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Harold Dieterle

Uncle Jonathan Got Hosed

Harold catches up on the last two episodes of 'Top Chef Masters.'

August 5, 2009

All I have to say for last week, is Uncle Jonathan got f—king hosed. He’s Uncle Jonathan. Because of him, we all are where we are today, because he started it. He’s the first rock star. He’s Uncle Jonathan. He’s one of my dear and closest friends. I wish I worked with him at some point and I never did. And I can’t think of too many other people than I get more nervous cooking for.

I thought it clearly came down to the Quickfire. He got f—king hosed on the Quickfire. I thought he did a nice dish. Art did a risotto. That’s not risotto. That’s not what risotto looks like. Risotto is a cooking method. It looked like rice on a plate to me — it looked gross. In my opinion risotto is like the number one most bastardized dish in the United States. Everybody says they do a risotto, but who does a risotto right? That’s who I want to see. That winning risotto wasn’t even cooked properly.

I thought Michael’s chocolate dish looked great. I thought it was really sharp. I thought it was a tight dish and I’m not disputing that at all. What I am disputing is that Uncle Jonathan got hosed in the Quickfire Challenge, only getting those x amount of stars. The dish was much better composed than that disaster of a risotto.

I think that's why Jonathan lost. I mean, I love fried chicken. And the little pile looked nice. So yeah I felt a little disappointed. I wanted to see Uncle Jonathan win.

Roy had no game. He just couldn’t do it. I would think at some point you kind of know the type of chef you are. Why sign up for this if you don’t think you’re going to be able to do it. Some people can put sh-t together on the fly and other people need a lot of time to conceive things, which is clearly your style. It’s just funny to me. Michael’s clearly the most contemporary chef I relate to the most. So, it’s just like, why shouldn’t everybody do super, ultra classical food that’s kind of cute, like a throwback.

Onto this week's episode: What I think would’ve been pretty cool is at some point, there should be record holders. They do this competition every year and I want to see a stopwatch. I want to see a stopwatch on the bottom right hand corner. And I want to see who the champion are. I want to see if someone can break chickens down faster than Hung. Or some who can break down oysters quicker than Brian Malarkey. That’s what I want to see. And they keep doing this competition every season so there should be the mise en place wall of heroes.

I think I probably would have done pretty well on all of them. I don’t whisk egg whites. I’m very good with my knives. I’m very good at opening oysters. My first job was kind of like a shellfish shucker/ dishwasher and I had a little marine entire island. I saw a lot of interesting things. I have pretty top-notch knife skills.

And I still do stuff like that in my kitchen. I do everything. I have a small kitchen.

It is clear that Anita is not rusty at all. She’s in her kitchen cooking everyday. She is on the top of her game. And I ate at Bottega, Michael Chiarello’s place. He did a TV thing for a while and wasn’t really cooking at a restaurant. He’s got a lot of stuff going on, he’s a busy guy. So, I wouldn’t really see him doing everything. But after tasting his food, I know that he is very legit.

One of the other chefs said they’d never seen someone cut it like Art had. Here’s the deal: When you chop an onion, you’re supposed to make seriously legit slices; the way Hubert Keller was doing it. There’s no difference from what Art was doing than putting it in a Cuisinart or Robot Coupe and just grinding, and the problem with that is you’re bruising and shredding all the onions and all the moisture just comes pouring out. It’s kind of a half-job, but is it effective for a speed competition when you’re not using the product? Sure. But the way Art was cutting isn’t the proper way to cut an onion. Hubert was cutting the onions properly.

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Love It 'Top Chef's' Season 1 winner doesn't hold back in his critiques. August 5, 20095 Comments Top Chef Masters Season 1 / Episode 5 / Harold Dieterle

Comments

6 Comments

Hiya Harold,

I like to get your point of view. However, this tirade made little sense to me. I wasn't sure who "Uncle Jonathan" was until I read much further on... I'm not sure why you felt he "got hosed". From my perspective, it seemed as though he "hosed" the other chef that he purchased ingredients for by denying Michael's favorite ingredients. 'Not sure that was very sporting of him!

That said, I wasn't impressed by fried chicken being the winning dish! It's not very interesting.

Although were dealing with all these great chefs, it just seams to me the only two that show love, passion and respect for the food they are cooking are Michael and Rick and one of them will ultimately be the winner.

Hiya Harold!

I like your idea for the mise en place relay race as a permanent fixture of TC. It's also a good idea to keep the record holder's stats for others to match...

Much of your comments regarding "Uncle Jonathan" were lost on me. I wasn't sure who you were referring to. Once I realized it was Chef Waxman, I still didn't understand your gripe about his treatment. It was HE who sabotaged his opponent by denying his favorite ingredient. It was HE that was more arrogant than the other chefs. It was HE that displayed little class in the kitchen by being ubercompetitive. Not sure why you feel HE was wronged... Perhaps you don't heart Art. I'm not much of a fan of glorified home cooking trying too hard to be considered a masterpiece. Fried chicken seemed somewhat unoriginal and unappealing to win. Then again, I didn't taste the food and don't know if Jonathan's pork was truly superior. It looked and sounded better.

Harold, I think you are being a little close-minded about the onion. I immediately recognized the way Art was chopping the onions. Its a similar technique I use at home as well. And to say that it is the same as using the Cuisinart is completely offbase. I can get an excellent dice using the method Art used. There is no bruising of the onion. Just because its not a culinary school technique does not make it a lesser way of doing it. You should experiment with it. I actually think its a much more effective way to chop onions.

Harold, I don't think you're being objective. You're obviously favoring the East Coast chefs.

I do agree that the wrong chef left. Suzanne should have stayed and Art, gone.

I was surprised at the comments here about Jonathan Waxman. I understand that he is somewhat legendary and admired; but of all the tc masters episodes, I was actually most disappointed in the behavior of Jonathan Waxman. - When all the chefs went to choose ingredients for one of their colleagues, everyone else purchased what they knew their fellow chef would most want (and they all knew what the others were known for) but Chef Waxman said that he chose to "deny" seafood to michael, who is a passionate seafood chef. I thought it showed a real lack of class.
As far as the episode with Art Smith's lamb dish, I agree that this looked the worst and the wrong person went home.

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