Top Chef: Big Thighs And Big Sighs

This was the week of learning secrets. Like, um, well, Ed likes to wear Tiffany's dresses. I mean, was I the only one who thought Ed liked Tiffany for Tiffany, not for her wardrobe?

And we also learn that Amanda doesn't seem to shower, but she does spray her head with something before leaving the house. There is also the discovery that when Angelo was younger he built an Altar To The Four Star Chefs, and would pray before it.

Yeah, I thought Ed's secret was the weird one, too, until I learned Angelo's. And then, before the show is over, we find out that Angelo has only seen his fiancee twice in person, but he talks to her on the phone every day and needs the Top Chef 100k to get her from Russia to America and solve her Visa problems.

Does anyone else see this working out badly?

But I digress.

QUICKFIRE

The cheftestants enter the kitchen to find Padma waiting with Guest judge, Rick Moonen, who is, apparently, a seafood god. The chefs are certain that this test will be all about the seafood.

Wrong.

It's about idioms. Food idioms. I know. I was like WTF, too. The chefs must create a dish based on a food idiom and the winner's dish will be added to the Schwan Home Delivery service as a frozen meal.

A frozen food idiom if you will.

Kelly sees one such food idiom sign, Hide The Sausage, and she doesn't think she can do it. She can hardly say it without blushing. Lucky for her, there are more than six idioms on the tables.

Kevin picks Bring Home The Bacon--okay, now I get it--and creates a Kenny-inspired bacon-three-ways dish of Bacon Puree, with Chopped Bacon, a Bacon Froth and a Poached Egg. Amanda, who fancies herself The Big Cheese, opts to make a very light dish of Mac'n'Cheese and Pork Chops, while Ed plays Hot Potato, making Gnocchi and Spring Vegetables. Tiff Spills The Beans into a bean stew--a canned bean stew.....oh Tiffany--with pan-sared Cod, and Angelo has Bigger Fish To Fry, which he does by creating one of his standard Asian dishes of Fired Tilapia Satay with Asian Tartar. Kelly gives us Sour Grapes, by serving Pan Roasted Chicken Breast with Caramelized Brussels Sprout Leaves and a Red Grape sauce.

Needless to say, Kelly and Amanda are bottom two, while Kevin and Ed rise to the top and Ed is Declared The Big Cheese With Bigger Fish to Fry. Angelo goes all Sour Grapes because he didn't get to Bring Home The Bacon and says Ed won because he looks like a Not-So-Hot Potato.

ELIMINATION CHALLENGE

The Cheftetstants will run a concession stand at Washington DC's National Stadium. They will work as one team to create a minimum of six dishes to be sold at the game. But, and here's the rub, they must create fine dining versions of stadium food.

I'm picking Corn Dogs and Andouillle sausage because one year someone else did that during the stadium challenge.

Again, probably why I'm not a Top Cheftestant.

As the chefs gather to figure out a game plan, Kelly seems to take charge, and Tiffany is worried because Kelly is, well, Kelly.

I mean....Tiffany. Worried about Kelly. Kelly. Leadership. None of that makes sense, but still, let's rip.....

ED

His first thought is ball game. Followed by fried food.

Fried.Food.

He's going to do Shrimp and Corn Fritters with Jalapeno Aioli.
And while we know that Ed likes to shuffle around the house in a sleeveless house dress, we also learn that math is not his strongest subject. He decides that each customer should get 3 fritters, and there are supposed to be 150 customers, so he'll make 550 fritters.

Which, by my trusty calculator, is about a hundred fritters too many.

Perhaps the numbers make his head spin, because Ed whirls through the kitchen like a Tasmanian Devil--as Angelo calls him--and actually, in his frenzy, shouts at Tiffany.

Something about borrowoing her earrings, I think.

He also gets the cartoon edit, because every time he disappears, off-camera we hear the sound of things collapsing.

Yet even with the mayhem and bad mulitplication skills, Rick Moonen likes the texture of Ed's fritters, and is especially fond of Ed's creamy center. And Eric Ripert is loving Ed's heat.

I think both judges like the idea of Ed in a housecoat serving up hot and creamy fritters.

TIFFANY
She remembers some kind of Texas State Fair, with sausage and peppers, and decides to riff that into a Meatball Sub with Basil Pesto and Fresh Mozzarella. And while it may sound sloppy, Tiffany somes from the school of If-It-Ain't-Dripping-On-Your-Shirt-It-Ain't-Good.

I, too, am a graduate of that school, so I love Tiffany even more.

And I love her because she is the anti-Angelo. She tatses Kevin's dish and offers an actual suggestion, not a half-assed suggestion designed to throw Kevin under a Crosstwon Meatball Sub.

Tiffany wants to win because she is good, not because she's trying to ruin his dish and win by default.

I am now Vice-President of Public Relations for Team Tiffany.

The judges come by and they all like her dish, though Eric Ripert thinks it's hard to eat and Tom feels it isn't tidy.

Tidy? Is that some kind of food idiom?

Rick Moonen tells us he likes to wrestle with his meatballs.

I swear that's what he said. He liked wrestling it!

KEVIN

He likes the idea of chicken because it's simple, but forgets that sometimes simple has to pack it's knives.

He'll do a Chicken Kabob with Romesco, Shoestring Fries and Smoked Paprika Aioli.
Kevin is still pissed at Kenny getting knifed, both by Angelo and by Padma, so he is taking his anger out on Angelo by arguing during the prep time over Angelo's offer to lead.

And he is sooo pissed that Kenny is gone, that he takes it out on his dish, Kenny-style, by putting too much into it and on it. And putting it on a long skewer that the guests are impaling themselves on.

In fact, the judges, while they like the chicken, are a'scurred of the skewer, which Eric Ripert shows us by sliding most of it into his mouth.

I'm impressed.

But then Ripert says he doesn't get the fries, because they are now soggy shoestrings.

And that ain't good.

KELLY
After ordering Amanda to give up doing crab--perhaps Kelly is assuming a leadership role--Kelly opts to do some kind of Crab Cake.

An Open-Faced Crab Cake, BLT with Sweet Potato Fries. She is determined and methodical and ballsy, at least according to Aneglo, but that may be a strategy for sending her home.

One thing she trul is, however, is all hot'n'bothered by the arrival of some of the National players. They're big guys, she says breathlessly, and they're cute up close and she can't cook, and, now, suddenly, she is all about Hiding The Sausage.

But then it hits her: Top Chef. And she's back at her crab cakes, obsessing that her, um, bacon is too thick. It's almost as thick as that ballplayers thighs and what will she.....what? Oh yes. Bacon. Too thick. And not enough bread.

But, oh man, that guy's thighs........
Rick likes her dish--I think he said that about everyone's dish--though he wished it had the crunch of lettuce or the texture [read: non-crunch] of tomato. Eric thought the thick bacon was too much--perhaps he didn't see that guy's thighs--while Padma finds it too salty. Tom, however, loves the salt because it makes him order another beer. Which, I think, is the point of baseball stadium food.

Drink.More.
ANGELO

Still playing that same one-note, Angelo will go Asian Dim Sum. Or a Sweet Glazed Pork on Lobster Roll [read: Hot Dog Bun] with Sweet Sesame Pickles.

But while his food is one-dimensional, Angelo goes completely out of character, and offers to work the counter when the cheftestants realize they need someone to take orders. But then, true to character, or lack thereof, once they reach the ballpark Angelo changes his mind and starts handing out order sheets to everyone until Kevin snaps.

Kevin, still feeling the loss of Kenny, reminds Angelo that he offered to be counter help, so he will be counter help. I'm beginning to like Kevin.

Angelo paces and stomps and pouts, and perhaps prays the the Four Star Gods, until Ed offers to plate his dish for him. Angelo reluctantly agrees, though he isn't sure Ed means it, because Angelo doesn't know the meaning of Team Player.

Speaking of players, Angelo gets almost as hot as Kelly when the ballplayers arrive. He says it's because he always wanted to be a baseball player, but, um, he didn't have a baseball shrine in his basement. I think he likes ball players for entirely different reasons.

Big.Thighs.

The judges meanwhile offer big sighs for Angelo's dish. They all agree that the bread was too much, and Tom even goes so far as to say the bread killed it. Padma also notes that it was too sweet, but, um, Padma, the word sweet was used twice in his description of the dish, so you should have know it would be Two Sweet.
AMANDA
She wanted to do something cold, with crab, but then Kelly announced she wanted to do crab and would Amanda choose something else.

Mistake One.

Amanda chooses to do a Tuna Tartare with Fennel, Meyer Lemon, and a Fava Bean Puree. And she decides, after consulting with Angelo, whom we all know is out for himself and not about to help anyone else, to tartare the tuna the night before.

Mistake Two--listening to Angelo.

Mistake Three. Doing a tartare the night before.

See, the next day, at the ballpark, Amanda's tartare has turned as grey and dead as her soul. Angelo reminds us that she should have drizzled some olive oil on it to keep it from oxidizing but he never told her that, because, well, he's playing to win, and he's an ass.

The judges liked the flavor but couldn't get beyond the gray tuna. Amanda tried to blame the bad tartare on working in a stadium kitchen, but her weak excuses fall on deaf ears.

JUDGES TABLE

All six cheftestants are brought into the kitchen and Padma begins by asking Angelo why he assumed the role of counter-help.

Angelo, because he'll do anything other than just cook good food to win, tells the judges that since he owns a sandwich shop he was "happy" to do it. But Tiffany digressses, and tells the judges that while he did offer to lead, at the last minute he tried to change his mind.

My girl ain't playin'!

And through all of this, Tom reminds Angelo, that as a sandwich shop owner, he should never have sevred such a soggy giant Hot Dog Bun. It killed Tom's sandwich and made him want to have another beer.

Ed gets props for the Fritters, even after all the bad math and madness in the kitchen, while Tiffany gets credit for her delicious, albeit messy sandwich. In the end, Ed finally wins, and gets a copy of Rick Moonen's new book.

Yeah. A book.

But he also gets a trip to Australia, where I'm sure his fondness for wearing women's clothes won't go unnoitced.

Angelo, Kelly, Kevin, and Amanda, all sink to the bottom due to soggy bvread, fat bacon, long skewers and gray fish.

But, it's gray fish that the worst sin of all and Amanda gets knifed, and all I can think is, It's about time. I'll miss her idiotic asides about how bad the other chefs are and how she studied French cuisine, but made Mac'n'Cheese and gray tuna.

Buh bye, Amanda.