chiaros
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Posts posted by chiaros
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1 hour ago, biakbiak said:
Apparently Marcel's dish left a bad taste or at least a worst taste than Claudette's in Tom's mouth.
No doubt. And was the reason why Tom C sent Marcel off.
But the reason for my comment encompassed more than just the physical taste of the dishes, but related to how the characters of each contestant came through and/or colored one's reactions to them, as suggested by the idiom of "leaving a bad taste in one's mouth", something that some folks might recognize in the language.
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On 12/15/2017 at 3:40 PM, ILikeCakeBatter said:
Marcel has certainly matured and comes across much more positively the past few years. Claudette has a nasty personality and her dig at Marcel shows her lack of class and maturity.
On 12/15/2017 at 10:10 AM, aquarian1 said:I am so sad Marcel is gone. I probably won't watch anymore and will just read about this.
A poster on the main thread for episode 2 made a comment which I agree with and IMO sums up why Marcel going out while Claudette won and stayed left a bad taste in my mouth.
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45 minutes ago, biakbiak said:
I half expected moustache Joe to start twirling the aforementioned mustache he was being such an ass.
Peeling mushrooms used to be very common in professional kitchens but many no longer do it.
It may have been what one did years ago. But it is commonly acknowledged nowadays that most of the nutrients/minerals in mushrooms are found in the skin, as also found in various scientific studies. Although the recommendation of many folks now is to simply brush off debris and never wash mushrooms, I myself still do rinse mushrooms off - especially the fresh Western-type ones, like the ubiquitous "button mushroom" ones. I don't recall any more-recent cheffie-type folks dictating that one needs to PEEL mushrooms. For that matter, certainly for E Asian types of mushrooms, whether fresh or dried, removal of the skin is not something that one does.
For that matter, I believe there was an episode of a cooking show where the host demonstrated that soaking western button mushrooms in water for a while did NOT result in their taking up water, as had been popularly thought, contradicting the folklore that washing mushrooms was a no-no because it "diluted and washed out their taste" by absorbing water.
I may be out of touch, but over the many past years of my eating out in many places in USAmerican restaurants, both high-end and lower-end, I don't recall eating peeled mushrooms.
Odd.
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On 12/8/2017 at 0:12 AM, Bastet said:
(I don't watch programming online, so I never see this, and thus greatly appreciate posters taking the time to note who wins so I can keep up with who's still in contention.)
9 hours ago, Thumper said:This is not on TV -- I don't watch -- would appreciate hearing who wins/loses. Thanks
S15-LCK3: Cook a dish with cheese curds & whey & dried tarantula. "Inspired" by Claudette Zepeda-Wilkin's loss in the EC where they had to use cheese in their dishes; and by (presumably) Tom Colicchio's seizing on that Little Miss Muffet nursery rhyme. <rolleyes>
Claudette: "Ha Sikil Pak, Sweet Potato Skins & (deep fried) Tarantula".
Kwame Onwuachi: "Grilled Flatbread with Whey Sauce & Cheese Curds, Crispy Tarantula".
Marcel Vigneron: "Fresh Mozzarella, Heirloom Tomato, Whey Emulsion, Prosciutto, Tarantula Gremolata".
Lee Ann Wong: "Crispy Tarantula over "Grime Time" of Fried Curds & Piquillo Pepper Compote, Whey Honey Vinaigrette".
Winner: Claudette. Runner-up: Kwame. Escaped elimination: Lee Ann. Out: Marcel.
Sad to see Marcel go out. He did have several Talking Heads where he dwelt on LCK being the way in for chefs from past seasons and even winning Top Chef and felt he could do it too. I guess this would count as a fulfillment of the often-remarked-upon "foreshadowing" that the Elves use in the editing --- where someone who talks too much (as shown on the show) of something happening --- has that something NOT happening. From where I sat, without tasting the dishes, Lee Ann's dish seemed worse than Marcel's; but then one of the things that Tom C also said was that Marcel's mozzarella was too dense.
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19 hours ago, Wings said:
This pushes chefs to be creative. Tu won with no oven needed for his corn salad. You have to be quick on your feet and always have a plan B. Many places they go don't have a spiffy kitchen. Last season they had one oven with no racks so all dishes had to be cooked sitting on the bottom in danger of burning.
I agree.
In a related sense, it has also always been a source of...interest...to me that Western cuisine, by and large, is so dependent on an oven. One reads of expatriates heading to postings or jobs in East or Southeast Asia who go into panic attacks when they realize that the "modest apartment" they were scheduled to occupy did not have an oven in the Western/USA sense. Comments about "I don't know how I am going to be able to cook" populate many blogs relating to this. Many are the posts about Western/'Murcan expatriates in Japan, even, that 1st world country which is part of the G7, panicking about the lack of an oven in their apartments.
Yet E Asian cuisine has never required an oven to be omnipresent in every kitchen, and "baking" or "roasting by dry heat" has more often than not been left to professional establishments through the ages. People in those places buy baked or roasted goods from commercial establishments more frequently, whilst "home cooking" uses all the panoply of other cooking techniques that DO NOT require an oven. I find it interesting to think about this in the context of the "expectation" that ovens be available aplenty for cooking dishes on Top Chef. One might even consider that it reflects the Westernized/Eurocentric thrust of both the program and the discussions on same. Even when many folks in the West do fine with just "stovetop cooking" themselves.
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11 hours ago, biakbiak said:
According to Tom's twitter they cut John Besh out of the episode he was on.
https://www.eater.com/2017/12/12/16769080/john-besh-top-chef-colorado
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I like this version of LCK, where 3 out of four go on. I hope that stays true for the rest of the season, with - I suppose - a final reckoning at the end of a single person, one might imagine, going on to the main competition - but that too remains to be seen.
Marcel's fried potato batons looked wonderful. I'd liked to have been able to taste them.
P.s. I subscribe to the notion that Marcel has gotten a bum rap all these years, even when he had difficulties getting on with the others in his initial season - where that woman (what was her name now) was particularly obnoxious in defaming all and sundry but especially Marcel.
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14 hours ago, biakbiak said:
Just FYI myself and several friends noticed that even though we had season passes for Top Chef the first episode wasn' picking up.
What are these "season passes"?
On Uverse my previous instruction to record TC as a series - left over from last season - remains active and it has already scheduled itself to record the new season on DVR, without my doing a thing, and has scheduled the recording for the full duration of the episode, some 1 hr 15+minutes, I believe, all by itself. It even recorded that "preview" episode without my even being aware that it was being aired.
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On 9/8/2017 at 3:16 PM, cooksdelight said:
I love these two together, it would be an epic show if FN or Bravo woke up.
Martin & Lewis.
Not appealing to me.
But I would watch this: http://forums.previously.tv/topic/5916-the-chefscheftestants-of-top-chef/?do=findComment&comment=3021231
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On 8/24/2017 at 3:39 PM, cooksdelight said:
Mike Isabella & Jennifer Carroll are opening a branch of Requin on the Wharf in DC as well.
http://mikeisabella.com/restaurants/ (scroll down to the entry for Requin)
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I learned recently that Kristen Kish had never ever tasted Hainanese Chicken Rice until April of last year, and she was surprised that the chicken was served "cold" (actually, it is at room temperature). I can't say I am surprised, as she - although of Korean heritage - was brought up in the US and was trained in French cuisine...but somehow it still raised an eyebrow or two for me.
Then...she talks about doing her Frenchie version of it, after describing it as "a version" of what she knows as chicken on rice in the US.
Sigh. HCR and its antecedents predates you and your knowledge of C&R, Kristen.
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Nick Elmi's new place - in partnership w/ Stephen Simons & David Frank is coming along...
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On 2/4/2017 at 8:53 PM, chiaros said:
https://billypenn.com/2017/01/22/what-shut-down-sbraga-and-the-fat-ham/
Fat Ham at King of Prussia remains open, it seems.
http://www.phillymag.com/foobooz/2017/01/17/sbraga-closed-fat-ham/
There was also an IRS lien against Sbraga but he says that has been paid but "people wonder, too" so to speak.
The last one is closing down.
https://www.eater.com/2017/6/15/15809054/top-chef-winner-kevin-sbraga-closing-restaurants
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They all look faintly ridiculous.
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13 hours ago, that one guy said:
I saw the last minute of the show, and was sitting fairly close to a 1080p HDTV, and had my glasses on, and I didn't pick up that there was a stowaway. I knew the shot was important somehow because of the music, but it went by too fast for me to figure out what I was supposed to be looking at. I was like, "what, the door's open? The ship's damaged? I don't get it." The image either needed to be clearer, or the shot longer, or I needed to be maybe 10 or 15 years younger.
13 hours ago, xaxat said:You're not alone. I kind of guessed that they were implying that a hybrid might be hitching a ride, but didn't actually see one.
3 hours ago, Nukester said:I also missed the alien stowaway.
It wasn't too clear, and pretty small - but I both recorded it on my DVR and also watched it on my computer off the SyFy website and it did catch my eye on my computer screen (in HD, 23 inch screen, sitting ~ 16 inches away).
Anyway, here's a pic off my 720p TV on a replay from the DVR and taken with my Nikon Coolpix...
And three screen grabs off my computer screen...with the brightness, contrast and sharpness of the screen grabs bumped up...
The end of the episode as aired also showed the customary "teaser"/preview of the next episode (ep. 13) where the protomolecule hybrid is CLEARLY shown in what must have been a 30 sec++ sequence. Those who watched it must have seen the hybrid. I also took a few pics of that scene off my TV but since it is of Ep 13 posting them here would probably be either a spoiler or OT in this thread...
The "Sneak Peak" for Ep. 13 on the SyFy website also shows the hybrid quite clearly on the ship.
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On 12/11/2016 at 10:10 PM, JeanneH said:
Don't know what your son is referring to, Calamity Jane - I lived in Chicagoland for 5-6 years, and all I can say is that everyplace is the south compared to Chicago ;)
Linguistically, I believe you are correct, Chiaros, that southern Indiana is part of some of the southern language groups, while northern Indiana is in a different set of language group. I know I have a bit of a southern accent ("all y'all"), because I've been told it doesn't stand out as much if I've been away for a while, but it's nothing like what I heard when I was working in Alabama!
Culturally, that's kind of a tough question and I'm no expert. The "experts" still argue this, as they can't even decide what are northern or southern states (3 different methods I saw had Indiana as northern, southern, and split down the middle). For me, the culture divide isn't "north" and "south" but "rural" and "urban". When the settlers came in, most of the industry ended up in northern Indiana - I'm guessing it had something to do with access to the Great Lakes ports, although the entire state has access to the river systems. NInd was mainly settled by Germans and eastern European immigrants, while SInd was mainly settled by people moving west from southern states of Virginia and Kentucky (my people were from Germany and what became West Virginia). People continue to come up from Kentucky to this day. Most of the larger cities ended up in central and northern parts of the state. Many of those who settled north did so because they were looking for industrial work, although many (my family, for example) became farmers instead. Rural and Urban: - county fairs - rural. Farm festivals - rural. Country music - statewide, mainly rural (ymmv). Politics - conservative (state wide) That said, I just looked it up, and found this about southern Indiana:I guess that means we're a mish-mash. If you're looking for the "southern" in southern Indiana you should go to the far south, where I'm from, to "Kentuckiana" - call it 40-50 miles either side of the Ohio River. However, I've never heard "bless your heart" used in the true southern fashion outside of the true South. :)
Sorry for going on. ObTC - the biscuits looked great, but I'm with Tom - I can't stand okra (or grits)
I was looking up something on a subject completely different from this forum but I was reminded of this topic here...there was also another reason why Indiana was considered part of the South...
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On 1/8/2017 at 3:48 PM, spankydoll said:
at the Chef's Table at Volt
How was it?
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http://requinbymic.com/about/requin/
The left-side panel on that webpage also has links to the blah-blah about both Jennifer Carroll and Mike Isabella.
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33 minutes ago, Haleth said:
Next week isn't the finale, is it? Or are there 13 episodes?
See here.
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7 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:
I'm not sure if it was a mess up or if the episodes are uncensored when they are On Demand, but I totally heard Chrisjen say "fuck", when she told Martian Captain Peter Outerbridge to butt out her questioning. That was crazy. Shohreh Aghdashloo dropping F-bombs might be my next favorite thing behind Jonathan Pryce dropping them on Taboo.
4 hours ago, johntfs said:I love the contrast between the gentle, grandmotherly way she coaxed Bobbie toward the truth and the way she cheerfully told the Martians to fuck off when they got in her way.
I watch this on ATT-Uverse (i.e. not "On Demand") as they are broadcast - and I don't think any of them have been censored. In both this episode and previously when Avasarala chewed out Errinwright in his office every FUCK came through loud and clear. :-)
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2 hours ago, MissLucas said:Why is there no blog/instagram whatever dealing with Avasarala's gowns/saris and jewels?
I don't see a specific thread dealing with her gowns & jewels, but there are numerous threads discussing Avasarala and what she's doing and how marvelous she is on this discussion board.
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Edward Lee & his 610 Magnolia continues to garner attention.
http://www.eater.com/maps/best-restaurants-georgia-carolina-tennessee-louisiana/610-magnolia
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On 3/16/2017 at 5:58 PM, dleighg said:
I agree- I think a lot of us on the sidelines are quite over this.
Ha ha. I finally (and reluctantly) watched this episode. My opinions, from what was shown, did involve how entitled Brooke W did seem to be and her nose-in-the-air attitude towards claiming her spot as The Top. She seemed an ungracious winner for that matter, concentrating on her "justification" as a "Top Chef". And no, her attitude is not just reflective of her skills - after all, as many have also commented on, Stephanie Izard did not display the same attitude even while she demonstrated her prowess. Or Kristen Kish, for that matter. It's reflective on her (Williamson's) persona - and one reacts to it as one will.
Neither of the finalists, in my books, are "Top Chefs" without an asterisk; but for different reasons. I have described them before here on this forum. Many folks feel differently, of course.
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NYT article on the latest of the James Beard Foundation's boot camps. The article also interviews and cites commentary from several Top Chef alums and Top Chef-associated chefs and others.
S15.E02: Smile and Say Mise
in Top Chef
http://www.bravotv.com/people/laura-cole