Top Chef: Down on the Farm – Getting to Know Your Dinner
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
