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Top Chef in the Media

Bella

By Bella
in Top Chef

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susannot
susannot

Re Mike Isabella: anyone who invested in his restaurant empire should have watched Top Chef.  It is 100% obvious that he is a gross sexist pig and probable sexual harasser.  I can't count the number o

akr
akr

Re podcasts vs synopses:  I'm always going to prefer a 3-minute read to a 45-minute listen, but I've pretty much given up on anybody putting such things in writing anymore.  Podcasts are easier for th

Rambler
Rambler

There was a reddit thread the other day titled “People that have been on a cooking show, what does the viewer not see? Are the time limits legit? Does the food go straight to the judges? Any behind th

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Bastet

Bastet

10 hours ago, lambertman said:

The long-discussed/threatened "Top Chef Juniors" kids' version has been announced as premiering this Fall on Universal Kids (the channel currently known as Sprout).

Oh good, it's on a channel I'm pretty sure I don't get, so I don't have to worry about stumbling across it while going around the dial.  I've endured a couple of kid versions of Chopped during a marathon when I didn't feel like changing the channel, and the kids were always unbearable. 

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Evil Queen

Evil Queen

13 hours ago, Bastet said:

Oh good, it's on a channel I'm pretty sure I don't get, so I don't have to worry about stumbling across it while going around the dial.  I've endured a couple of kid versions of Chopped during a marathon when I didn't feel like changing the channel, and the kids were always unbearable. 

I've never watched any of these shows with kids but they had a few from the Masterchefs version on our local news one morning and they were so snotty. The way they spoke to the newscasters was just rude in tone too. I couldn't handle watching them for an hour on a show if this is how they were in a short segment. I have no clue if we get the channel this Top Chef version will be on or not. Its not a channel I have put on even when my youngest was the age for it and our cable has been messing with things so we have lost a few channels we used to have as it is. Hopefully that is one of them. 

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spiderpig

spiderpig

On 5/4/2017 at 9:00 AM, Evil Queen said:

I've never watched any of these shows with kids but they had a few from the Masterchefs version on our local news one morning and they were so snotty. The way they spoke to the newscasters was just rude in tone too. I couldn't handle watching them for an hour on a show if this is how they were in a short segment. I have no clue if we get the channel this Top Chef version will be on or not. Its not a channel I have put on even when my youngest was the age for it and our cable has been messing with things so we have lost a few channels we used to have as it is. Hopefully that is one of them. 

I posted about this somewhere about some show - can't remember if it was an early MC Junior, but I seem to recall Gordon or Joe or Graham offering a suggestion to a boy, and the little demon snarled "I KNOW what I'm doing".  Didn't even look up.

If I'd talked to adult like that at that age I'd have faced some serious jail time.

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AriAu

AriAu

(edited)

Stephanie Izard, my All Time favorite Top Chef contestant and winner, in the most anti-climactic way possible, ran "The Gauntlet" and was named an Iron Chef. She said something like "this is the top prize in the culinary world". Something about the way it was presented, and the fact that it would have made no sense to go thru the brain damage of having the show just to have no new Iron Chef, but it lacked the excitement of a Top Chef finale.

All that being said, what is a bigger accomplishment, winning Top Chef or being named an Iron Chef? The chefs  are more accomplished on Iron Chef (Sarah was on Iron Chef 3 years after Top Chef and after opening her own wildly successful place in Chicago and win a Beard award), but the challenges are tougher on Top Chef, which seems to have more up and comers than established people. Let's face it, the best of Top Chef have a tough time with any battle on Iron Chef and often end up as sous chefs for the contestants, but the challenge of cooking with Cheetos or some other product placement condiment on no sleep with too much drama is tougher than cooking in "Kitchen Stadium"

Please, this is not a question aimed at discussing Blais yet again! She won, he lost-done

Edited by AriAu
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Nysha

Nysha

On 5/22/2017 at 8:23 AM, AriAu said:

All that being said, what is a bigger accomplishment, winning Top Chef or being named an Iron Chef?

I think Top Chef elevates extraordinary, but mainly unknown chefs to the national level. The chefs competing for the next Iron Chef tend to be established and known, prior to this new iteration. I don't know which is the bigger accomplishment, but my bet is that Iron Chef is a better money maker for the chefs in the long run.

Peper81

Peper81

On ‎5‎/‎23‎/‎2017 at 1:41 PM, Nysha said:

I think Top Chef elevates extraordinary, but mainly unknown chefs to the national level. The chefs competing for the next Iron Chef tend to be established and known, prior to this new iteration. I don't know which is the bigger accomplishment, but my bet is that Iron Chef is a better money maker for the chefs in the long run.

I agree with this.  Top Chef usually takes people that are insanely talented but most of the world has never heard of and pushes them into the spotlight.  Iron Chef is for established and respected chefs.  That said, I am not convinced that Iron Chef is harder than Top Chef and I think if you've been an Iron Chef for a while then it becomes relatively easy for you to dominate.  I think you see the same kind of thing when Top Chef contestants come back to the show.  They have an advantage over the newbies because they've figured out the quickest way to shop for ingredients and not waste time.  They also have a better idea of what the judges want to see (same goes for Iron Chef).  That said, I think the advantage for Top Chef starts to dissipate as time goes on and things start leveling out which, in the end, makes it a harder challenge.  Eventually the newbie chefs figure it out and start standing out because they've had the repetition. Iron Chef doesn't allow for the leveling out that happens on Top Chef with new chefs because it's a one and done or a one and wait 2-3 years and try again.  In the culinary world, I think Iron Chef is seen as a higher accomplishment than winning Top Chef but, personally, I think Top Chef should get more respect.  They really put the chefs through the grinder on Top Chef. 

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pennben

pennben

(edited)

Nice interview with Stephanie after her win on Iron Chef.  I'm a fan of hers, maybe because she's located in Chicago and I rooted for the local woman in her first season (and now love her restaurants), but I became an unabashed fan quickly in those early days because I liked not only how she cooked (as far as I could see:)) but how she competed and carried herself.  Nothing different now.  I particularly liked her response to this question in the interview I linked to above:

Quote

Tell me about your strategy in assigning the Secret Ingredients, ultimately giving everybody their dream ingredient.
SI: Seeing peppers first, I don’t know who would have done badly with peppers, but I figured I might as well just give each Iron Chef what they are best known for, because I feel like that makes the Iron Chefs respect my decision on that. And why take the easy way out? It’s better to go for it full-steam.

Read more at: http://blog.foodnetwork.com/fn-dish/2017/05/iron-chef-gauntlet-stephanie-izard-winner-interview/?oc=linkback

Anyway, back to the question initially posed by @AriAu above, here are Stephanie's thoughts:

Quote

You’ve competed in culinary competitions before. How does the gauntlet compare in terms of difficulty and your expectations?
SI: It’s funny. This morning I was thinking it’s been almost exactly 10 years since I won Top Chef. It’s been about 10 years, and when I look back to all the things I made on that show, that would never have survived even half of a round against these challengers. So, I think it’s definitely really stiff competition during this, and Alton’s no joke. He knows more about food that I do. He’s talking about the science of what I’m making, and I’m listening so I can learn, like: “Oh, is that what the starches are doing? Hmm. Good to know.” I think the bar was set very high, which is great. If you’re going to do a competition on TV, you want it to be not what can you make with this chip out of this bag, but rather here’s some real ingredients that you can be proud of making something with. What can you do with them? And it gives you the opportunity to put your best foot forward.

Edited by pennben
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essexjan

essexjan

On 04/05/2017 at 3:07 AM, Evil Queen said:

Why oh why oh why? I don't like these kid versions of shows. I am not one for seeing kids compete and be put under the pressure of it all. 

 

I was watching an episode of Chopped Junior a while ago where they were asking the kids what they'd do with the money if they won.

One kid, a girl from the Upper East Side in New York, one of those snotty, entitled types, said: "If I win the $10,000 I'm going to donate it all to our family foundation which is devoted to medical research. All my family are doctors and we all believe it's important to Give Something Back."

Alex Guarnaschelli  tried to smile but looked as if she'd just thrown up a little in her mouth. I knew how she felt.

Then they asked the boy from Ohio what he'd spend it on: "If I win the $10,000 I'm gonna buy a hot tub."

Scott Conant nearly pissed himself laughing.

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HunterHunted

HunterHunted

On 7/23/2017 at 1:19 PM, cooksdelight said:

http://www.bravotv.com/blogs/biggest-celebrity-chef-scandals?cid=soc_dg_fb_Feast_TopChef

I really wish they put all of the Paula Deen issues in that blurb because it was waaaaaaaaay worse than saying the N-word once 30 years ago. There was the separate entrance for black staff, the plantation themed wedding, her brother's drug use, sexual harassment of staff, use of racial epithets at staff, and watching pornography in the restaurant, and so many other messed up things that she and her brother admitted in their depositions.

Has anyone been following the Top Chef trial? It's great that the teamsters could confirm all of the worst stereotypes of union members and Bostonians. It makes me want to rewatch that season because I had no idea that was going on. I don't think any of that came across on camera.

http://deadline.com/2014/08/padma-lakshmi-boston-teamsters-attack-top-chef-820137/

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Bastet

Bastet

3 hours ago, HunterHunted said:

I really wish they put all of the Paula Deen issues in that blurb because it was waaaaaaaaay worse than saying the N-word once 30 years ago. There was the separate entrance for black staff, the plantation themed wedding, her brother's drug use, sexual harassment of staff, use of racial epithets at staff, and watching pornography in the restaurant, and so many other messed up things that she and her brother admitted in their depositions.

Jeez, yes; the simplistic coverage of the various transgressions revealed was a problem then, and it's even worse now when someone gives some little few-line summary that ignores every single thing other than that one incident.

Top Chef in the media?  I've got nothing, sorry, but the coverage of Deen's hostile (racist and sexist) work environment is a long-standing peeve.

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biakbiak

biakbiak

12 hours ago, cooksdelight said:

I saw the story on last night's news about the teamsters, and Padma saying they were smelly and had beer guts.

 The above article was written in 2014 and given the abuse they spewed at her and the crew that would seem crazy benign.

Here is an article from yesterday reiterating the crazy hate speech that was spewed at her and other crew members. Including a clip of the video introduced of one of the defendants calling a former producer the C word and "towel head".  

Team Padma all the way.

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LiveenLetLive

LiveenLetLive

18 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

Well, this will bum out a lot of people - especially since it seems to be true:

https://www.eater.com/2017/10/23/16524266/john-besh-steps-down-sexual-harassment

I'm glad that someone brought this up--I am in shock, for one thing, I am sure that I am not the only person who had a TV crush on Besh he is just so "aw shucks" cute, clearly finding a woman on the side would have been no problem, so he thought it would be more exciting to drug a woman and have relations with her without her consent? my mind boggles.

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Spunkygal

Spunkygal

(edited)
32 minutes ago, biakbiak said:

Open Letter from Tom regarding the kitchen environment that makes it more difficult for women.

Ok, that was a well-written letter and he sounds genuine. I like him even more for this. 

Edited by Spunkygal
Removed facetious comment that had the wrong tone. Hey, we all make mistakes!
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biakbiak

biakbiak

4 minutes ago, Spunkygal said:

Now I wish he'd tell Padma, who is very attractive, to put on some clothes and that we don't need to see her cleavage

Since a man telling a grown woman what she should and should not wear is the exact opposite sentiment of that letter, I very much doubt he would do that and if he did Padma would tell him to fuck off.

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Spunkygal

Spunkygal

3 minutes ago, biakbiak said:

Since a man telling a grown woman what she should and should not wear is the exact opposite sentiment of that letter, I very much doubt he would do that and if he did Padma would tell him to fuck off.

You are 100% correct and I apologize. I should have just said that I wish Padma would cover the girls. I was being facetious which did not translate.

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staphdude

staphdude

17 hours ago, spiderpig said:

Agree with @Spunkygal - very well thought out and written.

If his 'wichcraft was still open in SF, I'd go have a sammie in his honor.

It’s closed! Awwww. Moved out of the Bay Area a while ago and I miss places like that. Especially enjoy supporting people like Tom. 

Now I just scrape by on crumbs in my new culinary wasteland

Snarklepuss

Snarklepuss

I find it ironic that Tom would write such a piece as his restaurants have not been any stranger to allegations of sexist comments/harassment being tolerated over the years.  Not perpetuated by him but he was present and allowed it to go on.  I suppose he's seen the light, which is commendable, but I hope he enforces it now.

Re: 'wichcraft, it looks like the western locations didn't survive, meanwhile the NYC ones are still open despite only 3 star reviews on Yelp.

Fiero425

Fiero425

On ‎11‎/‎29‎/‎2017 at 5:02 PM, biakbiak said:

The Ten Commandments.

Both Katie Joel and Padma are as dull as boiled potatoes with no seasoning, gravy, or butter! Both have stilted speech patterns making it seem as if they're reading off a "cue" card! Years ago I saved an interview show online called "The Chow" after Season 2, since they discussed Marcel's humiliating assault! They came down hard on Padma's ridiculous wardrobe and made fun of the way she spoke even when she played a part as a princess on an old "Star Trek: Enterprise" episode! ;-)

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