The Humble Gourmand

Finally a Quickfire that really speaks to me.

Let me explain myself. Through high school I worked the line at a bagel shop that served eggs. Now, why would someone in her right mind work at a breakfast shop? Two words: free bagels. Working the line does teach you some important skills, skills that Antonia and Spike (sorry, cringing right now) showed in spades —patience, confidence, and the ability to stay cool under pressure (and intense heat).

Antonia is a darn good at keeping her cool in all the challenges. When it comes to holding herself together, she consistently does it (ok, I really had to do a whole paragraph on how great Antonia is).

Now, for the biggest part of the TC season (next to the finale, which, this week it was revealed, Puerto Rico will host) — restaurant wars. Restaurant wars is scary enough, but having Anthony Bourdain as the head judge? Here is what I pictured going on at a judges table with Bourdain at the helm: “Blah blah blah, existential crap. Your food sucks. What were you thinking? This was the dumbest idea ever. Seriously, what were you thinking?” Then, at some point someone would end up crying and Bourdain would end up drunk on a beach in Thailand (I might be getting Top Chef confused with A Cook’s Tour here).

In the end, Chef Bourdain didn’t do as much emotional damage to the chefs as I thought (hoped) he would. He did make quite the good point though — Mai Buddha (Team Dale, Lisa, and Spike)’s attempt to do “Asian food” was somewhat confusing because “Asia is a big place.” I really wished they would have focused on a particular country or style, or at least gotten it right.

At the end of restaurant wars, I was happy about the overall outcome, mostly that it wasn’t so awful that they needed a do-over, as in Season 3, but I am extraordinarily annoyed with the judges sending Dale home over Lisa. If a person claims she is so great at making Asian food but can’t make rice, why is she still on the show? Shouldn’t rice be part of the tryout? If I were a TC producer, I would make rice stage 1 of the tryout — if you don’t screw it up, you have a chance.

I understand that by taking the role of executive chef, Dale was taking on the entire risk of being sent home, but seriously, Lisa screwed up rice two challenges in a row. Who screws up rice, twice? Furthermore, I really wish the judges knew how much she was blaming on other people. This is a woman who yells at someone else every time something goes wrong. She should probably go back to cooking school and yell at the person who passed her in Rice-Making 101.

Now here is some food for thought — does anyone out there have a foolproof rice recipe to live by?

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