Spoilers. Lots Of Them. Nine episodes into Top Chef’s Washington D.C. season and the show is at what usually signals a crossroads. The next episode will feature the seasonal Restaurant War, a battle waged between two groups of four chefs in which each party sets up and establishes a functioning restaurant for an evening. The Restaurant Wars gimmick has been copied by other shows, most notably an entire series developed using the concept on Food Network. The reason for the success of this has something to do with the idea of seeing the cheftestants out of their rarified Bravo bubble and actually swimming/sinking with their own restaurant. I’m jumping way ahead, though. The chef’s still had this week’s stressful challenges to deal with, including preparation of an Ethiopian inspired dish and an embassy dinner. They also had to avoid chef Alex Reznik as he skidded around the kitchen like a maniac, and steer clear of Angelo’s plastic wrap on the toilet. A glance at this show may have reminded viewers of junior high home economics classes, but that diminishes the culinary skills of teenagers. Many of them cook acceptable rice, after all.

The Quickfire Challenge: The chefs were asked by host Padma Lakshmi and guest judge chef Marcus Samuelson to create dishes inspired by Ethiopian cuisine using ingredients provided in the kitchen. Along with traditional spices the chefs also had proteins such as goat, chicken, lamb and beef tongue. The challenge brought me back to those fuzzy college days and reminded me of my roommates from Eritrea, which borders Ethiopia. Many nights I came into our place to find smoke as the guys were trying replicate chick peas stews from home. Still, when they got things right, the flavor combinations their foods imparted were unbeatable.  The same principle applied in this challenge. Tiffany Derry won despite admitting to a lack of knowledge of Ethiopian cuisine. Her beef goulash w/currants, poached egg and red peppers was hearty and satisfying. Angelo produced a more authentic Dora Wat chicken dish, but in the end Tiffany add the spark of newness and inventive style (using what she had to work with) that Samuelson was looking for. Kenny didn’t factor in this challenge, or much at all this episode, and he’s up against it (the wall, the fan, whatever euphemism you can think of). He continues to put out duos and trios of variations on whichever dish he’s asked to produce. Simplify and cook one dish properly.

Elimination Challenge: With a day to shop and prepare, the chefs were asked to produce 100 portions of a dish inspired by one of nine foreign embassies in Washington. The chefs drew knives for the order in which they would pick from Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Italy, France, India, China, Japan and Thailand. Amanda, who styles herself a French Cook in the tradition of…a hot mess, drew France. She came up with Beef Bourguignon and it came out dry enough that she surmised the solution would be to cut the meat into bite sized cubes. Mr. Peabody (Alex) drew Spain and declared that having been there he could execute braised Veal Cheeks. Sure, I’ve been to Ponderosa, so I can make a funny tasting rib eye, as long as we’re cooking from vacation memories. He ended up in the bottom three, along with Stephen Hopcraft who drew Brazil. Stephen made a not so passable Chimichurri over so-so cooked flank steak. He could have skated away, but he re-fired rice for service at the event and it was gummy and broken. Tiffany, who won immunity in the Quickfire and could have phoned it in did a flavorful chicken Tamale and won. Kelly did an authentic Carpaccio. They kept it simple and flavorful and beat the boys.

Stephen’s rice faux pas could happen to any chef. I could go all Bubba and describe my rice disasters (burned it, over-boiled it, under-cooked it, turned it blue). This is where the pans meet the road on Top Chef and all the gritty details count. May Stephen have better luck with starches (and toilets) back home.

Abundant Spoilers Within. I skipped out on putting a Top Chef recap on the blog last week for various reasons. Well, okay, one reason. I find the cheftestants representing Season 7 of television’s most innovative culinary reality program detestable. On the last installment Tamesha went home after falling for the advice given by chef Angelo. His response was a shrug (“Gee, I really liked whatshername, but whadaya gonna do?”). This season’s chefs have a number of personal and kitchen habits that leave the viewer wondering how they’ve retained employment for this long. Kelly, the chef I really believe stands to win it all, has a penchant for crying. So, in fact does Andrea. I cry sometimes, too.  When I found Ford had stopped making the Crown Victoria I shed a tear. There is also the habit of saying “I haven’t shown the judges my food yet.” This is a line that is repeated every season and was again uttered by tonight’s ‘had to pack it’ chef. Really? Really Really? You had something like 16 challenges to show them your food. An annoying thing to say as you pack your knives, but nowhere near as reprehensible as stealing someone’s prep items. Theft is a habit that will come back to bite. So now, despite the draggy, obnoxious participants, Top Chef has got me watching thanks to theft drama. Here we go with the spoilertastic details on episode 8 from Washington D.C.

This week’s Quickfire Challenge was to make an appetizer that could be served on a toothpick.  Congressman Aaron Schock (R-Illinois) explained to the cast that because of undue influence by lobbyists, House and Senate members are only allowed to be offered as much free meal as one can fit on a toothpick. See? You can actually learn things from cooking shows. Now if only he’d explain how they have to suck free drinks out of a napkin. The cheftestants did their best to cram items onto tiny skewers and plastic swords. Angelo won the challenge with an old school appetizer that you can find in books from the 80′s and before. He hollowed thick cucumber slices into cups and filled them with spicy shrimp and chopped cashew. Things that work will always work. Congressman Schock was not fond of Ed’s tuna two ways on an umbrella or Kelly’s seared scallop and pickled watermelon rind. I appreciated the honorable Mr. Schock’s perma-grin and his resistance against the urge to shout at the chefs “Man! I hate this trash!”

For the Elimination Challenge the chefs drew knives for the right to cook salmon, swordfish, Porterhouse steaks, lamb or lobster at the Palm. Two chefs would cook each of the five choices. The setting was a power lunch at The Palm restaurant, a place with much history and no record of letting TV cooks into it’s kitchen. The judges were Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) a slate of NBC and MSNBC correspondents and hosts (Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinki, Daily Rundown’s Savannah Guthrie, Luke Russert and Kelly O’Donnell), chef Art Smith and John Depodesta. Now, for a man who is passionate about at least three things in life (liberal news shows, Top Chef and pictures of Audrina Patridge eating hamburgers) this should have been a dream episode. No. The whole show was dominated by Ed running back and forth looking for his English pea puree, which ended up under Alex’s salmon dish. Pilfering happens in kitchens, but out-and-out stealing someone’s prep and taking credit for it is just dirty. The fact that Alex won compounded the problem. He’s a professional and shouldn’t have let it get this far. Meanwhile, Andrea went home for doing a vanilla beurre blanc over swordfish and then letting it cook in the window. Butter sauces break down into gummy components when left out. She didn’t even get proper hug and tear time after being sent home, because judge Padma sent her away with a “That will be all.”

What’s next for Top Chef? Amanda’s general sloppiness and lack of experience may finally catch up soon. Hopefully Alex’s intellectual dishonesty is seen through by the judges as much as it is by the other chefs and the audience. Oh, and Kelly will cry some more. Good Times (sniff).

Love, exciting and new. Come aboard. We’ve been expecting you! Top Chef’s fifth Washington, D.C. episode centered around housemate hook-ups. Oh, sure. The cheftestants made food to present to the judges, but the reality show was really about getting together. Weird. Not to generalize, but cooks are often stained people, inside and out. There are bad smells that cling to them and sobriety tends to be limited and fleeting. The heat of the line sharpens cooks up, but more often than not, they go and get dull as soon as the work has ended. So, amidst the intensity of cooking on Top Chef, TV’s preeminent pseudo-reality culinary series, the chefs have begun to couple. Angelo, paired for challenges with Tamesha, has begun whispering sweet nothings to her on the side. Frankly, after a number of days filming Top Chef, Angelo might have started whispering sweet nothings to Madea. He’s just glad she’s not Tracey, whose hand print is still on his backside. Ah, but this is TV and what has started to be dull viewing at that. So, the good folks editing the show have cobbled together love at the stove. There are no atheists in foxholes, but there is a lot of “bow-chicka-wowwow” in cooking if you’re pointing the camera in the right direction. Ed, the poor man’s Angelo, for instance, is starting an affair with Tiffany. She’s not exactly rejecting him and old Chef Droopy is all smiles this week. Oh, and they cook, too!

Last week, my two dark horse chefs, Arnold and Lynne, went home for pairing on a poorly cooked squid ink pasta dish. Sigh. She wanted to be his Obi Wan Kenobi and he just wanted better moisturizer. This was too bad, because they missed the fun of a Quickfire Challenge involving the preparation of Maryland Blue Crabs. The animals had a sort of beauty to them and I felt there was a bit of dishonor seeing some of the chefs batter them (not tempura. I mean they were picking the beasts by their appendages and flinging them up and down. crab carnage). The guest judge for this session was Patrick O’Connell, owner of The Inn at Little Washington.   He resembled me the ghost child of Bing Crosby and Anthony Hopkins. Still, a very gracious judge. Ed dazzled with a Thai inspired crab dish, to the chagrin of Tim. You remember Tim. He’s “that one guy.” Each week we’ve watched Tim make a proclamation about his talent/skills/soul. Each week we’ve also watched the same guy get clobbered by chefs with inspired ideas. This week Tim figured on winning the short challenge with a fairly authentic beer steamed crab with avocado and passion fruit. It didn’t happen. You know where this is leading. Still confident about his skill and unable to fathom why he lost the Quickfire, Tim went blazing into the elimination challenge.

The Elimination Challenge dragged to its starting line after serious arguments and ego flaring by the chefs. The teams paired up in the previous twos as the last episode. The challenge was to create a full course meal at Ayrshire Farms in Virginia, using ingredients produced on the farm (with help from the T.C. rolling pantry). The chefs all had propane fired outdoor stoves and induction burners. There has been much griping this season about cooking outdoors in the elements, but this is what chefs do at catered events. Kevin got a jolt when his cauliflower couscous hit the deck and he was forced to quickly find other vegetables and start over. Amanda spent lots of time smack talking Progresso soup, as she made minestrone. Then there was Andrea. I understand that she’s a Florida chef, but did they have to keep showing her using her sleeve as a nose rag?  Snot and cooking are not an appealing combo. In the end, you can’t blame the chefs for being tight. The challenge was cold, cramped and unstable at times.

In what has become a season staple, Tim and Andrea faced the judges as potential losers along with Stephen. Andrea’s minestrone may have been more favorable than canned soup, but the vegetables weren’t uniformly sized, or cooked. Stephen’s giant composed salad of doom ended up a soggy mess and he nearly went home. Tim, in the end, was sent packing for his mushy roasted potato and vegetable dish. Be confident, be right, but don’t be bland. Kenny, super sexy alpha male of the group, won with his own roasted vegetable dish. Kelly also scored points and produced a successful dessert, as well. So, as mid-season shapes up, we can see Kenny and Kelly heading toward the final. Will Angelo be the third finalist? The future is cloudy. Only his crabs know.

     Episode 3 of Top Chef's Beltway season opened, as is often the case on this show, with a sad little morning vignette about the absence of the previously departed cheftestant. Unlike most of these scenes, there was very little sympathy (or notice) for Jacqueline, or the bad pudding that led to her ouster from the townhouse after the last Elimination Challenge. The morning confessional was instead a chance for the chefs to get in more plugs for themselves. Chef Droopy (his given name is Ed Cotton, but due to genuine lack of charisma, I had to look it up.  He will be forever Droopy) uses much of his interview time to mention that he's worked for Daniel Boulud. The guy is the real deal as far as chefs go, but damn he's Droopy. He can cook, though, and has confidence in his goods. Tracey Bloom, last night's "Leaving To Attending B.K.'s Culinary Academy In Fort Lauderdale," didn't possess a lot of talent or confidence during this round of challenges and it caught up with her. So, here we go with the Top Chef 7.3 spoilers, starting with Tracey's televised disintegration.

The Elimination Challenge for this episode was to produce and transport and then charcoal barbecue picnic fare to George Washington's historic home, Mount Vernon. The diners in attendance were Capital Hill interns. Apparently, by the looks of them, the requirement for being a D.C. intern is to play Frisbee badly after several drinks. As many of them fell about all over the lawn, I could picture former President Clinton walking through and shaking his head at the lack of conquest challenge. George Washington might have had them at least doing yard work (had he been able to get any of the interns to actually stand up, or move independently. They just laid around the yard). Each chef had a bag of charcoal and a Weber box grill along with the food they'd prepped in the studio kitchen. I love charcoal challenges, because at least one chef always asks how to use it. Arnold actually watched Kenny and mimicked his actions ("Oh! I thought you just throw the bag over by the grill and hope it explodes into delicious barbecue!"). Speaking of Arnold. What is it with this man and his skin regimen? Kitchens are an airborne oil bath with occasional bursts of greasy steam to break up the monotony. Phil Mickelson could play 18 on most cook's faces. Arnold is really a front of the house guy (with nice pores), but that didn't deter him when it came to this challenge.

     The judges at Mt. Elimination were Chef Tom Collichio, Host Padma Lakshmi, Food and Wine Editor Gail Simmons and Barbuto chef/owner Jonathan Waxman. The cheftestants had $400 to spend on their dishes at Whole Foods. Amanda used the trip to the supermarket as a platform to ask if anyone remembers her 20's, because she was too coked back then to process anything. She is a good chef, and produced ribs that beat the self proclaimed barbecue masters. Tracey used her trip to the supermarket as a platform to discuss her skill with sausage making and how she didn't need no stinking packaged meat. She did, however, clean the store out of buns. Take that any way you want. Tracey has this thing about serving everything on a bun. This is a sign that a chef is afraid of their own skills. Many of the more obnoxious, abrasive cheftestants over the years have gone the insecure burger route. Tracey decided to go with Italian Sausage Sliders. Listed are some of the problems that followed:

• She was mean to the store bought buns. If you're going to buy packaged bread, at least keep it off the floor.
• Didn't know how to operate a Kitchen-Aid sausage attachment after claiming to make the stuff all the time. For the uninitiated, you put meat in one end and it comes out the other. The K-A is timeless. Fred Flintstone had one powered by a bird.
• Sang to the sausage. When she started in with the "Whose your daddy?" song to the meat, I half expected it to point to Angelo.
• Danced to the sausage.  A Tracey vs. Garth Brooks dance-off is in the works.
• Didn't cook the sausage and then put same raw-ish meat on a Wonder bun. Nobody doesn't like Sarah Lee!
• Spent time in Judge's Stew Room saying goodbye and feeling sorry for herself.

So, there went our third chef, before she'd even let her bandana down and gotten all freaky. The winner was none other than Biore spokesmodel Arnold Myint. He made a sesame lamb meatball with lemongrass skewers. Smart, picnic ready and more like sausage than Tracey' meat mush. Also highly praised were Amanda's ribs (I'm sure they're fine, but I mean the pork ones), which she smartly braised (despite the disbelief by Tim, high priest of baby backs and maker of…dry ribs). I failed to mention the Quickfire challenge at the top of the show, which was pie making. Kenny nailed this with a Banana's Foster creation and Kelly wowed with a simple Ganache tart. The signs for Tracey were all there at the beginning. She tried twice to create blueberry almond crunch pie and couldn't get the crust right. At least she didn't sing to the pie. Some dignity was preserved for episode 4.

The seventh season of Top Chef stood up on it's starchy little legs last night and started to establish itself. Frontrunners emerged, stars found their luster, and straggling home bound cooks scrambled to be seen. In the end, one cook had to pack it up and go away. By the end we also learned that you can't offer school children cooking sherry and pounds of sugar. After all, in some states that's enough to get you arrested. Spoilers on the way.
      Top Chef, like many reality shows, features the soon-to-be departed cast members on camera really often during their final episode on the program. Last night's let's watch the Titanic run off the tracks (and other cliches) chef was Jacqueline Lombard. Things began to unravel for Jacqueline during her Quickfire Challenge, in which Judge and Host Padma Lakshmi and White House Assistant  Chef Sam Kass called on the cheftestants to make "bipartisan sandwiches." Now, in my mind a bipartisan sandwich would be a combination of John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, 2 quarts of mayonnaise…oh, I just puked. Thought. Stopped. Deleted. No, in this case the Top Chefies were paired up and tied into a one piece apron (one side red, one blue. Ha Ha. Bipartisan cooperation as they battled with one hand each). The contestants had to cooperate and make a gourmet sandwich. Gigolo Angelo was paired with Tracey and she proceeded to grope him up and down (and sideways. This was more action than she's seen since her last Sturgis rally and Tracey was not going to let it go by without copping a little Angelo). Our guy Angelo vowed to sell his sandwich shop if he lost the challenge. And then let Tracey pet him and love him and squeeze him and make him her very own. Angelo made the best sandwich of his career, a flounder-wich marinated in fish sauce and topped with spicy Sriracha mayo, so as to get rid of Tracey and not have to sell his restaurant. The pair won the biparti-sandwich Quickfire, and the misfire worth mentioning came from Jacqueline and Stephen. Checking out the Bravo website, there is a picture of the pair's sandwich, but no description. I'll do the honors. Chicken breast on white bread with smashed avocados and rosemary sprig garnish poking phallic-ly out of the top. Stephen over-describes every dish he makes and this one, according to him was either India meets California, or Ohio meets chicken and smashed avocados garnished with whatever made Rosemary's Baby.  Jacqueline just looked on in a beatifically positive way. She just knew it was going to win, even after Kass dismissed the sandwich as bland.

     This week's Elimination Challenge was to serve 50 kids a nutritious, balanced lunch for under $130. The most successful group of the episode were the team of Arnold, Kelly, Lynne and Tiffany who served braised pork carnitas tacos, black bean cake with sweet potato hair, sweet potato with sherbert, and roasted corn salad. I was a little skeptical of some of the details on this one. The carnitas, for instance, were served in homemade oatmeal tortillas. The kids liked the combo, though, and so did the judges. Our bottom three chefs this week were Kenny, Amanda who produced chicken thigh braised in sherry jus and Jacqueline, maker of grainy, over-sugared banana pudding. I mention Kenny only because he wasn't going anywhere. The judges knew that Angelo set him up for failure as a strategic move, and moved on. The problems with Amanda and Jacqueline began on their trip for groceries. Amanda used a little more of the budget than she should have to procure cheap cooking sherry. This meant that Jacqueline had to put back her pudding ingredients and came back to the studio with bananas and milk. She sort of always had this Georgia Engel look throughout the show, and said not-so-pithy things like "I guess some people used all of the money like it was theirs." In order to break down the starch in her pudding, Jacqueline used 2 pounds of table sugar. The pudding was lumpy, grainy, and called out by the judges. Despite that, Amanda should have gone home. The pudding must have been truly hideous for Jacqueline to be sent packing. Amanda not only used up the money on the cooking liquid, but took on the judges when called on the carpet. I'd never heard Judge Tom Colicchio call any chef's dish a turd, but he used that to describe Amanda's chicken. When reprimanded for serving sherry jus to school kids, Amanda lost her cool and that should have been an automatic "send the psycho home." She came at them with a disgusted "I cooked it all off. I wasn't serving it to them for Christ's sake." Judge Gail Simmons pointed out that she enjoys a lot of things ("I love vodka, but I'm not cooking for kids with it") and Amanda pouted. She had time to pout, because Padma sent Georgia Engle and her sticky pudding home.

     The battle between Kenny and Angelo is shaping up, while the rest of the chefs ramp up the crazy in an attempt to stay on the show. Padma continues to look awesome (post pregnancy), Tom thoughtfully brings the egos down to size, Gail (editor at Food and Wine) is allowed a sage comment from behind her wine glass every episode and Chef Eric Ripert continues to smolder like a French forest fire. 'Looking forward to the rest of the season.

This past week's installment of Top Chef D.C. (Season 7, episode 1) featured an Elimination Challenge finalist dish, Deconstructed Short Rib Borscht w/ Creme Fraiche, by Executive Chef Alex Reznik of Ivan Kane's Cafe Was in Hollywood. The dish was not only visually appealing, but looked like it might be something meant to be eaten by earthlings. I went into the Spatula In The Wilderness Test Kitchen and gave Reznik's recipe the old "Will It Float?" test. I made some home hack mistakes, but the dish was high quality and prevailed despite my best attempts to destroy it. Here we go with my version of the short rib and borscht combo (Reznik's original recipe is available  at http://www.bravotv.com/foodies/recipes/deconstructed-short-rib-borsht-with-creme-fraiche

For The Short Ribs I Used:

2.5 pounds short ribs (about 4-5 meaty ones).

3 carrots

3 celery stalks

5 good sized onions

1/2 bottle hearty red wine

1/4 bottle brandy

2 bay leaves

2 cloves garlic

1 whole clove

mixed fresh ground pepper corns

parsley stems

3 pints ham demi

For the Beet Puree I Used:

2 and ½ pounds red beets

1 pint ham stock

olive oil

kosher salt

For The Cabbage Wilt I Used:

½ head red cabbage, ½ head white cabbage, julienned

¼ bottle flavored salad vinegar

1 pint ham stock

salt and pepper, to taste

For The Chevre Creme Fraiche I Used:

1 pint Creme Fraiche

2 ounces herbed chevre goat cheese

How I Reproduced The Dish:

The first thing is finding all of the ingredients. Bone-in beef short ribs (which are connecting breast ribs found on the Plate between ribs 6 and 12) look like sandwich slices skewered on a bone that sticks out either end. I had to go to two markets before finding them and you might have to ask the butcher if they're available. Get a large saute pan hot with oil and (using tongs) place the short ribs in the pan, turning and searing them on all sides. When they're seared on the outside, remove the short ribs and set them aside. In this same saute pan, caramelize your carrots, onions and celery (mirepoix). They'll be nice and brown and soft/glaze-y. Now it's time to deglaze the pan. Use your wine and brandy to get all of the good stuff off the bottom of the pan (make sure you carefully flame off the alcohol in the brandy. This is why my oven blew up and the dish had a blackish tint. You'd think I'd never cooked before). In a large roasting pan, combine the meat, the mirepoix, a sachet of parsley, garlic, pepper corn and bay leaf (no cloth to tie it? no problem. Empty out the contents of family sized ice tea bag and put the sachet in. Use the string to tie the end shut), and cover the meat with the demi and the pan drippings you just made with the wine/brandy. At this point I should explain ham demi and ham stock. The original recipe calls for chicken stock. I hate store bought chicken stock and would rather cook with the carton it comes in. Having only a Flintstone sized ham bone in my freezer, I made both stock and demiglace with it. One thing that is provided, according to Top Chef: The Cookbook, for each cheftestant appearing on the show, is a pantry stocked with a supply of stock and demi. Provimi veal demiglace is the real deal and if you can find it you are a very fortunate soul. I once got veal demi for Christmas and consider it among my most treasured gifts. Anyway, braise the short ribs for 3-3.5 hours at 400 degrees, until they are pft (plastic fork tender). The temptation is to peek, but proper braising requires that you don't open the lid. I would caution, though, that if you suspect that your dish is drying out, then please add stock and liquid during the oven time. Remove the short ribs and set aside, reduce the pan juices by half.

For The Beet Puree:

Clean off the beets and put them in another roasting pan. Coat them with oil, salt and pepper (the oil is really important, as they will dry out). Cover the pan with plastic wrap and then foil over that. Roast them at 375 until pft (2 hours). Reznik recommends that when cool, you use two towels to peel the skins off the beets. Put them into a food processor with the ham stock and puree until smooth and silky.

For The Cabbage Wilt:

Place the julienned cabbage in a pan and saute until translucent. Add stock and vinegar and saute slowly until soft, finishing with salt and pepper.

For The Creme Fraiche:

This one is like the veal demi argument. You can make creme fraiche by warming heavy cream to around 100 degrees and adding buttermilk and then letting the mixture stand in a warm place for 6-24 hours. Honestly, between the high price of duel dairy products and the idea of fermenting them myself, I'll just buy it. You can get little tubs of creme fraiche in the gourmet cheese section of supermarkets. This is where you'll find the chevre cheese, as well. I mixed the two with a hand induction blender until rich and smooth.

This recipe makes enough for 3-4 people. For plating, ladle the beet puree into the center of the plate and dollop the creme fraiche on top. Between 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. on the place, place the cabbage wilt. Lean the short ribs on top of this and sauce with the pan jus you saved and reduced. The dish was pretty and made the house smell good. The beet puree was actually the star and I found myself mopping it up. So, all in all, yeah-it floats.

     I vowed to live blog the new season of Top Chef, but I got interested in the show after a few minutes and forgot about typing anything. In blogging technical lingo, this is what's known as a der de der. Anywho, Bravo's new season of competitive bitching cooking kicked off last night in the new (and improved for us middle aged working sorts) 9:00 p.m. slot. This hasn't anything to do with T.C., but the fact that Bravo is pimping their new 10:00 p.m. Sarah Jessica Parker- Bueller project Starving Artists $10 Sale Live From The Expo Center. I shouldn't make fun, because the show has promise and may even improve my artistic talents beyond finger painting monkey art. Ah, but this is a Top Chef blog. I'll start with last night's loser and go from there. Spoilers aplenty.

      During the opening week's of T.C.'s last two seasons, my home state has been represented by two contestants from Planet Michigan. As the show has made abundantly clear, only the strangest and possibly most drug addled cooks come from the Great Lakes State. This, of course isn't the case, but T.C. functions on stereotypes of culinary characters, so Michigan keeps sending in the spaceballs. Last night's unfortunate "couldn't hack it/had to pack it" cheftestant was a chef from Plymouth named John Somerville. Each episode of Top Chef is divided into an opening competition round known as the Quickfire Challenge and and an elimination challenge known as the Elimination Challenge. It is conceivable (and has happened on occasion) that a Quickfire winner is sent home for badly producing a dish during the Elimination. Last night's Elimination asked that each cheftestant come up with a dish representing their home area of the country and serve it to guests at a high end function. I hate to judge people on first appearance, but I could tell that John is the kind of guy who walks into a kitchen and says "Hey man, smell my finger."  Chef Somerville hit on the idea of doing a Napoleon with a maple sauce, theorizing that maple syrup symbolized eastern Michigan. Not cherries, or apples. Not asparagus or radiator caps. Maple syrup. He then committed several amateurish mistakes. Grainy whipped cream, which is the result of over whipping (you get butter if the cream is left in the mixer long enough). My heart sank when at his first mention of puff pastry, which takes longer to produce than the time Somerville had allotted. He admitted to the judges that he screwed up store-bought puff pastry. How he went all the way through Whole Foods and ended up with a box of prefab pastry is beyond me. Somerville also complained that he didn't know how to use the oven. Soggy store bought non-puffing pastry, un-maple syrup and burnt nuts. Pure Michigan. Top Chef has some lovely parting gifts for you John.

    Top Chef is built on stereotypes and this season is fairly stereotypical. This year's 'Fabio' is a chef name Angelo Sosa from Durham, Connecticut. The producers love the smoldering chefies and ramp up the hot factor each season. Next season, it's already been announced, will feature brothers Mario and Luigi. T.C. also has it's L.A.W.W. (Loud A**White Woman) in place, a chef from Atlanta named Tracey Bloom. She'll make bologna sandwiches for several episodes before running for Congress. Our technical wunderkind this year is Colorado's Kenny Gilbert. He and Angelo duked it out in both rounds, Angelo coming up with the win both times. Gilbert declared himself the 'Alpha Male' at one point during the episode, but apparently he hasn't seen some of the female cheftestants. This season's 'Howie the King of Delusion and Pork' is a chef from Baltimore named Tim Dean. Dean will be back home cooking for several weeks before he realizes he's been eliminated. My dark horse bets for the D.C. season are an instructor from the Culinary Institute of America named Lynne Gigliotto and Nashville's Arnold Myint (any guy who gets a facial and new wardrobe for a cooking show has his priorities squarely in line).

    Last On The Line: I wondered why all of the cheftestants seemed so familiar and then I realized it was because Top Chef is really typecasting. The first episode was spent in a bigfooting effort to assert ego by most of the bland, retread contestants. The whole thing made me miss last year's bearded bear, Kevin Gillespie, who cooked the hell out the entire season with precision and grace. I even looked wistfully back to the Voltaggio brothers, and hope they return to school this group. This group of 17 chefs also makes me wish I had gone ahead and auditioned when Top Chef was casting on Well Street in Chicago last October. I may be a hack, but I know what happens to store bought pastry and lousy whipped cream. Tomorrow On The Blog: Spatula In The Wilderness recreates Deconstructed Short Rib Borscht w/Creme Fraiche.

     Summer is (un)officially here and I hope to kick off the season with lots of bloggity goodness. The first order of business was to blow up the previous incarnation of the blog and offer…Spatula In The Wilderness: Now In Glorious COLOR!  In doing so, I've had to address some of the long neglected housekeeping duties that go along with publishing the blog several times a week. These are some of the things happening in/around/underneath Spatula right now:

⇒Several weeks ago, the guys at The Wakefield Doctrine published an interview they conducted with me (Mel Thompson, author of the literal/literary mess before you). I'm a fan of the Clarks, The Scotts and The Rogers, and was thrilled to take part in the interview (plus, they fronted me a Wakefield Doctrine Hat {for my damn head} from their online fashion department). You can find the interview at http://wakefielddoctrine.com/2010/05/18/the-wakefield-doctrine-strong-of-heart-and-true-to-her-name/

⇒I've spent the past few months cryin' and writin' over the end of Lost and watched the progress of my other favorite TV shows Fringe and Dr. Who. With the change of season, however, I am pleased to find the that most indulgent of un-reality shows, Top Chef is returning for a new season from Washington D.C. For Season 7 of what might be television's best-ever culinary competition program the Spatula is going to actively work on live blogging the episodes. This just means dishing and snide comments about the show as it airs, but if I call it live-blogging there is an element of not only the fancy, but the schmancy to the proceedings. Each episode will be post-mortemed with a kitchen "Will It Float?" test of some of that week's winning (and losing) competition dishes. Stay tuned for this development starting June 16th.

⇒By mid-July I hope to offer some Spatula swag at low, low prices. I don't ever pay more than $2.00 for a tee shirt, and with that in mind I'm going to start to offer merchandise from this umm…blog for 2 bucks, or less. Yes, the shirts will disintegrate upon washing and the rusty flair-buttons will cause infections, but who doesn't like bargain priced gear from a blog nobody has ever read? Also in July is the start of my guest author program. Want to write for a blog, but too smart to waste time publishing one? Have I got the opportunity for you! Starting next month you can become a Spatula In The Wilderness Guest Contributor. You'll get a biodegradable tee-shirt and a bumper sticker just for submitting stuff.

⇒On September 25th, yours truly is running his first ever half marathon. Needless to say, the only sponsor is this umm…blog. There will undoubtedly be lots of posts over the summer about the impending race and the training that goes into it. If you'd like to be an official (i.e., it won't cost you anything) sponsor, I'll wear your logo throughout the 13 mile run and also to the emergency room following the marathon (or even during training for the race and ER visit)

Onward and Upward!