The Dope Box TV Blog

The chefs are rounded up for the Quickfire Challenge and brought to a mystery table, cloaked in a giant Top Chef sheet. Fabio, being the master detective he is, figures that having fish-lover Hung Huynh from season 3 means they’ll be doing seafood. Hearing Fabio say “aquarium” (ah-kwah-rrree-oom) made me so delighted I nearly forgot how much I hated Hung the first time around. In honor of the guest judge’s reputation for speedy prep work (remember him zipping around the kitchen with large knives…scaring the shit out of everyone?), the Top Chef gods limit the allotted time to 15 minutes.

Much to Fabio’s dismay, the sheet hides enough canned goods to make your average hobo cry tears of jealousy. The chefs trample each other to snatch items and there is a brief artichoke scandal when Chef Viviani gluttonously takes 2 cans of the perennial thistle. Naturally, this makes Hosea cranky. After opening a can and taking a whiff, Stefan makes a sound that was part annoyance, part disgust. He soon realizes his dish needs some processed meat and sodium nitrate, so he asks Hosea if he can snake a little SPAM. Hosea begrudgingly agrees but is still angry over Stefan’s “boyfriend” Fabio’s bogarting. SPAM seems to be the magical ingredient, since both Hosea and Stefan make it to the top three. When Stefan clinches the win, it’s clear that sharing has come back to bite the giant hairless chef in the ass.

For the Elimination Challenge, the chefs are told they must create a seasonal meal around their designated meat. The teams are: Team Pork - Fabio, Jeff, Radhika; Team Chicken - Stefan, Jamie, Carla; Team Lamb - Hosea, Leah, Ariane. Since Stefan thinks Jamie’s cuteness quotient is raised when she’s mad, he deliberately aggravates her as often as possible. Either Stefan enjoys a challenge, or lesbian means “lover of male narcissists” in Finnish. Carla is caught between them and says she can’t “create in that energy, in that friction.” When Jamie tells Stefan they want to change the menu, he says something about a douchbag, which Jamie takes as a direct insult about her cooking ability. The definition of douchebag actually has nothing to do with cooking. I’ll stop there.

They are taken to Blue Hill at Stone Barns (which kinda looks like a chateau in the French countryside). Stone Barn Center for Food and Agriculture is a non-profit farm and education center…apparently. Executive chef and co-owner Dan Barber (and his three closest farmers) greet the Top Chefers. They’re all taken around the farm to meet the animals they will soon ingest. I was afraid they were going to do some sort of Top Chef/Survivor mash-up and make everyone kill their selected meat sources. Almost as bad: Ariane skipping through the fields (okay, slight exaggeration) listening to the sweet “baa” of the lambs…

Lucky for all of us, Fabio is here to sum up the meaning of life. After explaining that he is definitely not a vegetarian, the Italian chef says: “You born, you be raise-ed, and you get killed for the porpoise. But still in this lifetime process you should deserve respect.” Though I’m not sure why porpoises require animal sacrifice, I can appreciate the sentiment. Oh, he means “purpose!” That clears everything up then.

Other happenings on the farm:

• Jamie talks about being an NYC kid and feeling pleased to see where food comes from.
• Jeff takes a page from Jessica Tandy and decides to make Fried Green Tomatoes.
• Fabio breaks up a pig fight by saying, “Whatsamatta wit you?!”
• Stefan really enjoys being the only male in the company of several women and 140 hens. Also enjoys calling himself a cock.

Back in the kitchen, I gag a little at the sight of butchered lamb and pig heads on the countertops. When it becomes clear that Ariane cannot tie a roast, Leah helps her. Badly. Radhika spends most of her time grilling corn.

Tip for future Top Chef contestants: Tom really, really likes bone. Don’t even consider removing the meat from the bone because he will bitch about it incessantly. Also, lay off the pesto. Particularly the kind of “aggressive” pesto that attacked Tom’s taste buds and made Toby Young use a Big Bad Wolf metaphor.

The winners are: Team Chicken (Stefan, Jamie, Carla). Both Leah and Hosea showed their shared elitist attitude and proclivity for whining this week. But Ariane is sent home for her “amateurish” butcher and tie job.

“You know, when I’m faced with a beautiful, well-reared piece of meat I don’t want to stand back and admire it. I wanna have full-blown unprotected sex. I didn’t even get to first base with the pork.” -Toby Young

Eugene has a problem with reality. Convinced that his food is genius, he complains at great length about how the judges just don’t understand him. Honestly, though, has he cooked one thing that anyone could stomach? He’s long been benefiting from the slightly worse failure of others.

This week, for the “Dr. Pepper” (shameless corporate plug!) Quickfire Challenge, they are forced to make a dessert without sugar. Guest judge is Jean-Christophe Novelli, an acclaimed pastry chef who is about to have his own show. I guess we can look forward to more of him muttering things in a largely indecipherable accent and repeating the word “interesting” as a blanket description for all things food-related. Some chefs take that description as a compliment and thank him; most just look confused.

During Carla’s interviews they tend to play music that conjures up images of monkeys juggling bicycle tires. I guess they’re trying to tell us she’s a little kooky. Watching Stefan screw with the judge is amusing. Does he think taking jabs at France would put him in Jean-Christophe’s good graces? The skinny bitches in Miami prepared Jeff well; his concoction makes it to the top three. But Radhika wins immunity with her bread pudding. Aside: Desserts without sugar make me sad.

For the Elimination Challenge we get yet another new judge. My guess is that they’re trying to find someone to replace Gail, who we’ve not heard from since she got hitched. Rather than getting another pretty girl with a refined palette (Padma fills that quota nicely anyway, right?), we get Toby Young. He’s a Brit with a proclivity for metaphors, who is decidedly snarky and makes the chefs quake in their slip-resistant clogs.

Tom Colicchio drops by for a surprise visit to divulge details for the challenge. Fabio is clearly upset about the unsightliness of the apartment when his deity arrives. It’s revealed that the chefs will have to make a family-style meal (not exactly specific) in 2 groups and 2 people will be “packing their knives.” It will also be a blind tasting, meaning the judges won’t know who made what. As Novelli would say, this is an interesting change of pace.

Group A: Eugene, Jamie, Radhika, Hosea, Melissa, and Fabio.

Group B: Jeff, Carla, Ariane, Stefan, and Leah.

Jamie is taking another whack at scallops, much to Fabio’s chagrin (”This is Top Chef, not Top Scallop!”). In descriptive background music news: Whenever Fabio talks about being Italian or his grandmother, they play generic accordion music, not unlike the kind heard in Lady and the Tramp during the infamous shared-spaghetti scene.

Apparently Carla’s new-age-y hearing is impacted by brisk walking, because she has to shop slowly so she can “hear” her intuition. Also, she informs us that the love starts in the condiment aisle. Duly noted, my fluffy friend.

As it turns out, each group will taste and judge the other group’s food. I thought it a little harsh that the first group had no clue they were being filmed with a hidden camera broadcasting their comments to the anxious judge-ees. Toby compared Radhika’s soup to WMDs, while Stefan said it was “against” his taste buds. By the way, Melissa’s fish tacos really did look like catfood.

With the next group, Tom and Toby bicker about Jeff’s dish. Tom hated it, saying it was like a plate of hors d’oeuvres. Toby, on the other hand, says it was a delightful surprise, comparing it to Tom Cruise’s cameo in Tropic Thunder. I’m not sure about the avocado sorbet, but Cruise was damn funny in that flick.

The top 3 are Stefan, Jamie, and Ariane but Jamie wins for her twentieth attempt at scallops. She celebrates by wandering around, mumbling indignations about it being “about time.” I could have told you who the bottom 3 would be before the episode aired. Carla is faulted for adding a scallop out of insecurity and using too much garlic, Eugene for using a member of the radish family in a hot dish, and Melissa for being uncreative (and for serving food with an inescapable fish funk).

I knew Eugene was going home when Tom mentioned feeling bummed that a fish had to give up its life for his dish. That’s cold. He and Melissa are eliminated. When exiting, I hear Eugene say: “When the boobs is gone, it’s time to move on.” This was much funnier before I was informed that he had, in fact, said “booze” not “boobs.”

“You could smell it in a way which wasn’t pleasant.” -Toby Young