Top Chef Watch: Chefs In Space

I’m back after a whirlwind trip to the world’s foggiest city, and I’m glad to know you were all kept in good hands last week with your substitute Top Chef Recapper. There are now only two more episodes left in season eight of Top Chef and the contestants are definitely feeling the heat.

There are two scenarios for the end of a competition reality show; 1) Everyone hates everyone else, or 2) Everyone loves everyone else. Turns out that this year’s Cheftestants are going all Project Runway on us and have decided to actually like one another. So, sufficed to say, you better pick a favorite contestant if you want to stay engaged in this season, because any hope of drama coming to Top Chef is long gone.

This week’s Quickfire Challenge was all about pairing. That is, pairing great wine with great food. Traditional American wisdom tells us that as long as you wake up with a headache, you just experienced great wine. However, those fancy-ass French folk want us to believe that certain types of wine pair better with certain types of dishes. I blame the liberal mainstream media for this travesty against America.

Angelo’s Sauteed Foie Gras with Black Salt & Fennel Salad wowed the judges, and it isn’t hard to see why. Seriously, it looks really delicious. I haven’t the slightest idea what a fennel is, but I’m sure it tastes better than it sounds. His dish was paired with the “Evolution” wine, which I’m assuming is made out of highly evolved grapes and managed to blow the judges away. So to speak.

The Quickfire Challenge tasked the Cheftestants with creating a dish that could be freeze-dried and sent into space. Here’s the problem: How in the world would a chef know what can and can not be adequately frozen and sent into space? People go to college to learn stuff like that (no, really!), not culinary school. So when that nerdy food chick started chiming in about how hard it would be to get ribs into space, Buzz Aldrin should have shot her with his martian bagging gun. That would have made this episode infinitely more interesting.

By the way, does anyone else think that Buzz Aldrin is bored? I honestly think that he’s one step away from renting his services out to birthday parties for nerdy eight year olds. Poor guy. That’s what happens when you’re the second guy to get on the moon; next time, beat Neil at rock, paper, scissors.

Jacob’s Pick: Kevin

Kevin put together a New York Strip Steak with Bacon, Jalapeno & Corn Puree in an effort to give a little bit of home to the astronauts. He was criticized for his lack of originality, but I think that Kevin really got this challenge. When it comes down to it, astronauts are just people working far away from their loved ones for long periods of time. When you’re up there floating around, fixing space stations, and eating toothpaste, you start to miss things. Things like steak. Just watching this episode made me miss steak, and I’m not going to the bathroom into a vacuum-like toilet.

Judge’s Pick: Angelo

Angelo’s short ribs looked great, but the pea puree really turned me off. Seriously. How insensitive to Ed.

Pack It: Tiffany

We’ve hit that point in Top Chef where you don’t really want anyone to go home because they’re all very good at what they do. I’m honestly shocked to see Tiffany go home; I expected her to be in the finale, especially since she had such a strong showing in the last few episodes. I would have liked to see Kelly take the dive, but I don’t always get what I want, as my girlfriend keeps reminding me.

Also, fun fact, the last two episodes of the season are being held in Singapore. Yeah. I don’t get it either.