S01.E03: Mike Isabella vs. Antonia Lofaso

[Kromm]

So glad Antonia won.  I liked Mike a little better this time.  Antonia's brother is very handsome!  Her daughter looked disappointed not to be chosen as helper.  She sure looks like Antonia, sometimes I thought I was seeing double.

Actually knowing about it now, I can see the Heavy D resemblance maybe even a little more than Antonia.

 

 

Here's a shot of the girl, admittedly from many years ago, but you can certainly see the resemblance to both parents in it.

 

[cooksdelight]

When I saw the runny egg yolk inside the pasta, I wondered how she cooked the pasta enough without cooking the egg, too. Fresh pasta takes a few minutes, that yolk should have been halfway solid by then. So, my hat's off to Antonia for achieving that since I am sure mine would be an epic fail.

 

I cannot believe how big Mike is now. I was looking at some old photos of him from his earlier TC adventures, and he's obviously eating well in his restaurants. 

[paramitch]

I've always loved Antonia, so it was great to see her succeed here, but I'm so sorry to hear about the tragedy of Heavy D's death -- I wasn't familiar with him, but they appeared to have a terrific relationship. Her little girl is just adorable, and you can see both parents in her daughter's face (Kromm, that's such a wonderful picture). I felt so bad when Antonia couldn't pick her daughter as sous chef even though it was the right decision in a competition setting. Her brother appeared to do really well -- it was great that he had food experience too.

 

Cooksdelight, I remember reading an interview with Mike from his last bout on Top Chef that he'd gained all the weight not from cooking, but from schmoozing. It was pretty interesting -- he talked about how during the course of promoting and funding your restaurants, the more you're out of the kitchen and schmoozing (and dining and drinking), that the weight hits a lot of chefs because suddenly they've gone from standing 14 hours per day to all the sitting, eating and drinking. I found it interesting that he didn't get heavy until he left the kitchen, basically.

[cooksdelight]

That's interesting, but it makes sense. A local chef, who was once a White House chef, owns three restaurants in the area and I never see him. But when I do, he's skinny. I am guessing he runs from kitchen to kitchen, constantly overseeing what's going on. Might be why his restaurants are some of the best in the mountains here.

[stillshimpy]

Yeah, it's been a week and I still have next to nothing to say about this episode other than:  Oh good, that's over and behind us.  I like Antonia just fine, I found her family charming, but I wish they hadn't had the families in as judges.  It was absurd and bordering on unpleasant.  I've never liked Mike Isabella and I never will, but I started to feel sorry for his wife (beyond being married to Mike Isabella's blatantly sexist butt) during the judging.  She's one of those women who looks like she's four inches away from a murderous rampage brought on by contempt when she's not actively smiling.  That's not a bad thing and she's actually quite lovely, but the repeated cuts to her looking like she was ready to throw a knife every time someone complimented anything cooked by Antonia were pretty unfair.  I very much doubt she was being that petty and ungracious, they just used her natural "I will cut you for that!" resting expression as merry sport for editing. 

 

Anyway, that's done and over with, thank goodness.  Then I looked at who's up this week and nearly despaired.  Oh goody, CJ and Stefan.  Well, congratulations TCD, you'll have made me cheer on....Curtis's stiff hand gestures?  I guess Stefan?  That's like the battle of the "Oh jeez, they're both back, again?  At once?" 

[sunrisepink]

I was very concerned watching this episode since they both had gained 50-100 lbs each. I thought there would be a sob story..like something about illness or death.

 

I'm glad Antonia won.