Bourdainalyzing Top Chef

First rule of Chef's Club is:
Shit Happens.
Anthony Bourdain

I think I've blogged about all of Bourdain's blog posts on Bravo. It's hard not to, and this week's was the perfect analysis of an untimely departure. One of the top contenders crashed and burned in a really big way. No doubt there is plenty of viewer anger, but Bourdain provides a compelling defense of the decision. He also serves up his usual scathing critiques of the various cheftestents.

So this is the level I've descended to: blogging about reality TV. Actually, blogging about reality TV bloggers. Top Chef and astronomy. Is that all I'm good for? We'll see....

Bravo Bourdain

Colicchio, leave the Bourdaining to the master.
Stephanie Vander Weide
a.k.a. Keckler

Bravo decided Bourdain's stand-in blogging for Colicchio was so good, he needed a blog of his own. The combination of his blog and Keckler's TVwoP recaps might be better than the show itself.

No party

It's going to be a trap. It's not going to be a party... at all. It‘s never a fucking party.
Jeffrey Sebelia
Project Runway Season 3 winner

Comments to my last Top Chef post included Rob's opinion that Top Chef is more civilized than Hell's Kitchen. That may be, but last night they were pretty damned evil. The cheftestants are told they'll be getting a night out at a hot Miami club. They spend time getting dressed up, then hop in the awaiting limo that takes them to... an elimination challenge. Cook outside in catering wagons, and serve food to clubgoers after closing time.

Had they Jeffrey Sebelia's wisdom, they'd have known this was coming. As it is, they are stunned. What's worse, in a move reminiscent of POW camp mind games, the Quickfire winner is whisked away in the limo for a one-on-one dinner with guest judge Govind Armstrong at one of his restaurants. Even the nicest of those remaining confess hatred of their fellow cheftestant for this lucky break.

Ah well, what did they expect? After all, it's reality TV. It's never a party.

Bourdain in for Colicchio

The ability to make a brilliant, creatively-dazzling and delicious plate of food is near worthless if you can’t do it again and again--exactly the same way--at high speed, under the gun, hung over, after a night of fierce Negroni drinking...while listening to Mexican thrash metal.
Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain is guest blogging for on Tom Colicchio's "Top Chef" blog. There are two posts so far. Classic Bourdain, but you'll probably need to have seen the show for context.

P.S. I have to admit, I didn't know what a Negroni was before I looked it up.

Meat Cake!

Kick ass!
Eric Cartman

Sharon's Food Blog posted a link to the Television Without Pity recaps of Top Chef.^* Yesterday I was there reading the recap of Season 3 Episode 3. Meatloaf played an important role in the episode, and Keckler included a most wonderful link in her recap. What link?

Two words: MEAT CAKE. Check it out.

* BTW, I take credit (or responsibility) for sending her there.

Vacation's over

Vacation's over.
President Bartlett

Yeah, still here. Been on vacation for a week - Lake Winnipesaukee in NH. It was a great week. I swam every day, canoed, kayacked, and hiked.

One hike was up 2033' Red Hill. The hike was 5 miles, round trip, with an approx. 1700' ascent. This describes the hike (though on our descent we followed the Teedie instead of Eagle Cliffs trail). The trail is impeccably maintained by the Squam Lakes Association. The other hike was up 1067' Mt Fayal. The trail is part of the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center, which also houses members of local species unable to return to the wild because of injury or overexposure to people.

We ate well, enjoying meals from:

• The Woodshed in Moultonboro. If you eat beef, eat here. The lobster crepe was also delicious.
• The Town Docks in Meredith. Great casual seafood fare. Lobster Rolls and Smutty Nose IPA on tap. Mmmmmm.
• Canoe in Center Harbor. Get the lobster mac 'n' cheese, but split it with a friend. They do take out. (Safe those food containers!)
• Walter's Basin in Holderness. Lakeview dining on "Golden Pond" (yes, the "Golden Pond"). Tukerman's Pale on tap.

And you have to be touristy now and then. We did our part by taking a cruise on the M/S Mount Washington. It was a beautiful day with great weather out on the lake. The kids had a blast. As a bonus, the bar had Harpoon IPA on tap.

So yeah, I guess you can tell we did our part to support the local breweries. Smuttynose and Tuckerman's topped my list of favorites, and both were available at most supermarkets and convenience stores.

So that covers my abscence last week. Before that, blame these guys. I'm all for providers and factories, but do you really think anyone's going to run this thing on Oracle? But I digress....

So-called reality

This isn't reality. This is hell!
Andrew
Bravo was consulted on some elimination decisions.
Top Chef credits

Two weeks (or three blog posts) back, I confessed that I'd been sucked into Bravo's Top Chef, a reality show that can be summed up as "The Apprentice" with chefs. Last night was part one of the big finale. It began with the three finalists arriving in Las Vegas for the final showdown. At the end of the hour, only two remained.

The oft-discussed problem with reality shows is that they are not real. Although the contestents and even the judges are real people, it's still a TV show whose goal is to entertain. Even the decision of who get eliminated is as much a question of drama as of fairness. I should, therefore, not be surprised of the three finalists, the one we all despise did not get eliminated. A final battle between two friends has nowhere near the drama that a battle between two bitter foes, especially when one is the clearly established villian.

But I'm still pissed! That chef deserved to go down! None of their dishes were the favorite. The other chef was eliminated mainly because they made only two of the requisite three dishes in the final round. Even though both of those dishes were well liked, the penalty for one missing dish was worse than for several dishes no one liked. How lame is that? The worst thing a chef can do is serve bad food. To make matters worse, once the the chef was all smug, as if they didn't just get a total pass. Man, I want to be there next week to see that chef go down.

Which is, of course, exactly what Bravo wants.

A Guilty Pleasure

Short is the joy that guilty pleasure brings.
Euripides
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
John Lennon

I admit it. I have been sucked in by the reality show Top Chef on Bravo. For those unfamiliar with the show, it's the same formula as Apprentice, done with chefs instead. Each week there are challanges, each week some gets sent home. Instead of, "You're fired!" they say, "Pack your knives and leave."

I have, in general, shown disdain for reality TV. I never watched Survivor, The Apprentice, or any of the other lesser shows whose names of which I can't even think of. But now I'm hooked. I want to see what ridiculous challange they give them. I want to see who goes down in flames. There are the chefs I want to see succeed and the one I wanted so badly to see get booted (and it was oh so satifying when they finally did).

I suppose the subject matter (food) brought me in initially. I love Food TV shows like Iron Chef, after all, so why not? But Iron Chef this ain't. It's pure "reality" TV. There is the requisite footage of contestents sniping and trash-talking. There is the overdramatic judging segments where the contestents get beat up by their "mentors." There is the annoying comercial break right before the final decision (okay, Iron Chef has that, but it's not the same). In short, it's Apprentice with knives and Chef's Whites.

Still, I keep watching. Call it a guilty pleasure.

Anniversary day

I'm sorry we couldn't spend the day thinking about how much we love each other, instead of trying like crazy not to vomit.
Sharon

For our anniversary we had front row tickets to Democracy, dinner reservations for the Firebird Restaurant, and plans for a stop to see The Gates.

The morning of our anniversary started out when I hear my one of my kids crying in her room. Sometimes this happens when she has a bad dream. Unfortunately, this time it was because she had wet the bed.

I got her all cleaned up. While we were downstairs loading her sheets and blankets into the washer, I heard activity upstairs. I figured it was her older sister, so I headed upstairs. She was in our room throwing up.

It turned out that whatever she had hit my wife also. Several drugs later, we decided we should give it a go. My mom was staying with the girls. She's a retired pediatcric nurse, so she was fine with my sick daughter. My wife and I headed to the station to catch the train. She spent the trip alternately fighting nausea and dosing off. We got a little soup before the play, a relatively safe lunch.

The play was excellent. I recommend it to anyone who has the chance.

We left the theatre started uptown towards Central Park. After a block, my wife said, "Let's just go home." That was a good idea. We turned back and walked down to Penn Station. When we got there, we immediately saw the "All Aboard" call on the board for a Trenton bound train. We rushed to the platform, which was empty. Back upstairs, we now saw the "All aboard" for a different gate. More running, this time to watch the train pull out. Apparently they were having a little trouble updating the screens. The next train wasn't for another 45 mintues, so we headed for the waiting area.

That was when it hit me. By the time we boarded the train, I was feeling mightly low. Someone had a hot dog with saurkraut on the train. That was more than I could take. I spent the ride home in the vestibule between cars trying desparately not to get sick. I sang Green Day to myself as a distraction (still my favorite). By the time we got home I had a fever and chills.

So, not the romantic Saturday in the city we hoped for. Oh well. We both know there are plenty of next years to make up for it.

The 'Ole Ninety-sixer

Roman Craig:But there's nothing left but fat and grizzle.
Grill Chef:Mmmm hmmm.
-The Great Outdoors

The Great Outdoors is by no means a good movie. But I remember that scene from movie's stint on cable overkill.

I was immediately reminded of it when I read about Denny's Beer Barrel Pub in PA and their Ye Olde 96er, a 96 oz. burger. In addition to its 6 lbs. of meat, it comes with 2 tomatoes, a half-head of lettuce, 12 slices of American cheese, a cup of peppers, 2 onions, mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard.

I learned of the 96er from this page at Snopes. Recently I saw the link back in Snopes' "What's New" section with an update. A 100 lb. 19-year-old woman from Princeton became to first person to eat an entire 96er in just under three hours, which meant the meal was free. She also got a certificate and prizes.

The triple-bypass was not included.