Top Chef Gets Creative

Ted Allen was the guest judge on this week's Top Chef. Creativity seemed to be the theme of Episode 9: Seven. For the quick fire challenge, each chef had thirty minutes to create a meal based on a specific color. To determine colors, the chefs each picked color-marked knives out of a block.

Some difficult colors! Green seemed like the easiest, yet the meal prepared got the worst reviews because of too many different flavors which didn't work well together. Other colorful meals would be either red, purple, orange, brown, yellow or white. At first I thought brown and white would be the hardest with because those foods are all so bland. But red and orange are a bit of a challenge too. Hell, they would all be hard!

The funny part was that Cliff is color blind. He had purple so he had to guess which ingredients to use because it all looked like black to him. He thought he remembered that at one time someone told him eggplant was purple so he started with that.

Orange won the challenge with a salmon-based dish.



For the elimination challenge, the chefs needed to demonstrate inspiration. They had to work together as a team to create a seven-course dinner inspired by the seven deadly sins. Now that is an interesting challenge!

Wrath - Spicy Shrimp Ceviche with Chili Pepper Popcorn
Sloth - Trio of Slow-Roasted Vegetable Soups
Envy - Trout & Salmon
Greed - Seafood Bouillabaisse in Thai Curry
Pride - Roasted Chicken with Vegetables
Lust - Cherry Tart w/ Chocolate & Whipcream
Gluttony - Chocolate Cake and Funnel Cake Donuts

The major concern for the team were the two chocolate desserts. But Marcel the trouble-maker decided upon chocolate after he knew Ilan was also doing chocolate.



Debi Mazar from Entourage hosted a dinner party where the meal was served. It was a fun group of people and they all seemed to be having fun as each sinful course was served.

So which sin was the winner and which sin was the loser? Sloth was defeated while Envy triumphed over all.