Blonde Gator

I live in SoFla....and there's a great chain, "Save A Lot", that carries lots of fantastic Hispanic stuff, I can always get fresh tomatillos, poblanos, jalepenos, fresh yucca, etc., as well as most of the Badia spices, including stuff like achiote paste, pepita seeds, etc, all kinds of tortillas, Abuelita chocolate (a Nestle product, BTW). But for some reason, they no longer carry New Mexico Red or Ancho chiles. And I can't find them in any of the regular grocery stores, either, and I've never even seen chipotles here other than in a can, which truly, why bother? Have a BIL in Santa Fe, but he forgets, so I thought I'd just try this place I found online (it's in New Mexico), and I am SUPER pleased with what they shipped. They also had green New Mexico chile flakes, so I bought a pound. I've ordered 20 lbs. of them fresh, before, in the early fall, but the shipping is outrageous, and you end up spending about $20 a lb. by the time you roast, peel, freeze. So I thought I'd try the flakes, and they smell awesome! Can't wait to try green chicken chili with those babies. I love poblanos, and use lots of them because I can get them....but there's something about the taste of NM Greens that we just crave! I blame Bobby Flay.

For those of you who love chiles....I just ordered some on the internet, a pound each, to see what they were like. The only chiles I can reliably get here are fresh poblanos, jalepenos, and serranos, no Anaheims....and dried guajillos and pasillas. It's hard to find dried Anchos, the good Chipotles, and New Mexico Reds. I don't know why, but it is. Anyway, I ordered anchos, meco chipotle, some NM reds, and NM green flakes....they arrived earlier and are absolutely beautiful and fresh. Highly recommend this vendor. http://www.thechileguy.com/ Enjoy.

Hugh is in Athens? Great college town. Hotspot for fantastic music, and now good food, too!

Truth! I live in South Florida, it's currently 47 degrees out, and I'm contemplating making straight up chile chili tomorrow, with some HOT chile peppers! Bring on the Scoville Units! I thought they began filming this season in May or June???? I've been to Estes Park, it's always a bit chilly, (there's that word again!), but this looked like it was filmed in a blizzard! Does anyone here actually know what the TC filming schedule really is? Tu is such a sweet guy, and so young.....I look forward to him coming back in a year or three after he's matured a bit. He has such huge potential, but is so young that he's overly influenced by the other competitors at this point. I wish him all the best, and can't wait to see him back. Really enjoyed this challenge, although personally could never have even stood on the sidelines cheer-leading. These chefs are brave, and determined! On the whole, this season has been wonderful, the show has expertly refreshed and reworked, for a show that's been on the air for so many seasons. And Gail Simmons should be the STAR of the show. Looking forward to next week's episode.

I liked this challenge. Once again, the contestants all pulled together, and made the best of a very difficult situation. (Personally, I'd have had to warn everyone I'd cry all night, I loathe the cold, but do okay camping, because grandson in the Cub Scouts). This episode was akin to the Soiree in the Swamp (New Orleans)....and not nearly as stupid as that cooking on the Gondola from Brooke's first season. Fatima is fantastic, I hope we get an update on her soon....she's a lovely girl, and she can cook. But her judges table cheerleading for Carrie's ingenuity made me want to hug her! The choices of dishes were interesting. So much non-typical protein on display. Very difficult proteins, too, under ideal circumstances (Quail, goose, buffalo, rabbit), Only Joe and Tanya did something fairly straight forward and simple. Joe's dish was a nice one, but couldn't compete with the more unusual dishes which were executed beautifully. I was glad to see Bruce get back into his own style of cooking, and take the win with his clever use of the mandolin to shape his pasta. And Lee Ann hung in there, even though she wasn't feeling great, huge props to her for making it to the top in this challenge. All in all, a very good episode. PS. Super happy that two chefs made it back in from LCK, felt bad for Kwame, though. Apparently NOT over. Sounds like they're going to return another booted chef late in the season. Hoping Kwame is still in the mix, but I suppose it will only be open to people kicked off from this point forward....it really wouldn't be fair any other way.

Hopefully, they've learned their lesson, and this will be their one and only foray into "stunt casting" (great description, BTW). Although the judges eyerolls made for some great television!

Thanks for sharing your personal experience, Snarkle. The fact that his staff LOVES him tells me all I need to know about the man. Best of everything, Tyler!

Good article, thanks. Tyler strikes me as a self-aware kind of guy. I liked his parting line. It's got to be hard to do that final talking head when you're still po'd about getting the boot.

Your long post got me to thinking, Snarkle, so I went to Wiki and reviewed the episodes. While I think your observations about the season as a whole appearing to marginalize "old white chefs" have some merit, I also think that the guys representing this demographic are so far and away from the rest at being on a different plane of existence, career wise, that THAT is the problem with what they cooked in this particular challenge. We'll have to see how the rest of the season goes and revisit your hypothesis later, you may be on to something. Tyler won the first EC for the classic American "meat and potatoes". He did well in the food truck challenge, even with a non-food-truck item (soup & croutons), which he did being true to himself. I really believe he just couldn't wrap his head around the concept and then edit it down....I wonder if he'd seen all seasons of Top Chef in preparation for his appearance? I agree with the poster who said he should have gone French, inspired by Julia Child as a kid. I was sorry to see him go so soon.

And more power to Tanya for putting it on her dish anyway. Gumbo has okra. I suppose it would have been taken as insulting to put it on the side for Tom only. To put a point on it, as it were.

Oh sorry, didn't realize there was a recipe thread.

That's exciting! The grill for the seeds is a great idea, even in 15 degrees, yikes! In Mexico they have a big comal outside that they use, they actually light the seeds on fire, there's lots of chili oil in them, even dried ones you buy. Funny you should mention the under-ripe tomatoes, I have trouble finding under-ripe ones as well, and used as pale as I could find. I've tried finding chihuacle negro chiles, they're not grown commercially here that I can find.....there's a lady in New Jersey that has spectacular chile plants, and they ship the seedlings in the most clever box you've ever seen. Highly recommend this site if you buy plants online. Here's the "black mole" chihuacle negro (I suppose you could also use the red one). Oh yeah, don't forget the sesame seeds for garnish, LOL. Let us know how you make out, it's as authentic as anything I ate in Oaxaca or Guerrero, and I ate LOTS of mole there.

Yes. He should have made rice with the ropa vieja. I love Isaac Toups!

Seems as though we're all in agreement that Claudette is rather snotty, for no apparent reason. Although TC has had some pretty good one-cuisine only chefs that have gotten far into the series, I don't recall any one of them that won it all....so someone with a more rounded perspective usually wins. Tom's comments to both Kwame & Lee Ann were kind of strange. Who do we think will win? I'm not sure, but I don't think it will be Lee Ann. Guesses?

Thanks, that sounds about right....it's been a long time, LOL. I remember Kristin & Stephanie together, but I thought it was the salad group. I LOVE Hugh as a judge, he's so fun to watch. But Wolfgang wanted the "classic technique" in the omelet, but egad, those omelets were worse than college hangover omelets, awful! I think Wolfgang pulled out a pan and gave instructions after they were all done but the crying.

I was really beginning to warm to Claudette, but her nasty comments at the end of the offal challenge were rather off-putting, and rude. Lee Ann Wong looks positively glowing in her TH segments, it's great to see her so happy about her pregnancy. I love her and Kwame, so I have no favorites as to who comes back. Claudette can flat out cook her food, and since I love what she's done in LCK, I'd be happy to watch her cook for the rest of the season, if she is kind of snotty....I still dig her food.

I thought some of the kids' comments about the dishes were hilarious, they weren't pulling any punches when they didn't care for something. Of course, they weren't ordinary picky fish-stick eating children....but my own grandson always wants me to make duck for Cub Scout pot lucks, go figure! As for "white people's cooking", I am German and Swedish, German food is delicious, but not something I grew up eating often, even after visiting Germany. Swedish food (lutafisk) is not my thing at all. I have always lived in SoFla, so I can cook some mean Cuban, some Caribbean, Deep South, and have traveled extensively in Central America, so most of my cooking is NOT anything of my own heritage. I'd have had a hard time with this one, and probably would have done seafood and hearts of palm as a native Floridian. So I see why this challenge would be hard for those chefs who are 4 or 5 (or more) generations removed from their immigrant roots. This is THE tough challenge for the person who gets to PYKAG. I felt sorry for Tyler, but I, too, agree that it should have probably been Bruce based on mangled lamb. Just have to comment (again) about the collegiality of this season. I really, really like this group of chefs for how they seem to support each other, with none of the skeevy game-playing we saw in early seasons of TC. It was nice. Oh, and Isaac Toups from 2 seasons ago (I swear I'm going to New Orleans to eat at his restaurant in 2018) was a judge on Beat Bobby Flay tonight. Rerun should be on again soon if you want to DVR it, he's one of my all time faves from Top Chef! I wish TC would post the winners' recipes on the site like they used to years ago, each week. I made someone's roasted chicken for a late-season "this is what I'd want as my last dish on earth" episode, as chosen by the celebrity chef diners, and it was fantastic. Chris's whole dish looked perfect.

That's a big dose of bad news. She sounds like she's handling things very well, and good for the Top Chef staff, and her fellow chefs, for supporting her through this. I can't imagine this kind of devastating news at only 28. I wish her all the best and a speedy recovery.

Now that I think about it, wasn't Kirsten Kish's season opened by 4 chefs (Emeril, Tom, Hugh, and I'm thinking Wolfgang Puck) in the very first episode, where they asked the "finalists" for that season to create one dish, then handed out Top Chef coats to the winners? I do believe it was Wolfgang Puck who asked them to make an omelet. I think Kirsten was with Hugh & the Salad group, Emeril had them make soup, and I don't remember if Tom really had a group or greeted them on the way out with their Chef Coats. Probably just 3 groups. But my long, drawn out point is that this isn't the FIRST time TC has used the "make the old classic [insert dish here]" that any of these chefs should have been able to perform. For crying out loud, I'm not a professional chef, and I know you have to really whip the eggs, heat the pan, cook and scramble them slowly and softly, gentle heat, season them, and not overcook....no stuffing. Eggs (my amie francais would say to add a touch of cream), salt, & pepper, sauteed in butter. The End.

I may be wrong, but I believe the kids could eat at any or ALL of the trucks, and THEN vote with their ticket as to which truck was their favorite truck. Winner was immune from elimination, unlike the other three teams. The judges were still free to pick their winner and loser, but the loser could NOT be from the team with the most student votes.

Totally agree! Mole IS addictive, once you've had good mole. And there are so many different kinds of mole (which means sauce)....chocolate is NOT required...there are green moles, yellow moles, red and black moles....hundreds of moles. It's not an easy dish to just toss together rapido and expect a good result, so Claudette did well. I cooked Rick Bayless' Mole Negro de Oaxaca (it was fantastic), the same dish he served at the White House, and won Top Chef Masters with. In Mexico, mole is a community effort, one person does the chiles, one roast the nuts, etc. I cooked it w/a friend, it took us two days the first time we made it. <--my blog of this recipe including pics. I'm posting my blog because the Top Chef Masters link is gone, and so is the HuffPo link to Rick Bayless' recipe, but I copied his recipe (in italics) and made comments about each step.....so you'll have the right recipe if anyone wants to try it out. It's not hard, it just takes lots and lots of time because there are so many steps.

Ooh, thanks Spidey! I've been over a week without internet (ugh, had no idea I was so addicted), so just catching up here, and you reminded me that I haven't yet seen LCK! Thanks. I'm just suspicious of food trucks I guess, there are scads of them in SoFla but it never crosses my mind. And I ALWAYS eat street food when I travel....as a friend once told me "if you don't know what to order in Central America, order the chicken and rice, you'll never go wrong). Food trucks just seem kind of off-putting for some reason. The food truck episodes are always interesting, though. BAD choices are made. Remember the season with the kid who was "Captain Vietnam", and the surfer dude pre-rolled his sushi rolls on the food truck episode, which wilted and were disgusting? Same thing, BAD decisions. IMO, the key to winning a food truck challenge is the decision making at the start. I was yelling at Rogelio "don't make salad!!!" (LSU college kids & broccoli salad, N.O. season). It was apparent to me last week, who was headed to the top and bottom before the cheftestants even went shopping. Off to LCK now.

Lobster Mac & Cheese. It's a thing, apparently, although I have issues with wasting tasty lobster on an already perfect dish.

Good for you on your fast departure! We all have our "total ick" things....I draw the line at spiders, TYVM. But there are other things I wouldn't want to eat. Horse meat, dogs or cats, guinea pigs and iguanas (these are pets!). I have eaten alligator, though, go figure, being a Florida Gator, LOL. I think I'd try snake, too. But there are many 3rd world countries where adequate protein is a problem, so good for them for eating what they have, I won't judge others on this one. P.S [ETA]. Spiderpig.....do you know how many sub-classifications of arachnids there are? I do....my 1st grade grandson came home three years ago (time flies!) and we had to look it up. TMI. I wish this episode had aired a couple of seeks ago, I'd have ordered a can of tarantula for a stocking stuffer. It would have been SO worth it for the gross-out factor. Grandson fancies himself to be pretty fair cook. And it would have freaked his mom way the Hell out, LOL!

Chris Scott. He has an easy name, it's just hard to remember! I was really happy he stuck to his guns, too. He's doing interesting food that we've not seen before. Have him picked as one of my favorites this season.....but other than Snerdly Whiplash, there really are no villains. I even like Carrie, who looked so of out-of-her-depth in the first episode, but she seemed so genuinely pleased to "represent" in her home state, I was really happy for her.