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Celebrating 1,000 NCIS-franchise episodes

S01.E09: Kevin Gillespie vs. Art Smith

FormerMod-a1

By FormerMod-a1
in Top Chef Duels [V]

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howiveaddict

howiveaddict

Kevin's dishes really looked good.  I loved him on regular top chefs.  Always liked Art, but my chicken and dumplings look a lot better than his.  I use my Grandma's recipe.  I actually could have made all the things in his meal.   Loved the look of Kevin's banana pudding.  A local restaurant used to make it like that with merangue.  Served it for free during the week.  I saw he has it featured on his Gun Show menu this week.

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stillshimpy

stillshimpy

(edited)

sunrisepink, in Kevin's season there were a lot of talking heads where he spoke glowingly of his wife.  How long he'd known her.  How important she was to him, how she was his best friend and they worked together.  They'd got married quite young also.  It was a cute note throughout, this guy was really into his wife.  They didn't have any kids, but there was a lot of "I make this for my wife..." type of talk.   Kevin does really well in his season, but he's up against both Voltagio brothers and they have very different styles.  So it was sort of an expected clash of cooking styles and Kevin seemed to have the goods to really challenge them.  

 

Only when he got to the finale there was something even visually off about him.  He hardly smiled, he was short with one of his Sous Chefs which was really unlike him. Sous chefs were assigned to the chefs in a rather unfair move and Kevin got stuck with  a less-than-efficient one named Preeti .  He later would give interviews publicly apologizing to her, even though he was seriously only short by Kevin standards, vs. the standards of a professional kitchen, and in more fairness?  She was not up to the task.  

Anyway, even in those interviews apologizing to Preeti, he never brought up what happened when he got home from filming the season and in between filming the finale: his wife asked for a divorce.   Now, that can happen in life and this is the one detail I'm hazy on, but I think part of it was that his wife came out, but it could not have been clearer that Kevin was entirely blindsided.  Marriages do break up and there weren't any kids, but they still worked together for a while after that too.  

Plus, Bravo had edited the entire season -- unwittingly, I think -- to really play up how much he adored his wife, so to add to the strain, people constantly asked him about her, because it was actually one of those very touchingly genuine things.   Divorce can be really hard even when you know it's coming.  Divorce dropped from the sky like a bomb can shatter almost anyone.  New found fame that also really focused on "...and where's your wife?" from admiring fans?  Oh man, I wouldn't wish that on someone I didn't like at all and I really liked Kevin quite a bit.  

Edited by stillshimpy
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JES004

JES004

Kevin won the most elimination challenges during his season and really could have easily won Top Chef. He was pretty easy-going and stayed out of most of the drama during that season. It's too bad he was so distracted by personal problems during the finale, because he was just as talented as the Voltaggio brothers. I thought Michael Voltaggio' s comments about the simplicity of Kevin's food were clearly motivated by jealousy. I think he thought he and his brother would dominate the season, and didn't expect the competition to be as tough as it was.

 

 

I so agree with this.  It was pretty clear that Kevin hit the flavor profiles one the mark the majority of the time, and Tom said that after tasting Kevin's Bacon jam it was the first time he ever asked a contestant for a recipe. That season I really liked his food, Bryan V's, and Jen C's. 

 

It made me very happy that Kevin won. Art's comfort food must have been pretty flavorful, though, and wouldn't mind having tried it.  

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