S15.E06: That's a Lot of Schnitzel

[cooksdelight]

Yes, in team challenges they have. Individual immunity saves them from that horror. Chris had the look on his face of someone thinking he didn’t deserve immunity. 

[noveltylibrary]

8 hours ago, PamelaMaeSnap said:

Am guessing with immunity they wouldn't bother because it would take away some of the suspense but they made it pretty clear, as they have when this has happened before, that he was just damned lucky to have immunity. 

"NOVELTYLIBRARY SAID:  I can't believe Chris wasn't in the bottom 3 with pre-fab sausages & buns."

That wasn't me, just to clarify. 

[seltzer3]

2 hours ago, Bastet said:

They've put people with immunity in the bottom group before, but was that only where it was a team challenge?  (Like the controversy one year where the cheftestant with immunity was the unequivocal last-place finisher, and it was suggested he should give up immunity and go home rather than letting one of his teammates who did not deserve to lose go home.)

In season 3, Brian Malarkey was in the bottom even though he had immunity.  The challenge was to recreate healthy version of fast food items.  Brian from I remember that had a pretty bad dish.  The other issue was that the judges essentially called him out, because all he cooked was seafood, and Collichio essentially told him that he needs to stop cooking the same ingredients over and over.

[Maverick]

 Didn't Josie have immunity and caused Kristen to get bounced?   I remember a lot of drama around people thinking Josie should have given up her immunity.  

[escatefromny]

4 hours ago, cooksdelight said:

Yes, in team challenges they have. Individual immunity saves them from that horror. Chris had the look on his face of someone thinking he didn’t deserve immunity. 

I think we were somehow spared (didn’t get to see) a mini drama about Chris’ immunity.  In the prior episode’s scenes from the next episode, they showed Chris in the stew room saying something along the lines of ‘“I’m going to feel some kind of way unless I speak up”.  That coupled with the many shots of Chris looking on at the bottom three at Judge’s Table makes me think he did speak up (who knows what he said) but not enough to change the outcome.  (Brother did come 2nd at the Quick Fire and they show Chris acknowledging that). I wonder why they dropped that “story line” especially after teasing it in the next time on Top Chef and keeping all the Chris shots in at Judge’s Table.

Edited January 16, 2018 by escatefromny

[Lamb18]

Regarding Fatima, whenever I see her I wonder if she had cancer at the time, especially this last episode. She doesn't look very well.

Regarding salt, I didn't put salt in anything for years because of high blood pressure. I still don't eat premade soup and other packaged entrees because of sodium levels, but now I do salt the food I prepare from scratch. Sodium and potassium are supposed to balance each other in your system and I had been going the direction of too much potassium (which can cause heart problems). 

[Chickabiddy]

So, I just have to jump in on this episode about German food. My husband is German, as in only came to America to hang with me. :) I have lived there as well and have eaten loads of my mother in law's  cooking, and just got back from three weeks of partaking in German food. And while not a  total fan of German fare, I have grown to appreciate it over time.

With those confessional details out of the way, I have to point out a few things that irritated me. I so don't get the focus on the Radler. I mean, Germans do drink this. They also drink coke mixed with Beer(!) People do drink this, but it is not iconic, so why we have a whole episode focused on this one  drink? I would have preferred to see an episode on actual beer or German wine pairings. And why, for the love of Christ, would they have Currywurst featured as an element of German cuisine. It is just a bratwurst smothered in ketchup and curry powder. That's it. It's total street food. No one would ever cook this at home as representative of German Cuisine. It's like featuring a NY city hot dog on TV and claiming that is representative of American Cuisine. 

There is so much more to German food than pretzels and bratwurst. Sure, there is an over abundance of pork, potatoes and cabbage, but there is also goose, wild boar, venison, delicate consumes, veal dishes with berry compotes, white asparagus, stuffed shells, eel dishes with kale, etc. To focus on what is essentially street and bar food really irritates. Shout out to the poster above who mentioned Stephan's creations as more representative of German Cuisine. 

I was also totally irritated when Chris substituted Italian sausage for bratwurst or a plain pork sausage. I totally thought the "judges" would knock down a peg or two for thinking Italian sausage and German sausage had the same flavor profile. They are totally different. If Chris was phoning it in, the judges definitely were for not at least mentioning that little faux pas. 

Anyway, Brother pushed his Asian fusion too far with the Bok Choi. I think he could have gotten away with it if he had stuck with pork, red cabbage. apples and cloves. It would have even worked better if he had made steamed dumplings with fillings. They would have been more representative of actual German food - Schwaebische Maultaschen, anyone?   Germans only tend to deep fry potatoes. So, a fried egg roll was also out of the zone a bit.  And not sure if anyone has covered this but Rinder Rouladen have nothing to do with egg rolls. They are rolled, stuffed beef. The can be made with veal, but overwhelmingly are made with beef. They can be stuffed with pickle an a number of other things. Beef is super pricey in Germany, so these are kind of big deal. My MIL made them for New Year with a filling of bacon, pickles and shallots. :-) 

And Croquettes have become part of German Cuisine. They even spell it Kroketten, so making croquettes really is more relevant than an egg roll.  Deutschers do love their potatoes in all forms. ;-)

My only other comment, and this is more for my husband, is that all those beer fests with Ledrhosen, Dirndls, beer mugs, etc are actually Bavarian, and not really representative of German culture as a whole. Bavaria is part of Germany, but it's like using Cajuns to represent all of the US. Bavarians have a culture that is really separate and distinct from the rest of the country. As "Not a Bavarian", it drives Herr Chickabiddy crazy when everyone thinks Bavarian = All Germans. So, this little PSA was on his behalf. :-)  Thanks for listening. 

Edited January 16, 2018 by Chickabiddy
Still a shitty typist....

[cooksdelight]

10 hours ago, escatefromny said:

I think we were somehow spared (didn’t get to see) a mini drama about Chris’ immunity.  In the prior episode’s scenes from the next episode, they showed Chris in the stew room saying something along the lines of ‘“I’m going to feel some kind of way unless I speak up”.  That coupled with the many shots of Chris looking on at the bottom three at Judge’s Table makes me think he did speak up (who knows what he said) but not enough to change the outcome.  (Brother did come 2nd at the Quick Fire and they show Chris acknowledging that). I wonder why they dropped that “story line” especially after teasing it in the next time on Top Chef and keeping all the Chris shots in at Judge’s Table.

Production might have grown a heart and thought airing all of that might hurt Chris, and/or his sobriety.

[AntManBee]

Interesting that Chris mentioned that he was an alcoholic three years ago, instead of using the present tense.  Still good that he didn't succumb to any drinking, but I thought the fretting about doing poorly or relying on immunity was a bit of a pity party.    Maybe TC should borrow from MasterChef and just have immune cheftestants not cook.

 

Also, I would like Mustache Joe to mansplain why ordering a Radler where he comes from would get you kicked in the balls.  He smarmy machismo is getting annoying. 

[cooksdelight]

1 minute ago, AntManBee said:

Maybe TC should borrow from MasterChef and just have immune cheftestants not cook.

I wish.

2 minutes ago, AntManBee said:

Interesting that Chris mentioned that he was an alcoholic three years ago, instead of using the present tense.

He may not have yet completed the 12 steps.

[Eulipian 5k]

On 1/12/2018 at 9:37 PM, cooksdelight said:

Or in her frying pan.

I bet she'd make a mole if that happened. Thank you for closing out any chance that I'll eat at one of her restaurants.

[PamelaMaeSnap]

15 hours ago, noveltylibrary said:

"NOVELTYLIBRARY SAID:  I can't believe Chris wasn't in the bottom 3 with pre-fab sausages & buns."

That wasn't me, just to clarify. 

My bad! I thought I'd done the quote post thing right but my brain continues to resemble a chunk of Jarlsberg these days.

Also ... Can't help but thinking that if Brother had made that dish on Food Network Star rather than Top Chef he could have been among the top placers if it was indeed that spicy ... putting his own really interesting multi-ethnic heritage twist on a German dish. I kept thinking he was Eurasian or maybe from the South Pacific mixed with Latino ... but on the other hand Little Snappy pointed out that he looks EXACTLY like a cousin of ours (and now we can't unsee that because it's so true) so I'll throw a little nice Jewish boy in there too. That teaser about his parents makes me wish they'd just do a feature on him, period. 

Edited January 16, 2018 by PamelaMaeSnap

[seltzer3]

14 hours ago, Maverick said:

 Didn't Josie have immunity and caused Kristen to get bounced?   I remember a lot of drama around people thinking Josie should have given up her immunity.  

That was in the thanksgiving challenge.  They were split int two teams and the teams had to create a thanksgiving menu.  Josie was in charge of making the turkey.  She somehow burned and undercook the turkey (I have no idea how that happened), so she singlehandidly sent her team to elimination. But obviously she couldn't go home so Kuniko went home.

Same thing about Nicholas in season 11.  Where his immunity caused Stephanie to go home, which really sucked.

Speaking about Nicholas.  I remember in his season he got sick.  So he opted out of the quickfire. The judges told him, if he didn't get better by the elimination challenge, he's automatically eliminated.  I wonder if the same rules applied to Leann, since she wasn't present at the elimination challenge.  But since she's pregnant, they edited to make it look like she voluntarily left.

[dleighg]

2 minutes ago, seltzer3 said:

I wonder if the same rules applied to Leann, since she wasn't present at the elimination challenge.  But since she's pregnant, they edited to make it look like she voluntarily left.

I wondered the same thing. It really isn't fair to skip an elimination challenge, pregnant or not.

[bravofan27]

11 hours ago, AntManBee said:

Interesting that Chris mentioned that he was an alcoholic three years ago, instead of using the present tense.  Still good that he didn't succumb to any drinking, but I thought the fretting about doing poorly or relying on immunity was a bit of a pity party.    Maybe TC should borrow from MasterChef and just have immune cheftestants not cook.

I I thought about to, but then I wondered how that would affect group dynamics. It would be like being the only person in your family not there at Christmas. Also, if he doesn't compete, he doesn't get his shot at whatever the grand prize is, like a snazzy trip to Palm Springs. 

[Special K]

When I used to run marathons, we knew that in each training cycle you could expect one disastrous long training run.  Like, hit-the-wall, puke, run out of gas, weep, so bad you had to cut it short and just go home.  But the next week you were fine and you always ended up doing great come race day.  I became almost superstitious about it.  Like if I didn't have that bad run, I might have it on race day.

I feel like these chefs sometimes "need" a bad week because the sustained focus needed for Top Chef is so demanding.  That's why we often get chefs with immunity blowing the challenge, or making decisions they wouldn't ordinarily make (buying sausage or rolls for instance), which allow themselves a little breather.  It's almost like your psyche is doing a corrective to give you a rest.  Something throws you off and you allow yourself to be thrown off temporarily. I dunno, maybe I'm reading too much into it.

I think and hope Chris is here for the long haul, because I'd love to see him win.

Edited January 17, 2018 by Special K

[questionfear]

On 1/12/2018 at 11:45 PM, Bastet said:

Yeah, the alcoholics in recovery I know - three of whom live with drinkers, and thus have alcohol in their own home - stress the need for them to figure out how to function in the world, not how the world needs to adapt to their needs.  Different strokes.

But, relevantly, beyond any one person's best way of managing their disease, I stand firm in my opinion it is not unreasonable for a season-long cooking competition to include a challenge that involves alcohol, even though any given contestant still in play at that point may be an alcoholic, any more than it would be unreasonable for such a competition to include a challenge centered around an ingredient to which a contestant still in the running may be allergic; the contestant works around not being able to taste the ingredient and moves on, or not.

IIRC there was a contestant a few years ago who was allergic to something (crawfish maybe) and had to use gloves while handling them for a challenge.

On 1/14/2018 at 2:28 PM, jackjill89 said:

It's straight-up bar food -- reuben egg rolls, southwest egg rolls, philly steak egg rolls. There is nothing elevated about it. If it had been a really delicious German-inspired egg roll, they might have bought it, but it wasn't. Still, both Brother and Chris didn't try to elevate the dishes. Chris is very lucky he had immunity. He could have done something really interesting with the soul food/Amish twist, but the Radler challenge totally messed with him. I love the idea suggested by another poster that he should have made a non-alcoholic Radler. He was simply too in his head to do anything. I feel for him. I don't think you ever know what will trigger you. 

When Carla was on her first season, they had a mardi gras challenge involving a cocktail; she indicated she didn't drink and made a non-alcoholic beverage that received praise from everyone, so if it's a good drink that fits the challenge the alcohol isn't necessary. Also, they've had alcoholic/former addict chefs in the past (John Tesar comes to mind), plus there's alcohol all over the stew room...so it's not something that is locked away and only busted out for the alcohol challenge. 

[buttercupia]

On 1/15/2018 at 0:13 PM, PamelaMaeSnap said:

My theory (Ann Elk)

!!!!!

Laughing so hard right now.  Thank you, I needed that. Off to study brontosauruses.

[snarktini]

On 1/12/2018 at 6:46 AM, Yeah No said:

You don't really miss the extra salt with Eric's food.

OK, I'll be the outlier -- my meal at Le Bernardin was a little underseasoned for my taste buds. Just a touch. Overall I wasn't as thrilled as I expected to be. It was very technical. I grew up going to amazing restaurants around the country and remember things I ate 30 years ago that stayed with me, but I can't remember a single thing I ate at LB.

On 1/12/2018 at 8:10 AM, Lovecat said:

1) Re: Brother's egg rolls:  I think he could have made a knockout of a German-inspired egg roll (pork, sauerkraut and apples, in a crispy fried wonton, with some sort of fancy-schmancy cheffy dipping sauce?  yes, please!)...his mistake was making a jump from white cabbage to Asian cabbage, then staying in the Asian flavor lane.  Not enough German influence there, bud.

Yeah, his concept was fine --  pork, cabbage, fried noodle/dough -- but screwed it up in execution. There were a lot of ways this dish could have gone right. He just made it way too Asian.

 

Lastly, I was also surprised Chris didn't know anything about German food given his Amish connection. I felt bad how he was thrown off his game -- like he said, just going through the motions of drinking juice out of a beer mug at a bar felt wrong. It's interesting how seemingly small things can really throw cheftestants off. Sometimes it's the family challenges (that sunk Kwame). There are hidden triggers for all of us. My biggest objection to what he did wasn't even the store bought ingredients. It was that it wasn't elevated in the slightest, which was the challenge. A sausage sandwich on a pretzel bun? That's cliché food truck German, not 5 star.

Edited January 19, 2018 by snarktini

[rasalas]

On 1/11/2018 at 10:28 PM, bobbobbob199 said:

I think the whole Lee Anne reentering thing was a total gimmick. It just seems too coincidental that TWO competitors were selected (the first time in my recollection there is such a tie like that on Top Chef) to rejoin and then Lee Anne immediately withdraws. And lo and behold this puts the episode count back in line to what it was planned to be in the first place. I think Lee Anne probably told Tom that she couldn't last filming the show like that...

My biggest issue with Lee Anne competing was that she is a former producer for the show. It doesn't matter if she once competed. She shouldn't have been there in the first place. 

[ratgirlagogo]

On 1/16/2018 at 10:49 AM, Chickabiddy said:

With those confessional details out of the way, I have to point out a few things that irritated me. I so don't get the focus on the Radler. I mean, Germans do drink this. They also drink coke mixed with Beer(!) People do drink this, but it is not iconic, so why we have a whole episode focused on this one  drink? I would have preferred to see an episode on actual beer or German wine pairings. And why, for the love of Christ, would they have Currywurst featured as an element of German cuisine. It is just a bratwurst smothered in ketchup and curry powder. That's it. It's total street food. No one would ever cook this at home as representative of German Cuisine. It's like featuring a NY city hot dog on TV and claiming that is representative of American Cuisine. .............Shout out to the poster above who mentioned Stephan's creations as more representative of German Cuisine. 

 I was the poster who mentioned Stefan and I agree with all your observations.   Currywurst, being a street food, has become a "thing" as a food truck item.  I don't care about it, or for it actually, but it is a thing.  In NYC it's usually only available as part of the bar menu in the older more traditional German restaurants but there's a more hipster-type place called Hallo Berlin that kind of specializes in it and made it a trend for other places.    BTW the show DID feature a  hot dog challenge in the NY season - IIRC it was a Quickfire with the guest judge being part of the family that owns Sabrett's.    Radlers have also become a thing for much the same reason I suppose - if there's one thing Americans love it's a new junk food or a new junk  drink.  For that matter I wonder why the Coke and beer radler hasn't taken off here - probably just a matter of time.

 

  

On 1/16/2018 at 11:27 AM, AntManBee said:

Also, I would like Mustache Joe to mansplain why ordering a Radler where he comes from would get you kicked in the balls. 

  Where's he from again?   Even so he cooks in Los Angeles now and nobody's kicking anyone else in the balls for ordering them at the craft beer bars where they serve them.   Although it is my impression that the Germans do consider radlers kind of a juvenile choice of alcoholic drink - like Boone's Farm or wine coolers.

Edited January 19, 2018 by ratgirlagogo

[morakot]

A radler seems just like a shandy with different fruit juices. In the summer when it's hot, I love to drink shandy (beer with a fizzy lemonade like a 7Up). The lemonade cuts the alcohol in the beer so you can drink more of it and the beer cuts the sweetness in the beer. It's a win/win when it's hot.

[chiaros]

On 1/19/2018 at 3:53 PM, ratgirlagogo said:

 Where's he from again?   Even so he cooks in Los Angeles now and nobody's kicking anyone else in the balls for ordering them at the craft beer bars where they serve them.   Although it is my impression that the Germans do consider radlers kind of a juvenile choice of alcoholic drink - like Boone's Farm or wine coolers.

 

On 1/16/2018 at 11:27 AM, AntManBee said:

Also, I would like Mustache Joe to mansplain why ordering a Radler where he comes from would get you kicked in the balls.  He smarmy machismo is getting annoying. 

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/TopChef/comments/7pqn1w/s15e06_now_thats_a_lot_of_schnitzel_discussion/dsk9zfn/

[3jt]

On ‎1‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 8:31 PM, MerBearStare said:

Alcoholism is a whole different beast than vegetarianism though and relapses are no joke. I don't think it would be a huge burden for the show to think of an alternate way to do this challenge without having to put an alcoholic in a room with a ton of different beer that he then has to make a mixed beer drink with (whatever that was called). Aside from the fact that it's, again, shitty to do that to an alcoholic, I would think it would be a liability issue for Bravo as well.

As an alcoholic myself, I appreciate your outrage for Chris (? don't remember everyone's name yet), however if he's in a program he should have the tools to deal with this situation. He said he's been sober for 3 years, I think, and although a relapse can happen at any time, the fact of the matter is that once we admit we have a problem and cannot drink like normal people we don't go into isolation. We learn to deal with our disease. I thought he did really well considering.