competition that eggs and oil are the ingredients to making mayo … huh?! And there we go, an interesting start to an interesting season. We’re off and running.
