'Top Chef All-Stars' Casey Explains the Chicken Feet Fiasco
"It was set up for disaster," the foodie says about her dim sum dismissal.
Points for creativity? Not so much for Top Chef All-Stars' Casey Thompson. The Texas chef was told to pack up her knives after a culinary mishap involving (what else?) chicken feet.
"Looking back at it now, it was set up for disaster," she tells E! Online about this week's group challenge to cook dim sum for about 100 people dining in a New York Chinatown restaurant. "Like [the judges] said, chicken feet is not dim sum. That's like street food. Whoops, but you also don't find cabbage rolls with oxtail wrapped around it. It's like, where do you want to stop your creativity? Do I just want to do minced shrimp in a wrap?"
Casey's had time to let her dim sum dismissal sink in, but she was still in shock when she sat down for our exit interview. "I've never heard 'Pack your knives and go before, so I was surprised," she told us at the time. "I know there are people who totally freak out when they lose on Top Chef, but I just don't think that's me."
True to her word, Casey still hasn't freaked out, and looking back on it now, she thinks she made a gutsy move. "I'm not scared," she told E! Online. "The group also agreed we needed variety, not just a bunch of dim sum... But in the end, the comments that I got from the judges were that the chicken felt were inedible, which really is like being punched in the gut and slapped in the face all at the same time."
What do you think? Did Casey deserve to go home? And would you ever tackle chicken's feet? Start a Tweet Battle and hammer it out with your friends.
