windfall

I find it hard to believe that anyone is actually dead until we see a body being lowered into the ground and even then I wouldn't put it past the writers to come up with some shenanigans. I think I'll just be grateful that Tony got a decently optimistic sendoff instead of getting killed in some spectacular fashion.

I recall reading elsewhere that using their shirts was against the rules.

Again these racers prove their not the brightest bunch that's been on the show. They seriously wondered if the cylinders in the clue boxes were clues? I'm not even shocked anymore.

I wouldn't be surprised if the speed bump took them in the neighborhood of half an hour when you account for the travel time.There was just a lot of running back and forth throughout this leg. But it was way too easy to sell them to be believable. Cole's comments didn't really surprise me. They reminded me of my days as an undergrad. While they're not things that I would particularly recommend saying on national television, they're exactly the sort of things that my friends would've said back then. Ah the carefree energy of youth.

Has there ever been a less observant group of racers? I thought that they would all descend upon that man and his vacuum like a pack of vultures after the first team asked him for the clue. But nope, there is absolutely no limit to their obliviousness. Although, I suppose I should've expected as much after seeing their reaction from figuring out the map of the flags was indeed a map.

Well that's the end of a lackluster season. Throughout the season Jeremy had more than a few sub par moments and Amar didn't leave much of an impression. Just a great big "meh" from me when it comes to the winner. I'll go ahead and say that trying to use the entire state of California was a mistake. They tried to juggle visiting the many different regions with incorporating moments from Top Chef history and ended up creating an unfocused whirlwind. It felt like one of those discount tours where you and dozens of other people are herded around on a bus from location to location with just enough time for a picture at each stop without actually being able to enjoy any of the places.

Isaac's talking heads have bugged me for a while now but it was really noticeable this episode. For the most part there's no problem, but every once in a while his energy makes a huge spike and then his voice becomes super loud and he delivers the line with an intense expression. For this episode I know he's just excited about Hubert Keller cooking them dinner, but they played the clip twice and it's really off putting for some reason.

My hypothesis as to why we keep seeing Marjorie criticize Isaac is that the contestants have gotten a little too good at preparing for the show. They know how to behave themselves which leads to so little drama that criticism is really all they have to go with. As for the remaining bunch, I'm honestly not excited about any of their cooking. Actually, now that I think about it, the same goes for everyone on this season. But, I would be disappointed if Jeremy won.

I think the complaints are more about the frequency of carrots on the show rather than the carrots themselves. Also, while carrots, and pretty much everything else, is available fresh year round nowadays, this was filmed in late spring/early summer. There must be something that's more "seasonal" my understanding is that carrots are traditionally a late fall crop. Although is that kind of detail something that the judges even care about?

Did the chefs have access to fryers? It sounds like a pile of fried chicken or fish and chips would've gone over well. Although I suppose that's not as messy as they would've liked. But yeah, the parameters of the challenge must not have been explained properly. I'm also baffled by why they required a fish dish. How many fish dishes does one usually eat without utensils? One beef dish plus another protein of their choice would've made more sense. I bet if anyone had served a few racks of ribs on those platters to the judges they'd be the unquestioned winners of the challenge. Small personal quibble: I'm usually annoyed at peel and eat shrimp because part of the cost of going out to eat is paying for the preparation of the food. If I still have to peel the shrimp then it's not actually prepared. One of the food trucks on the great food truck race even decided to serve peel and eat shrimp because they didn't have the time to prepare them in a different way. Like Kwame said, peeling shrimp was part of his chores growing up. If it's a chore, then why would I want to do it? It's a perfectly valid dish, just not one that I would pay for.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't carrots a fall vegetable? This was filmed back in late spring early summer around May-June so shouldn't there be plenty of other in season items that they could use? Or does the availability of fresh carrots year round through the importance of seasonality out the window?

I would guess that Giselle was being extra cautious about the preparation because she wasn't clicking with the cast and tried to overcompensate for them not really liking her. It was puzzling that Karen seemed to be bothered by checking everything. Usually we hear talking heads complaining about partners that went off on their own. I totally agree with this. You just never know how picky the judges will be on any given day. Naming a dish is often more trouble than it's worth. Simply describing the ingredients and how they were prepared sidesteps any issues that may come up.

I feel like this challenge would've gone better if Angelina and Giselle had switched places. Giselle went way overboard trying to defer to the other chef and Angelina tried to take a more ownership of the dish. Jason would've gotten Giselle allowing him to control the dish and Karen (is that her name, there are seriously too many contestants) would've had Angelina take some steps to cook the food independently. This panel of judges just seems to be so fickle when it comes to judging. One day they'll be describing something as the gravest of sins and another it's not so bad when they find something different to harp about. Philip made something bad, told them that he intended it to be that way, and didn't show any sign of changing in the future. How is he still on this show?

I really enjoyed this finale except for the obviously forced backstory segments. Does anyone really want Bobby going around to each of them and explicitly asking them why they want to win? It's bad enough when they do it during judging like on Chopped, now they're distracting them while the clock is ticking down. But other than that everything was fairly enjoyable. The contestants appeared to not be horrible jerks to each other which is always a plus. The sugar cookies were way better than anything I've ever pulled out of my oven. As for the cakes, I would've given it to Adalberto if going on a purely decorative criteria. The other two were generic shapes with a holiday skin on top. But there's certainly nothing wrong with doing that as long as the shape and skin does come together to make a showstopper. In that regard, Maeve's definitely had more of a showstopper feel than Steve's. Otherwise, going from what we saw on screen, I wouldn't pick Adalberto over the other two. Truth be told his cake didn't really look all that much like a tree to me. Also I think having too many elements was a detriment in the end. Having ice cream and macarons probably pulled away focus from the cake which was the point of the challenge. Duff also dinged him for using too much butter. Maeve had the most holiday themed offering in the end, and importantly had holiday flavors in her cake. She also took some risks along the way with her flavors like using cheese with white chocolate. I'll make sure to try her stuff if I ever find myself near her shop. Next year I think more contestants will be prepared to hammer home the theme in their pieces, but hopefully not mannerisms like last year's winner.

One thought just crossed my mind about Grayson. Since she suffered through the Texas season with the unbearable heat and ridiculous outdoor challenges, going through a similar experience again here in California probably didn't help her attitude very much. Completely agree that using rocks was a terrible idea. But I'm not categorically opposed to them since Morimoto once grilled a rock and had the judges cook meat on it for Iron Chef America.