New Seasoning

So we're several episodes into the new season of Top Chef, and no one who has gone home has not deserved to go, especially in recent weeks, as we've had a chance to see people work over a couple of episodes. It's interesting to see how people's foibles seem to leak out in spite of the editing, and probably a bit because of the editing, but still. For example, it's becoming clear that Michael I. is a twerp who has an incredibly inflated sense of his abilities, in addition to being a sexist asshole--in an early ep, he noted that there was no way a girl should be even with him--hey, asshole, the women aren't cooking with their ladyparts, and you're not cooking WITH your dick, you ARE a dick; there's a difference. The Voltaggio brothers know their shit; they may stumble occasionally, but there isn't a major fail.

They're setting Robin up to get rid of her, or at least I hope they are, but last night was brutal, too. For one thing, they started the episode by having everyone talk about how she's been lucky and she really doesn't belong there. Know what, people? If that's true, then eventually she'll fuck up worse than everyone else. She's been saved so far--her drunken shrimp was hideous, but Mattin's raw fish that made people sick was far, far worse; last night, she managed to win the quickfire, so she had immunity, plus Ron's dish was really bad--but only because someone else has been worse. And one of the cheftestants (sorry, Larry) basically said she won the quickfire by mentioning that she'd had cancer to the judges. Which, seriously, is over the top rude. Does he really think the judges are so stupid that they'd be taken in by that? On the other hand, as the episode unrolls, it becomes clear that she is annoying the shit out of everyone, mostly by narrating everything she's doing, which, yeah, that would make me a bit crazy, too. Also, because she has immunity for the elimination challenge, she claims she's going to just try to do a great job and play with it, but she really doesn't do anything interesting. So, no, I'm not convinced she belongs there; the question is whether they get rid of her or Mike I. first. Or maybe they guy who insisted on bringing his own pressure cooker, and taping it together because the baggage handlers screwed it up, and then it exploded in the kitchen (!!), which, sorry, would also piss me right the fuck off. A chatterer is annoying, but an exploding pressure cooker can maim or kill someone, and that basic disregard for one's fellows is even worse.

Last night's challenge was interesting; each of them had to "deconstruct" a classic dish. On one hand, several of the chefs had no clue what it meant to deconstruct a dish, despite what appeared to be some brief instruction about that. A couple of others--most notably Jen, I think--understood the concept but didn't actually do any of that, because they worked in a place that focused on doing the classics AS classics. Mostly notably, Mike I. had no fucking clue what "florentine" meant. He was supposed to do eggs florentine, and he kept calling it "eggs new-to-me," which is just not very funny. And I think he even had to be told that it included spinach, which kind of blew me away; does he really not know that "florentine" = "has spinach in it"? I suppose I can forgive him for not knowing the back story of that--what with Florence, Italy and the Medicis and all--but to not seem to know that basic fact is more evidence of what an ass he is.

The other thing was how Jen was completely stressing about her deconstructed meat lasagna--as the episode was going on, I was actually coming up with a deconstructed version of that in my head, perhaps because I've made it a million times. I would have had more trouble with some of the others (and, oh, wait, I'm not actually good enough to be a contestant on this show). I was also (probably inordinately) pleased that several of the elements in her final version were in the neighborhood of what I was thinking. Actually, her final dish is also a good example of one of the two reasons I'm not TC material: yes, I would have done homemade pasta; yes, I would have done the meat separately; yes, i would have done a simple tomato sauce, though maybe a different one than she did--but that whole crispy parmesan thing? Not so much, and it sounded as though that really made the dish work. Also, my mom never did a bechamel sauce in her lasagna, but we did do ricotta, so I don't know if that would make a difference.

The other reason that I'm not TC material is that these guys have practically no time to come up with and make this stuff, which, if you're going to work a hot line in a restaurant, you damn well better be able to do. I've gotten much more efficient in the kitchen, but I'm still not a line cook and I'm not well-suited to doing that. Some of the shit that gets thrown on a plate is kinda eh, especially because we're still early in the season, but they have a much wider selection of techniques and recipes (especially sauces) in their heads than I have.

Still, my main criticism of the show remains. I think a dish only comes together after a few iterations, with critiques and notes along the way. The ability of the Volt bros. and Jen to put incredible things out without that is evidence of their skills, for sure; it's a useful technique for separating the hacks from the good cooks. But as the season goes on, I think it would be more instructive to see how they would utilize that iterative process to kick the dish up to the next level.

For the concert report, I have to note that the Bruce concert was one of the two or three best shows I've ever seen; I've seen him 25 or 30 times, and this was incredible. As I'd suspected (and hoped), the people who were most likely to show up were people who were excited at the thought of Bruce playing Born to Run straight through--something he's never done before. (The other night he said they'd done it once, way back in the day, in Red Bank, NJ.) And, in fact, that's who was there: long-time devoted fans, which exponentially increased the energy of the whole thing. Bruce has always fed off of that, too, and this show was hell-bent-for-leather straight out of the box and then all the way through, for three solid hours. So, yay for that.