No Winner on Top Chef

Top Chef was kind of a disaster this week. It started out with a fun quick-fire challenge. The Chefs has to take the "Kraft Gourmet Snack Challenge". They were provided with mayo, zesty italian dressing and barbeque sauce and had to create a snack. Sam's tempura with pickled peaches won.

It got really stressful for the elimination challenge. The group was split into two teams of three people each. And they had to set up their own RESTAURANT. Marcel, Cliff and Elia opt for a "diner" approach with hamburgers as the main course. Of course it was a gourmet diner though. Ilan, Sam and Mike went with an Italian theme. The diner served beer but the Italian one didn't serve any alcohol so they got a lot of negative feedback from the customers from that. Both teams had so many messes and poor service at the front of the restaurant that the judges couldn't declare a winner.

All six chefs were judged and had the risk of being sent home. In the end, Mike was the one who had to pack up his knives. It's about time I think . . . Except for last week, he always seemed to be not up to par in his culinary skills.

Now it should start getting interesting. I think Marcel may be the next one to do as I don't believe he has ever one any challenges. And he apparently has an attitude problem that might get in his way. Elia, Cliff, Sam and Ilan seem to be the top four. I guess we'll find out next week

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.