EFFIN’ TOP CHEF: Kids

A Snarky Top Chef Recap: Episode 8

OK, so this episode was pretty tame. Mostly because children were involved so the drama was kept to a minimum, along with the use of Season 4’s favorite word: the F-bomb. The guest judge was also lame … Oprah’s personal chef, Art Smith. For their Quickfire Challenge they were to create a fabulous entree in 15 minutes using Uncle Ben’s microwaveable rice. I’ve had this 90-second rice before, and it sucks. You tear a hole in the top, nuke it for a minute and a half and magically you have gross tasting rice. In Uncle Ben’s defense, I’m sort of a rice snob, and my family has like 800 rice cookers of assorted colors and sizes. I hadn’t even heard of this microwavable rice until senior year of college when my roommate would make it all the time. Her diet consisted of cheese cubes, cereal, cold cuts and this microwavable rice so I’ve had limited exposure to White People’s rice.

The cheftestants got pretty creative with their microwavable rice and their 15 minutes. Stephanie made a seafood pancake, and Andrew even used the raw rice to coat his chicken. Art’s bottom three consisted of Mark, Lisa and Stephanie. His favorites were Dale (go Asians!), Richard and Antonia. Her rice salad with skirt steak looked really tasty, and Oprah’s Chef gave Antonia the coveted Quickfire immunity. He loved the hot and cold of the salad and the warm rice.

Rice + Salad = Surprisingly Tasty Goodness

For their Elimination Challenge, the cheftestants are asked to make cheap eats for a family of 4, with a budget of $10. Maybe food is cheaper in Chicago (I doubt it), but $10 in DC will get you a couple of Top Ramen and some chicken nuggets. They don’t even have either of those things at Whole Foods because it’s not fancy organic food. Ten dollars at Whole Foods will get you one apple and an Odwalla juice to wash it down. This challenge is bogus.

At the checkout, we see the chefs breaking off half of their produce to meet their budget constraints. I’m pretty sure once I went to Safeway and tried to buy half a ginger root (which I broke in half myself) and they wouldn’t let me. But that might be because it was crappy Safeway, home of rotting food and the occasional drive-by.

The chefs get to the Elimination Challenge kitchen and Padma announces they will be getting help from guest sous chefs! I’m hoping its bitter ex-contestants from seasons past, but instead its KIDS!! The Elimination Challenge is to cook a simple, healthy dish for the children in Art Smith’s foundation, Common Threads. It’s actually a really good cause, and they have the support of a ton of famous chefs. The kids were super psyched to get their hands dirty and start cooking for their pals.

You Were A Child …

Richard
Elimination Dish: roasted chicken with black beans, apple, avocado & beet salad
Aww Moment: When Richard was psyched because his sous chef’s blue shirt matched perfectly with his girly pink Crocs. An Aww Moment for Chef Tom when he asked her if she put the onions on a treadmill to get them to sweat.

Lisa
Elimination Dish: roasted chicken with edamame & black beans, pb & apple french toast
Aww Moment: When she said she loved to cook with her girlfriend’s kid. Like we didn’t all see that coming.

Dale
Elimination Dish: turkey bratwurst with potatoes, onions, red cabbage & apples
Aww Moment: Got the runty kid, and recounted his memories of growing up as a short Asian kid who waited desperately for puberty/his growth spurt. Is still waiting, but traded his Jordans for an apron in the meantime.

Spike
Elimination Dish: pasta puttanesca, carrot soup & semi-baked apples
Aww Moment: When his kid cut himself within .5 seconds of the challenge starting, then struggled to hold back tears so he didn’t cry on national television and get his ass kicked in school.

Nikki
Elimination Dish: roasted chicken with mixed vegetables, tomato & cucumber salad
Aww Moment: Was raised by a single parent, and confessed that she began cooking at the tender age of 8.

Mark
Elimination Dish: vegetable curry, cinnamon rice & cucumber salad
Aww Moment: Shared a moment with his sous chef after learning she was from Mexico and he was from New Zealand. What a small world!

Antonia
Elimination Dish: chicken and vegetable stir fry with whole wheat noodles
Aww Moment: Smellmop who? Also, my blackened little heart swelled when she cried upon seeing that the guest sous chefs were kids.

Andrew
Elimination Dish: chicken paillard with fennel, apples & orange salad
Aww Moment: Confessed to being a fattie when he was younger (he lost 200 lbs?!) and I thought he was cute for a second.

Stephanie
Elimination Dish: couscous with eggplant & zucchini, chicken in peanut & tomato sauce; apples with granola
Aww Moment: When her sous chef ended up being as tall as her.

Andrew, Nikki and Antonia received rave reviews from both the kids and the judges. They loved Nikki’s one-pot wonder, and she managed to sneak in brussel sprouts! Personally, I don’t mind brussel sprouts, but I’m a weirdo and my favorite veggie growing up was lima beans. Andrew’s dish was a hit for introducing an interesting new ingredient with his use of a fennel salad. But in the end, even though Antonia had immunity, the super-mom picked up the win. Everyone loved the mild, but sophisticated flavors of her veggie stir-fry that were delicious for all ages.

Knock, knock? Who’s there?

Not surprisingly, the least successful dishes in the challenge belonged to Stephanie, Mark and Lisa. The panel of judges was baffled by Stephanie’s tomato, lemon and peanut sauce. I eat alot of weird shit, and that sounded gross, even to me. Padma was def not a fan, and “detested” her overcooked couscous. I have to admit, I was a little worried that Stephanie would be packing her knives. I mean, we all knew as soon as they showed her bumbling around Whole Foods to carnival music that her dish would be a hot mess. Lisa’s dish was bland, and Mark’s curry was just barfariffic. It looked horrendous, and had the nutritional value of a bag of Cheetos and a slurpee. When Mark quipped that Chef Tom was “digging the shit out of his curry” I laughed my ass off considering it looked suspiciously like liquid dookie (I just learned this word yesterday). Mark whined about Chef Tom not liking him, which T-Colicchio unconvincingly denied. In the end, even if he had been Chef Tom’s BFF, it wouldn’t have saved him from the barfy curry that ultimately sent him packing. Rock on, rocker!

Open up, it’s Smell My Poo.