HappyDancex2

We should have a gluten free thread! We've been celiac for 18 years...well before fads and calling ahead is just the first step. Regardless of whether Emily is gf or celiac though I really enjoyed her as a judge. She was pleasant, smart and articulate. If she has sprue then I would imagine that the chefs got the off camera smack down of cross contamination. No fun poisoning the guest judge. I will say restaurants want the gf revenue though. The person answering the phone says they can handle gluten free, does not hear or understand the words celiac sprue and just books the order. We just experienced this yesterday at Sheldon's Migrant. Tons of GF options but not sprue ready. He was nice enough to accommodate a fish dish with new pan and utensils, simply prepared and modified sauce and veggies. But we never want to put the kitchen in that position. If it wasn't Sheldon himself on property we probably would have left and we called ahead. I like Blais. I really do. Puréed frozen peas...mmmm baby food! This episode did feel oddly edited for the quick fire but the menus were interesting to watch. Who knew people liked scallops so much? I for one, never order them! Now I think I'm going to go out of my way to order radicchio. /hellasnark The zucchini pasta was a nice alternative and very on trend with paleo being so popular. Our hotel is doing cucumber noodles prepared similarly and they taste like pasta.

Shura, that self cleaning comment made me spit my Mai tai out. You owe me a drink.

I guess Todd English is not even noteworthy unless he appears in a hot tub. Snicker.

I'm sure the Volt told her to assert herself in team challenges. It's better to go out doing a dish you have control over rather than being a line cook for someone else's bad ideas. Which segues me to vanilla...added to celery root puree. Sigh. Why not add some truffle oil too? Please. Could be editing but Kerriann did come off as unreasonable so she has to live with her chalky corn and raw onion. And using agar agar is not molecular. Neither is gelatin. And if he was supposed to put any temp bacon jam on the chicken, the chicken screwed him up by being late because they plated their sides first while waiting. No excuse for not reducing down bacon jam though. I hate his hat too lol!

I do like the Blais so far from a judging standpoint. He seems enthusiastic and I like his energy. I think I will enjoy him in this role more than as a cheftestant because that Woe2Me neurosis thing he has got going on that the editing room always highlights of him just gets so exhausting to watch. I'm sure it's a common thing when you completely love your dish concept and then judges hate it....you second guess yourself and your vision. But the literal self loathing and insta-Hate of his dishes was just really toxic for me and I always found Blais more on the rootable side! I'm now rooting for a happier Blais. I will say that I don't think he's taking any load off of Tom though. Blais is replacing the season guest judge like the Eric Ripert, Emeril, Hugh, Bourdain....the one that appears for "most" of the season. Tom generally is never around for the quickfires, just the elimination challenges. I don't know how I feel about the quickfire eliminations. Part of me wants to get rid of some of these people so I can learn their names. The other part of me thinks it's just so harsh. But I guess it's just a quicker timeline of an elimination instead of a 2 day longer challenge that you manage to screw up. Anyone else think it was weird to show the preview clips of the season and show so many of the chefs that were left? I didn't stop on anything to see on my DVR but definitely tons of spoilers if you wanted to glean them, just from the trailer.

No fan to Padma as I think she has waaaaay overstepped her bounds from her host duties, I know that people who have issues with eating meat have pretty strong reactions overall to various preparations and also the smell of it. She admits that she is otherwise a vegetarian other than during her tasting during Top Chef so she just isn't someone who likes meat for whatever reason. If you watch her take a bite of that fatty piece her expression changes instantly like she ate snot or a bug or something really unpleasant. Some people would actually enjoy a whole piece of fat to chew on because they associate that fattiness with richness and flavor and decadence. She obviously associates the fat with something negative or the texture is too unpleasant for her. Padma also goes against modern chef-wisdom and does not like her meats rare or midrare. Her "window" of enjoyment for meat seems pretty limited. And I have to view the partially masticated food stuffs in her mouth because she is a knife eating open chewer. LOL. The other thing is that for some people pork has an unpleasant undertone of slightly funkifying meat. I know in asian cuisine the use of sherry is often used to cut the smelly porkiness of pork to mask that smell that sometimes comes up your nose. Certain cultures are just more sensitive to it.

And did we not get introduced to Ma Po Tofu at all??? Did Blais do a trio on his first quickfire? He was the king of overdoing crap. I will say that those oil powders/snows are kind of lame. Easy to make but gimmicky...which again, for Blais is kind of the pot calling the kettle...tapioca maltodextrin. I hope we get a little Eric Ripert this year!

I'm rewatching and still can't figure out what's in this petroleum sauce...gruyere, chicharron, half and half, squid ink and then there are pots of bubbling pepper oils, chipotle...he really isn't even clear on describing what he is making and why. Or the editing royally sucks. Or both. And upon second gander, some of the other dishes weren't more complicated than broccoli salad however they twisted some ingredients (barely.) I think they should have their names on the screen or on their jackets in a big font for the first 3 episodes! I was still like.."which one is greg?"

LOL LilyoftheValley! Great post and I will interject here that squid ink pasta is delicious! It's actually one of my all time favorite dishes. I love that earthy salty almost concentrated seaweed flavor of squid ink. But cheese sauce? Um OY. And it turned it a grey color that looked like it was separating...um...EW. Broccoli salad girl should have been eliminated for taking 3 hours to make the same thing you can buy at Trader Joes or Whole Foods.

So Katsuji put squid ink in melted cheese? That's madness. But that huge ladle he was using to sauce the plates was a headscratcher too. I don't even remember what fish egged corn soup did in the quickfire. Need to rewatch. Padma and her open mouthed chewing grates. And she really didn't look like she liked the scotch bonnet banana stew dish but changed her mind when king colicchio declared it colicchiamazing. Eye roll.

The bouncing sheep could be strong contenders to replace Puppy Bowl (the Super Bowl alternative of cuteness.) At least using them as halftime entertainment would be a win/win for me. Boing.

About a quarter of the way through the episode (on dvr delay) the DH said "this show is different now." I was colossally bored too and I asked him if he wanted to switch to something else off the dvr. We kind of passively kept watching as it seemed almost disrespectful to bolt on POI. Smatterings of Enrico kind of saved it...whenever he is on screen I feel compelled to listen to what he says. But still overall it was dragging. After the last 5 minutes and the reveals we both had to laugh...POI is always good about the Revealing Reveals of the Revealed. At least I got something out of the episode. But they almost lost me. I liked the DEA chick and how Mini shot her. There would have been more blood though and no one would mess up their car like that. Snicker.

Jesse J useless rambling. Kept hammering that she was watching everyone for the first time....got it...you haven't seen the show, aren't watching and can't dance...thanks for coming. Lebron James would have appreciated Alfonso's flamenco. I really liked his opening heel flutter ode to tap. Bethany has swag if swag is a free logo tshirt. Mark's choreo wasn't horrible for her but he should have put her in some loose pants to add some glide to her otherwise awkward movement and transitions. Artem has such a low and sexy voice. That's my dancing observation. Snicker.

I'm glad the Duels are over. This was my least favorite iteration of this franchise and yet it featured some of my favorite chefs. I understand it's a huge time commitment to do a full season of Masters though. No sense in faking people up to Masters status. Glad they didn't put fan favorites through and it seemed food based such that the finale was Tiff and CJ. I thought the black and white challenges were very interesting...probably my favorite part of the episode. Overall didn't vibe with Curtis and Gail as host and judge..Wolf always adds ridiculousness which for this boring season was at least something to watch.

NBC has a bonafide hit here. Lets speed up the arc, get Wiggy out of here and surround The Talent with some talent. She is sucking the life out of this show with her shit deadpan delivery in non deadpan situations. She is making me stabby.

Bishop is the best written and acted character on this show. His presence oozes tension, fear, unpredictability and deliberate choice of very few words. He scares me. I love him like the bad man he is.

I had no idea that was JohnBoy. ::hangs head in shame:: Linda Lavin was great. Her comedic timing is impeccable. More please! Kalinda grates. She's being dumbed down into 2 roles...Investigative....Vagina. Oh wait that's one role.

Are the guys that good looking hanging around fleabag motels? Wiggy sucks. The whole Red double doublecross was ridiculously telegraphed. The only thing I thought that didn't happen was that I thought Red put the gun on the table to bait that guy, who i thought was going to lunge for it and find it empty. What? No gratuitous pill shots for Ressler? Pee Wee Herman looks good in dickies. Snicker.

Not a huge fan of the death talk and weeping. Can the struggle on the show be about fatigue, dance steps and costumes? I let out a NOOOOOOOO for Betsey. She was so fun to watch. Class act too and zowza what legs! Carlton dance FTW...and amazed to see so many pros doing it awkwardly. Ha!

Is Kevin the one who won the spot at Bocuse D'or and later deferred? His season was brutal. I remember thinking either Voltaggio brother, Jen, that dude and even Eli could have won that season and they were overcompensating for the Hosea debacle the season before. Physically this looks like Big Beard and Lil Beard. Except one dude is doing unilateral cooking techniques and the other keeps frying chicken. No disrespect though since Art is riding his comfort home cooking all the way to the bank....he is a very blessed personal chef and Oprah blessed the chicken. And frankly I think the snarky Voltaggio brother had said that Kevin's food is the food he cooks on his days off so I guess in comparison there is always another snarker in the wings!!

Where'd ebbybody go?! Did this episode suck so bad that no one has a comment? I think it did. Oh wait...that dude's hair.....

Eh. Who cares about the fishing gear? It's only good if it comes with someone talented enough to use it. Past recipients have floundered... I will show myself out....

This show would get a bump just for this show travelling to visit those guys on Hawaii Five-0. I think the twitter world would explode. Guest star Josh Holloway as scruffy vagabond whose number comes up from the on deck circle in the subway system?

So this is like Siri versus Cortana now?

Good point. I don't have high hopes for POI...I love it but I think it's gone too cerebral for the mainstream. Carter got to go out on a high which is some consolation. In contrast this show could use some complexity and layering. I like the continuous introduction of new characters so that maybe some will stick and be relevant later. If it was actually premeditated all the better. /snark