marybennet

Just fyi re what we were all wondering about about the grocery bill, Jim Smith, who was on the Beyond Top Chef podcast about this episode (I’ve been cleaning closets and listening to a million podcasts), said that in his season, Charleston, you couldn’t take something off the grocery bill once it had been scanned. Don’t know if that’s still true. He said his Alabama restaurant was recently featured in Conde Nast Traveler. Good for very sweet Jim! Anybody remember the chicken livers with strawberries?

I heard the woman owner of Harvey House interviewed on a podcast, and she indicated that they were a non-traditional supper club that prepared a traditional supper club dinner for Top Chef because that’s what they wanted as a way to introduce the concept to the cheftestants. She thought they’d be adding a more traditional dish or two to the menu to acknowledge the Top Chef night.

I've eaten ham with raisin sauce, too--New York. (Maybe not so excited to eat it again, I must admit.) I have the vague idea that the chefs can't pull things once they have been rung up, but I'm not sure where I got that idea. Does anyone else think this is the case? It makes things harder on the chefs, but it respects the cashiers, who would have to be redoing the bills all the time. (If I haven't made this up entirely....)

Unpopular opinion, perhaps, but I like the challenges in which the chefs (or, for that matter, the designers on Project Runway) have to engage with someone else's art, to take inspiration from another medium. I still remember Stephanie Cmar's tortellini inspired by the bellies of women in (Botticelli?) paintings and Melissa's incredibly beautiful beautiful beautiful dish--wonton and something that was beautifully green--inspired by the luxury of the rococco at the Getty; Gregory's was beautiful, too, in that season, and Mei's dish in the Boston season inspired by Thoreau. So I was happy to see the Wright work and to see people grapple with it. Yay for Rasika and Danny!

Really nice to see a calmer, (somewhat) easier in himself Marcel. And Kristen was entirely nice with and to him—respectful and friendly when some earlier chefs would try to provoke him. Stephanie is still loving her hat!

Yes to what’s been said so far. And, unlike some, I do believe in the integrity of Tom’s judgment about food, but doesn’t it feel as if this system is set up for the guy to win for a while? And why would anyone want to do LCK if it’s not set up as a last chance but as a gladiatorial contest?

I felt good about Kristen and, though anyone hosting is assuming a persona, I found hers warmer and more genuine than Padma’s. I liked Padma but she felt a little too at-home—in the way beautiful people often are—in an I-am-to-be-pleased mode. I thought Kristen needed to work on including the guest judges a bit more. I thought a great moment was when Tom asked how long pasta team had been working and Kristen, intuiting what he meant, asked if that was because hat guy should have been long finished rolling out his pasta. Her unique appeal as host is going to be her knowledge of the habits and practices of the kitchen.

People actually wrote about this in the nineteenth century (in England, anyway) as a social problem--that all kinds of dirt and trash would get caught in women's skirts and brought into the house.

I also think one of the things that's confusing--the family of women having children in their teens--contributes to the series's ability to make its point about the generational abuse (to use Magdalene's phrase) begun by his lordship/by a certain generation and class.

Me, too!

I read that Sheldon Simeon and Lee Ann Wong are organizing volunteers preparing meals for first responders and others at University of Hawaii, Maui College. Good for them, especially at a time when their families and homes and businesses may be in rough shape. https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2023/08/10/uh-maui-college-food-preparation-hub-amidst-wildfire-tragedy/

I agree with everyone that the storyline featuring Carrie and Seema was great, as was the scene in which Carrie and Miranda were walking and talking. And I really loved Seema’s umbrella. Charlotte’s dress was Prada. That makes me wonder if there would have been a bigger size. Designer lines aren’t always so good about larger sizes, and stores featuring them aren’t always so good about that either. I don’t have the budget to know whether that’s true of Prada. The fictional shop assistant needs to learn to make a dress recommendation without making the client feel bad.

The dismissal of Big seems unhealthy on Carrie’s part. Casting her life and time with him as a mistake seems like a way for her of eliminating the grief that I don’t believe is yet gone. I can’t help thinking that the writers have in mind some moment when she breaks down a little, when the bubble of “Aiden: Take 3” bursts and she has to acknowledge the force of her life with Big. I suspect the writers know that and will make it happen, whether things go forward for Carrie and Aiden or not.

I listened to the podcast in which MPK talked about asking Corbett to lose weight for Aiden’s return, and I think he meant when Aiden came back in SATC as a less granola guy (to use Samantha ‘s term), co-owner of Steve’s bar.

Oops! Maybe Eric or an Eric figure was included. Sorry!