Previously on “Top Chef”: everyone went to Calgary so we can justify the “Canada” label. The Quickfire was a pancake breakfast, which was cute but too many people made cornmeal hoecakes. Shuai won because he is surpassing Tristen as the frontrunner. Then everyone had to make beef and berries, because of the Calgary Stampede. The editing leaned heavily on Tristen's “narrative” and insistence on making pemmican because otherwise how is he going to honor anything. But Massimo “cooked from the heart” or whatever so he won. I need him to understand “umeboshi” is a specific thing and not a technique. In general people who tried to cover up their berries were in the bottom, but because Bailey did well in the Quickfire and Cesar and Lana did not, Lana went home. (click for more)
Y'all, today was the last day of school, and only one of my students ignored the deadline for completing work so I have been celebrating a lil bit. The recap might be a little disjointed.
Everyone says Lana was funny and they're sad she's gone. Honestly everyone is somber but Bailey is crying because of course she is. She wants to see a woman in the finals and she's the last one left. Please, y'all. Bailey is really leaning into the toxic positivity and calling everything cute and I cannot handle it. Massimo insists he can girl talk, and then Tristen says he loves to get his nails done. Heh.
Cesar makes weird dolphin heads out of half a banana and a blueberry, and some cloves for eyes. Waiting for everyone are tote bags with leather gloves. Cesar knows they are going foraging and he's thinking about if it's been raining enough for mushrooms. He says last year he found a 15 pound hen of the woods mushroom. Nice.
On the drive to wherever, Massimo admits he's never camped before. Cesar is like, what kind of childhood did you have, and they both laugh. The mountains are gorgeous. Kristen is waiting for them to tell them all there is no Quickfire today. Well then how are they going to decide who is safe? Right? It's the last Elimination challenge in Canada. Not everyone is “outdoorsy”. Tristen says he works so hard to have a roof over his head, he likes to stay under that roof. Heh. That's fair. “Outside” and “outdoors” are not the same thing.
For the Elimination challenge, here are Brenda Holder (chyroned as “Cree Knowledge Keeper of Traditional Medicine”) and Tracy Little, “master forager”. It's time for foraging. You must create a dish using foraged ingredients. Brenda and Tracy will help you. The main ingredients must be foraged, but the contestants will get $200 to shop back in town. Also a “small additional pantry” of other foraged ingredients. 2.5 hours to cook tomorrow. Outside over an open flame. Massimo gets an extra 30 minutes because he won last week. Winner also gets $10,000.
Brenda insists they all make an offering and respect the land before they take anything. Bailey gets more interview time which I find suspicious. I know that she already gets a lot of confessional time, but I almost feel like she's the only one talking today. Brenda and Tracy lead everyone around and explain whatever they see. Massimo gets some confessional time to say he only uses flowers in season and only from his mother's garden. Can you imagine being Massimo's mother? There's some fresh juniper berries too. Shuai wants to make medicinal broth. He interviews that when you get older, you realize what an idiot you were as a kid. True. I love watching everyone dig stuff up and taste things. Tracy leads them to an anthill and they all all get some ants. Y'all, you know I loves some hipster bullshit. Insects are where the line is. Everyone says they're like lemon and vinegar and Bailey says “You know what is like lemon? Is lemon segments.” Fair. Tracy says she freezes ants and then toasts them. Cesar says he's had ants before in Mexico. Tristen admits they're finding a ton of stuff in just this little area. But he's having trouble melding “the culinary and the culture” for the challenge. Really? He had zero problem with his “making pemmican is honoring the culture” from last week. Surely foraging wild ingredients from the land itself would lend you to the culture. Right? Oh, it's because he doesn't know these ingredients, himself, so he doesn't know what to do. It's not his culture.
So everyone goes back to town, and discusses their ideas. Tristen wants to smoke meat. Bailey says their minds are going in the same direction, and then Tristen is like, do you want to just share a dish? OK how is that supposed work? Shuai says it's now the four of them against Massimo. What? You can't all do the same dish? In the other car Massimo is passed out and snoring. This is still dumb, you can't collaborate. Massimo wakes up and goes to the store to buy trout to smoke with the juniper he got. And he's making bannock, which is a flatbread. Bailey says she is struggling. I thought you were sharing a dish with Tristen? But Tristen has no idea either. Maybe they were kidding. Bailey finally decides on a lamb skewer and beans. Cesar is making some mushrooms and thinking of dishes you make over an open fire. Someone buys charcoal briquettes.
Back at the hotel/apartments/whatever, everyone drinks wine and talks about pausing their lives to be on the show and how they've had time to reflect. Massimo talks about trying to prove himself but on the show he's surrounded by high-quality chefs and it's keeping him focused. Bailey tells everyone it shook her to be surrounded by these chefs. Tristen talks about being thrown back to when they were all cooks and they were hungry to succeed. Shuai says he thought he'd peaked, so thank you to everyone for showing him he still had it in him.
In the morning, Tristen does his nails. Bailey says she thinks she knows what she's doing, but “the food and the ingredients” will guide her. She talks also about glam rock and experimentation. OK Bailey has had too much screen time today. She's clearly top or bottom. Tristen says he woke up at 3am with an epiphany and a plan for his dish. He tells his car that he knows how to tie this into his own story. Like, he thought “black people don't go to the mountains!” and then realized the Taino people did, the indigenous people of Jamaica, and they invented jerk, so he's making jerk pork. It feels a little contrived, but I'm not going to look up if it's true. I'm sure it is, I just don't like the “what will I do, I can't identify with this personally, oh wait yes I can”. He tells his car he wants to go to Italy and make all Ethiopian food. Massimo of course wants to go to Italy.
Outdoor cooking with campfires, lots of wood, and a table of other random foraged ingredients. Bailey has poplar flavors. I think the fires have been started, because otherwise it would take too long. But Tristen has briquettes too, because he wants to grill on one side and smoke on the other side. Bailey says she has “cowpeas”, which are black-eyed peas, but it's “Cowtown” so she's decided she's thematically appropriate. But she will need all of her time to cook the beans properly. She also wanted to make dandelion greens too, so she's hoping it all works. Shuai has rose hips, and Massimo is poking holes in his potatoes so they get smoky. Cesar has a pineapple. Tristen is upset he lost to Massimo last episode so the protein has to be perfect. Shuai chars some cabbage but with his “medicinal stock”.
Tom Time! Have we had Tom Time at all this season? I feel like he hasn't come by ever. Tristen has replaced the usual spices in his jerk seasoning with his foraged stuff. Cesar has lots of mushrooms and also ants. Massimo got a lot of mustard. He's also got trout, and Tom is like, there are a lot of trout in the river over there, supposedly, and Massimo is all, yeah? You wanna go later? Are you busy? Heh. Bailey does a shit job of pretending she's having a good time. Tom sees right through this. He also tells Shuai he's on a roll, right now. He's been feeling more of himself lately, and says they should cook outdoors more. Maybe “Top Chef: Naked and Afraid”. Heh. Tom interviews about everyone and manages to say nothing important except that Bailey has dandelion greens, and they are very bitter so she will need some sweetness.
Meanwhile Bailey needs more poplar syrup in her lamb, but it's so strong. But she needs that flavor. Tristen has nettles to make callaloo (greens cooked in coconut milk). But not really coconut milk, “coconut milk” made out of parsnips. Massimo has a big rock on the fire to make his bannock. Cesar is making adobo and maybe with some ants. Shuai has ants too, so he's picking ants out of dirt and ice water.
The judges arrive to a table in a field which is amazing. Nicole from Top Chef is here again. Massimo has potato foam.
Tristen: “OG jerk” pork, plantain miso glaze, Quarry Lake callaloo, and coal roasted roots. There is birch sap glaze and poplar bark for cinnamon and yarrow for thyme. Etc. They love listening to him talk, and they do love how he made all the connections to his own heritage. Tom thinks he spent time with the ingredients and got to know them.
Bailey says she's finally happy with her dish. Cesar is making skewers. Cesar: mushroom trompo, mushroom pibil broth, and toasted ants. “Trompo” is the name for the vertical stack of meat in al pastor or when you see gyro meat roasting. It's some vegetables in a bowl, with a random stick and meat stuck on the stick, and some kind of broth. The broth is great, and there are different textures on the skewer. It's bitter but the broth balances it.
Bailey says her beans are not quite done. Shuai also has toasted ants and cabbage. Massimo filets trout, and says it's hard to get it to cook right, but with crispy skin also, over an open fire. He is confident, though, which you could expect. Bailey interviews this dish is unlike anything she's made and she feels “exposed”. Bailey: lamb spiedino with grilled dandelion salad, “Cowtown” cowpeas, and thistle root puree. Spiedino is a skewer. They seem to like it? But the peas have a weird flavor. Then Tom says he's still eating it, anyway. The cowpeas are crunchy, but we could have guessed that from all the screen time about it.
Shuai feels good about his dish, because it's out of memory and love. Shuai: roasted cabbage with rose hip-glazed pork belly, sour cabbage broth, lovage, and thatching ant togarashi. There is also his “medicinal” stock. There are a lot of “wows”. It's extra flavorful cabbage. Tom says he loves his job.
Kristen asks Tom how Massimo was during Tom Time. Tom says “It's Massimo” and they all laugh. He's smoking trout and being extra. Massimo: grilled trout with mustard sauce, smoked potato puree, and bannock with wildflowers. They all laugh at how extra he is. He focused on the mustard and it went really well. Well-balanced but all the herbs on the bannock are bitter. Nicole says it's dainty for such a big personality. Overall everyone did a fantastic job.
Judges' Table. Everyone was touched and honored by how they treated the ingredients. Massimo wanted to cook trout, and to make bread since he had extra time. The sauce was perfect, and Gail now thinks all the herbs on the bannock were a good balance. Ah, so because there was so much garnish on the bannock, it's not obvious you are supposed to dip it in the sauces, so the balance isn't immediately obvious. Tristen says something about wild pigs and foraging. Nothing to do with his other story about indigenous Jamaicans who went to the mountains? Anyway, Tom says it tastes like he's been using these ingredients all his life. He “translated” the food in Canada to his own culture. Cesar was successful using ants, which are challenging to use. Everything really came together.
Shuai had a ton of flavors, and Brenda says she tasted the medicine, but she also felt it. Shuai is honored. Tom is jealous he himself didn't make this dish. Bailey says it was a weird day, because she didn't know if it would work. She made something unique and it felt like her. But the peas were underdone. Kristen tells everyone it was “exceptional” across the board.
It's going to be a hard day of judging. Tom thinks everyone is cooking their best right now. Tom says he thought Tristen's dish couldn't be beat, and then he had Shuai's dish. Wow. It made him want to get back in the kitchen and cook something. Tristen did have a great fusion. They seem to be the top two. Kristen wants to give it to Shuai, because it's nothing recognizable.
Cesar seems to be safe and in the middle, no one has anything bad to say. On another day he would easily win. Bailey had a really balanced sauce and it was a good condiment. She was maybe more adventurous, but the beans were undercooked and Tom says he didn't really like the birch glaze. Massimo cooked his trout perfectly, and the mustard was wonderful, but “mustard” is so common it wasn't that much of a challenge. Plus there was a lot of garnish on top of the bannock, and it was very strong. Overall, though, the dishes were “spectacular” and it's hard to pick one.
The winner today is Shuai. He says “Oh my God” a bunch of times and then he's speechless. He interviews that the last time he was this happy was when his wife said “yes”. Tristen and Cesar are also moving on to the finals. Cesar says he can't wait to tell his mom. Aww. Then Tristen says the same thing, and that he just wants to make his dad proud. Tom would love to take all five of them to Milan, but they can't. Massimo is eliminated. Bah. He's upset, but then Gail is like “You've made Canada very proud” and he's all “Gail! Don't make me cry now!” He seems pretty calm and Kristen gets choked up about how she looked forward to seeing him every day. Tom demands a hug. Massimo is looking forward to serving people. Kristen could not be prouder of them.
Next week: some Olympians, voting, cooking outside on those trash “outdoor kitchens”.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment