View All PostsGail Simmons
Gimme, Gimme More (Berry)
What's a judge gotta do to taste some berry?
Dec 19, 2012Bravotv.com: Micah’s dish sounded so great.
GS: Micah’s is another example of an amazing idea: strawberry short cake fried chicken, with strawberries! That sounds amazing! Bring it on. He just didn’t pull it off. There were freeze-dried strawberries in the shortcake! You have mountains of fresh strawberries in the peak of their season. BAKE the fresh strawberries; give me some strawberries! The chicken was good; but although he put some strawberries into the chicken batter, I didn’t taste any strawberry there either. The dish could have been good if this wasn’t a strawberry challenge. But it was—it was first and foremost a strawberry challenge.
Bravotv.com: If he had put fresh strawberries in the biscuit it wouldn’t have been dry.
GS: Correct, correct! But anyway, Sheldon made a wonderful, beautiful, fresh, ahi poke roll. It was actually interesting to compare this poke roll to Josie’s roll, which we’ll talk about later. Concept was very similar; he did it right, she did it wrong. He had this fresh, bright, strawberry sauce. He had the sweet chilis and the fresh beautiful roll that had great crunch on a hot day—it was delicious.
Bravotv.com: Next up we have Josie and Lizzie.
GS: Here was some crazy business. The Rock ‘n’ Raspberry Roll -- It was not good. I’m so sorry, but there were so many issues we all had. First, she tried to overcompensate because she clearly wasn’t ready, she was sloppy, her work place was a mess, she had 50 components but wasn’t ready to serve them, and because of that, there was literally a 40-person deep line all day for her food, not because it was great, not because people were coming back for seconds, but because you couldn’t get firsts. So that right there was a major strike against her. And then, this Josie Show, laughing trying to teach people—I don’t care. I want my food, I don’t care if you can juggle and tap-dance, unfortunately. That kind of drove of us all crazy. I guess when she’s nervous, she talks a lot, and I get that, but it was really distracting. Which was why I thought she was smoking something (which by the way would have been completely legal in the state of Washington, as of now. No judgment! I’m just judging the food!
But the actual food itself was bad—it was messy, and sloppy, and falling apart. She made this rollthat wasn’t seasoned, and she made these two mayonnaise-y sauces with the raspberry. BUT, we got no raspberry, no brightness, just a kind of creamy richness that sort of missed the point as a counter balance to the roll. Lizzie, on the other hand, did a great jobDo not underestimate your opponent, that’s the name of the game here. Lizzie made a creative dish that was totally out of left field. A cabbage roll with pork and bacon and raspberries? Who would have ever thought of that? And it worked perfectly -- it was the right size, seasoned well. I thought it was great, inspired, different, and I really enjoyed it.
What is up with all of the curssing this season? Volgar cussing? Sure is a turn off. There is no reason for it. I watched all of the seasons of Top Chef. But this season I will fill the Top Chef air time with another show on a different network.
Gail, this goes back to the episode with Tom Douglas at the Space Needle. Tom Douglas asked you what you would like to do while in Seattle and you said you wanted to go fishing. Did you get to go fishing? The last summer was one of our best in the Puget Sound for Chinook and fishing was great during the filming of the show.
Gayle, I love watching you, and hope your "dessert show" will be back. I know you were there when Kristen won, and Stefan kissed her. I hope that someone (camera crew, etc.) alerted the producers that he was letching after her a lot. And I hope the producers are decent enough to think that this doesn't make good tv if someone is being made uncomfortable. In a kitchen, that would be sexual harassment. I think she's too nice (and doesn't want to make an ugly enemy) to tell him to back off.
Absolutely delighted to see so many female chefs doing so well. Really hoping that at the end of this season, Stephanie won't still be the only female winner of Top Chef!
when, oh when is josie going away? she is obnoxious, combative and a complete moron, not to mention how many times has she been on the bottom?
I wish I was a judge....or at least an attendee on this episode!!
I was salivating at the sight of all those BEAUTIFUL berries!! I'm with you, Gail-I would've been eating them by the handfuls. Especially raspberries, blackberries, blueberries & strawberries! It's interesting to me that "raspberries" in certain regions means RED raspberries. We have black and red and gold raspberries here; they all have different flavors. I would love to see what they could do with all three.
Josie should have gone home imo, I think she literally failed in all areas of execution, when the camera zoomed out and we got to see that line, it was just like wow, Lizzie has served all of her food and what exactly is Josie doing. It looks like she is really about to explode too, against Stefan, probably the worst person to rage on because he will just not care, and that will make a person even madder. Can't wait!.
P.S. Danyele's must have been really, really, terrible.
so great to see Stephanie on the show tonight. i think she is amazing. in the "all stars" season Richard Blaise constantly whined that he lost his season because he "choked". how completely disrespectful of Stephanie and her talent. Richard, you lost because you were out-cooked. Stephanie is a rock star!!
hdwb What a great observation. We all did think Blaise would win that season, but you're right, no excuses. Stephanie was the star. As much as I love Richard, I do buy into his angst and self-torture.
Gayle, I think that Stefan is very good at manipulating the other contestants and the judges. He fawns over all the women except Josie, who would probably pop him in the chops if he did, but the other women are too polite or to aware of how making him mad can cause him to undermine you. The statement about John's talking about the tuna being frozen was "ridiculous--it had nothing to do with anything" I believe was a case of you along, with everyone except Tom and the people who were around him in the tent, buying his explanation of him saying it as soon as Tom entered the tent, as if he ran to Tom, without any reason, "tattling" on his choice of the frozen tuna. John DID mention at the market that he thought using frozen fish on Top Chef was giving less than the best for Top Chef standards. That was his opinion, and he didn't hide it. By the same token, he did not run tattling to Tom. After askin Stefan why he chose to compete against John, Stefan said it was because he was the oldest chef (the same thing he said when he chose John. Then Tom went to John and said something jokingly about what Stefan said, and then he asked Tom why he thought he would win (asking, I assume for his opinion), and John said, "because he is using frozen fish", laughing as he said it. When they went back to the room, Stefan loudly told the group that John threw him under the bus, repeating his version of the episode. One of the women who had seen what happened quietly said, "That's not exactly how it happened," but Stefan ignored her and started loudly and aggressively asking each chef if he or she had ever used frozen fish in their restaurants. Stefan is the one who turned this into an incident.
- spam
- offensive
- disagree
- off topic
Like