Spike’s been busy!

Spike’s been a busy boy since getting booted off Top Chef – check out what’s going on with his new restaurant Good Stuff Eatery in DC!

Week Eight: Common Threads

Opening shot of Lisa the Hack smoking a cigarette on the balcony. Nice pad they’ve got there in Chicago. Antonia the moron shares: “I wake up this morning, like, fired up… fuck everybody. I came here to win.” Yeah, that’ll happen. When it comes to filler, she’s the butter to Nikki’s bread.

Quickfire!

The QF guest judge is Oprah’s personal chef Art Smith. This challenge is apparently sponsored by Uncle Ben’s… barf. Oh well, they’ve only got fifteen minutes to turn out an entree, so whatever.

Antonia the Hack serves up rice salad with skirt steak, arugula, red onions and cherry tomatoes. Hack, hack, hack.

Nikki presents veggie fried rice with mushroom, snap peas, zucchini and eggs. Yum!

From Richard we get a tuna steak with tomatoes over rice with a yuzu vinagrette.

Stephanie takes it to the next level with brown rice pancakes with scallops.

Spike dishes up rice stuffed tomatoes with veal, port and rice wine vinegar – they look a bit messy, but interesting all the same.

Lisa the Hack has rice, corn, black beans and peppers with avocado creme and grilled shrimp.

Dale whipped up pineapple fried rice with grilled scallops and grilled long beans.

Mark has miso glazed turkey over rice with snap peas and grapes.

Finally, we get wild rice crusted fish with almond and sun dried tomato pesto from Andrew.

Bottom three: Mark (booo), Stephanie (booo) and Lisa (YES YES YES YES YES).
Top Three: Dale, Richard (yea to both!) and Antonia. Are you kidding me? And shit, she wins – we have to deal with this fucking idiot for yet another week. Barf.

Elimination Challenge!

Each chef must create a simple, nutritious meal for a family for four – with a ten dollar budget. This is coming along with the guy who cooks for Oprah? WTF? I hope they don’t have to use that $10 at Whole Foods.

Yeah, of course they do. Everyone seems quite confused at the moment – who wouldn’t be? I can barely create a meal for one with $10. Oh well, back to the kitchen where menus can start coming together. But, wait – we need a twist! The chefs will be cooking along side students in the Common Threads program. And they’re all about ten years old.

Lisa the Hack is attempting a chicken breast with adamame, lime, black beans, white bread, peanut butter and apples. Final Result: Roasted chicken with edamame andblack beans, peanut butter and apple french toast. The judges aren’t loving it. Awesome.

Richard has chicken thighs with beets, avocado, lime, jalapeno, apples, black beans and ginger root. That’s some fine shopping for $10. Final result: Roasted chicken with black beans, and an apple, avocado and beet salad. Chef Smith would have taken the skin off the chicken, but liked everything else.

Antonia the Hack has linguine, chicken breast, bok choy, carrots, onion, red pepper and edamame. She probably brought along an extra $20, to hell with the rules. Final result: Chicken vegetable stir fry with whole wheat noodles.

Spike’s going with spaghetti, sauce, capers, olives, parmesan cheese, carrots, oranges and apples. Apples must have been the cheapest thing in the store. Spike’s actually pretty good with his kid, too. Props. Final result: pasta puttanesca, carrot soup and semi-baked apples. It goes over quite well.

Mark’s got curry paste, coconut milk, sweet potatoes, cucumber and naan bread. Lisa thinks that “making a curry for, you know, a family with children is kind of a bad idea.” Final result: Veggie curry, cinnamon rice and cucumber salad. “Too sweet… Not enough protein.”

Nikki is working with a whole chicken red potatoes, brussel sprouts, apples, grape tomatoes and cucumber. Some more great shopping! Final result: roasted chicken with mixed veg, and a tomato and cucumber salad. “Delicious… sweet.” Damn, filler is really hanging in there!

Andrew has chicken thighs, a fennel bulb, oranges, apples, parm and bread crumbs. That sounds like the best ingredient combo so far. Final Result: Chicken paillard with fennel, apples and orange salad. It looks outstanding. The judges love it.

Stephanie has one heck of a list: half a chicken, couscous, eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, parm, peanut butter, yogurt, granola and – OH! – apples. Final result: couscous with eggplant and zucchini along side chicken in peanut and tomato sauce. There’s a side dish of apples with granola as well. Poor Stephanie, they’re not crazy about this either. And she’d started so strong!

Dale brings out turkey bratwurst with potatoes, onions, red cabbage and apples. “Is it spicy?” asks a little cutie at the table… yes. Padma thinks they should have done something more universally suited to the palate.

Judgement!

Andrew, Antonia and Nikki come out on top, with the win going to Antonia. Barf. Looks like filler #2 will be around for awhile.

Lisa, Stephanie and Mark have the short end of the stick. If Lisa doesn’t go home, I’ll probably cry. Mark and Stephanie have rocked so hard so many times. Lisa does mention that she learned to “pay attention to the rules, it’s the most important thing” from last week. Okay. She’s sure she’s going home. And she’s wrong.

Mark, the most charming contestant this season is out. This is absolute bullshit. Shaping up to be the worst season ever!

Week Seven: Improv (The one where Lisa, Antonia and the judges are truly pathetic)

Are we going to begin every show with footage of chefs getting out of bed?

No one is particularly distressed that Ryan is no longer in the house – Andrew notes that the room “got a little uglier,” but that’s the only shout out Ryan gets.

Jennifer is still “doing this for Zoi,” and wants to end her run in the middle of the elimination challenges. Better than getting face time in the bottom three, though, no?

Quickfire!

Padma is “delighted” to introduce Johnny Iuzzini, award winning pastry chef and food-porn website guy. Really, that is a disgusting picture. Plus, even I could photoshop a head on better than that.

Anyway, it’s the bain of their existence – pastry. They’ve got an hour and a half to make one dessert, any dessert. Several of the chefs mention that they don’t have a single pastry recipe ready… what? Is this NOT something that comes up EVERY SINGLE SEASON? Had it not happened in a quickfire, you’re going to get stuck doing a dessert at one time or another. Come prepared.

Spike goes full force with a pineapple rum raisin souffle with toasted coconut, and it’s served in the bottom half of the pineapple… shell? Casing? What is that called?
Richard’s got banana “scallops” with banana gracamole and chocolate ice cream. Padma deems it “strange and delicious.”
Jennifer serves up chocolate cake with chocolate dipped banana bites. Andrew has banana and chocolate ravioli with pudding. Nikki has buttermilk cake with berry sauce. Innovative. Stephanie (who the graphic incorrectly credits as “Jennifer” while she explains her dish) dishes out another chocolate cake, this one with salted basil ganache. Dale whips up a halo-halo with shaved ice, avocado, mango, kiwi and nuts. Lisa has yogurt with furit puree, fried wantons and strawberries, Mark’s got pavlovas made with wattleseed and Antonia “attempted” a bruleed lemon curd with lemon cake. Curd.

Antonia, Spike and Mark – YOU FAILED. He does give Spike props for attempting such a challenging dish. Mark has trouble being criticized.

The winners are Dale, Lisa (booo) and Richard (yea!). Richard wins! His big prize (besides the immunity) is that his recipe will be feature in the Top Chef cookbook they’ve been shoving down our throats all night. Barf. We can get that shit online for free.

Okay, the chefs are off to Second City! Even I’d be excited about that. I’ve loved Steve Carell for seven or eight years now – his wife, Nancy Walls, is also funny as hell. Come back to The Daily Show, Nancy!

So, they’re watching improv when all of a sudden we’ve got an audience participation thing. Name a color! Name an emotion! And then… name a food!

D’oh!

They all get it immediately, and no one looks terribly happy. In fact, Andrew and Richard look downright pissed off. I might be, too, if I had to cook one of these dishes:

Yellow Love Vanilla
Depressed Purple Bacon
Magenta Drunk Polish Sausage
Green Perplexed Tofu
Orange Turned-on Asparagus

In fact, all the courses suck so much they end up drawing from a hat to determine who has to cook what. We end up with Jennifer and Stephanie on team Orange Turned-on Asparagus, Richard and Dale with Green Perplexed Tofu, Spike and Andrew taking care of Yellow Love Vanilla, Antonia and Lisa on Magenta Drunk Polish Sausage and Mark and Nikki on Depressed Purple Bacon. MmmYum!

After the required extended commercial for Hippie Foods the chefs get down to work. Oh wait, I should mention that Lisa manages to asshole out once again: “I’m not gonna dumb down my food because of what some drunken schmuck screamed out in the audience.” She’s currently #1 on my list of chefs I want to PACK THEIR KNIVES AND GO. Anyway, she and Antonia (Team Cheater) punk out and decide to cook chorizo sausage instead of polish sausage. Freaking hacks, send these idiots home.

So, what’s the big twist this week? No electric devices for prep! Oooooooooo – They’ll have to IMPROV. Fire someone.

So, Team Yellow Love Vanilla (SPAndrew) are whipping up some vanilla squash soup. That sounds disgusting, but whatever. Cheater Antonia giggles out that she’s “gonna, like, vomit in my mouth” if Spike wins. Thank you for that.

Team Green Perplexed Tofu (Dale and Richard) are serving green curry along with grilled tofu which has been marinated in beef fat. Perplexed tofu – not bad. Much of the dish was Richard’s brain child, but Dale takes it from there since Richard brings with him immunity. The teams are all working quite well together this week.

Purple Depressed Bacon (Mark and Nikki) are going with a roasted pork loin, and Orange Turned-On Asparagus (my favorites this time around, Jennifer and Stephanie) will be dishing up a menage a trois of orange, goat cheese and asparagus.

Finally we’ve got Team Cheaters (Antonia and Lisa), who will be serving sea bass, chorizo and purple potatoes. Cheater Antonia tells us that “like, just as long as we make it taste good, you know, we’ll be good.” She’s an idiot, but I’m really rooting for Lisa to PACK HER KNIVES tonight.

Out come the dishes! In addition to Tom, Padma and Ted Allen the chefs will be serving several of the cast members from Second City. An honor.

SPAndrew’s vanilla squash soup goes over quite well. Eh.

Next up we’ve got Jennifer and Stephanie, who give perhaps the best introduction in TC history. Stephanie proudly touts the “nice long hard log of aged goat cheese,” and then they each down a piece of asparagus. It would have been a better sell had they fed each other, but it was still great. But, oh no – they don’t like the food. Ted thinks it’s not a menage a trois, but more of an orgy since there are way more than three things going on. One of the Second City women asks, “Isn’t that the point of an orgy?” Yes, dumbass, that’s what he JUST SAID. I hope she catches jokes quicker than that on stage.

Richard and Dale are pure class as they serve up their dish, alternately giving all the credit to each other. I like it, and so do the diners. They also love the food. Yea!

Okay, time for Team Cheaters. Spike tells us that “it went out cold, it looked like turds.” Also pointed out that polish sausage was their meat, and yet there isn’t a link to be seen on their plates. The morons of Team Cheaters serve the meal, do a shot of tequila (none provided for the diners) and giggle their way back into the kitchen. Hate. The diners like the dish all right, but are peeved at the BLATANT, PATHETIC CHEATING THAT THESE TWO HACKS HAVE STOOPED TO.

Last out we’ve got Richard and Nikki, and Ted Allen can’t wipe the smile off his face while he drools all over the bacon. I had some kick ass Usinger’s bacon this weekend, but I don’t piss myself when I get a good piece. Damn, Ted.

We get a shot of Jennifer packing her knives, wondering aloud if packing up before judgement might be a bad “omen.” Uh-oh.

Judgement!

Spandrew, Dale and Richard – you brought the show home! Thankfully, Richard and Dale take the win and each walk away with $2500 worth of cookware.

Losers! Team Cheaters, of course, and also Stephanie and Jennifer. Noooo! Lisa, who is disgusting, whines about never having had good polish sausage – she says it’s not something she’d “ever dream of putting on a plate.” Sounds like a really great chef. Idiot Antonia starts with “From now on…” but Tom cuts her off with “If there’s a from now on.” Disgusting Lisa whines that she’s out there for a “slight wording thing.” Yes, the concept of this challenge would have stumped Stephen Hawking, I’m sure. Moron, hack and cheater.

The judges try to reframe the issue by accusing Stephanie and Jennifer of using the goat cheese as the main ingredient, and term the plate “a trainwreck.” Food-porn star Johnny really hated it. Shut up.

We’re treated to more of Lisa’s whining and swearing back in the kitchen while the judges deliberate. In the end, the judges have absolutely no honor and choose the cheater’s dish over the plate on which an effort was actually made. Great to know that, from now on, if they say “make a chicken dish” someone can fucking put out a corn chowder – if it’s good, you’ll hang around, rules be damned.

Jennifer’s out. At least Zoi won’t be lonely anymore.

Week Six: Tailgating

The knife packing really hasn’t been going my way so far this season. Let’s see if we can change that tonight!

We open with Shithead Spike lamenting the fact that a few of his housemates seem to wish that he’d been the one to go home last week. So do a few of the viewers. He thinks it’s because people are “feeling a little bit threatened”… by the guy who was in the bottom roundup. Idiot.

We move on to a seemingly forced (semi-scripted?) confrontation between Dale and Lisa. Dale apologizes for calling Lisa out on her negativity, and she pretty much blows him off. I don’t much care for Dale’s personality, but Lisa is easily my least favorite female cheftestant. Whiner. The elimination of either one this week would please me.

Quickfire!

Yea, it’s an alcohol quickfire – let’s get it on!
Koren Grieveso, head chef of Chicago’s Avec Restaurant. Stephanie supplies the obligatory guest judge endorsement: “The food’s really awesome and it’s… really popular.” She couldn’t have seemed less enthused, but whatever.

So, each chef tastes three different beers, ultimately selecting one to pair with a dish of their choice. Antonia, also one of my least favorites, shares that she’s having a hard time maintaining her standards: “Chefs tend to think of the audience and, like dumb [the dish] down.” You can go home any day now, too.

Jennifer is “doing this for Zoi,” and has approached the challenge with a great attitude. Good luck to her. She’s chosen Land Shark Lager and has paired it the beer with shrimp and scallop beignets with fennel, avocado and pepper puree. And she wins! Our losers this time around were Nikki’s, Dale and Spike. We get a cut to see Jennifer laughing when Spike is called out. While it may certainly been creative editing, it’s deserved either way.

Elimination Challenge!

Da Bears are playing at Soldier Field tomorrow, and the chefs will be in the crowd. Tailgating is a midwestern tradition revolving around sports, beer and food – anything from Usinger’s is fair game. MmmmmUsingersausage. The chefs will be cooking for semi-trashed Bears fans before the game, and the fans will have the usual (no) say in determining who PACKS THEIR KNIVES AND GOES.

Well, each each chef for themself, which is the kind of challenge I like. They swarm Whole Foods, and Shithead Spike wisely buys up every chicken wing they had to offer. Whole Foods sells chicken wings?

Ryan, The Prince of Nepotism, is whining about how he’s not a sports fan – he likes to dance and spend his money on good clothes. What. A. Tool. My list of acceptable eliminations is pretty long this week. Also, guess what PoN, you don’t have to play the freaking sport – just shut up and cook your crap. Oh, also – for hungry drunk people he decides to go with bread salad, marinated chicken thighs and a poached grilled pear. Unless he’s marinating those thighs in BBQ, this isn’t going to go over well. Yea!

Several of the other chefs are completely on point: Spike’s got his wings going, Richard’s pounding out some burgers and Jennifer’s packing meat on a stick. What? I hadn’t meant anything when I typed that out, but I’m leaving it in.

It’s back to the house where Mark and Andrew share a bottle of wine while taking a bath together. Moving on.

Challenge time! The chefs have the opportunity to choose between the fancy electric grill and an old fashioned charcoal grill. Only Mark goes with the charcoal, and it makes me adore him even more. He needs to find a much better bath partner.

Paul Kahan, owner of Chicago’s Black Bird and Avec restaurants is guest judging along with Padma, Collichio and Gail.

Dale also hit the nail on the head with this challenge and has gone with baby back ribs marinated in tandoori and served with potato salad with raisins and mango. He flips out about serving it to a bunch of tall fat men who mean nothing to me – William Perry and Richard Dent, players for Da Bears. Screw them, I’m from Wisconsin. PACKAAAAS. The ribs are a hit, and things are looking good for Dale.

While serving up his jicama and pineapple slaw with lime dressing and fire spiced chicken wings he asks the players “When was the last time the Bears won a super bowl?” They were unhappy with the question, and having no idea myself, I checked it out. 1985. Way to go, losers. Packers rule. The judges like the wings as well.

Antonia is serving up a Jamaican jerk chicken sandwich with grilled banana and pineapple, which wouldn’t be at all bad with a beer.

Ryan is doing a great job of shmoozing the crowd while he serves up his frou frou bread salad with marinated chicken poached pear and brandy cocoa. Might as well have served a chunk of tofu on a fennel salad.

Andrew goes with glazed shrimp with potato parsnip puree and a bacon and apple chutney. It looks disgusting. Judgement is mixed.

Lisa and Jennifer will presumably be in the middle since each gets about five seconds of camera time. Lisa has skirt steak with corn cake and salsa verde; Jennifer has chicken marinated with Harissa and quinoa tabouli.

Richard gets some solid face time as he serves up his pate melt with spicy mayo and pickeled cucumbers. The fans like it, but we don’t really hear anything from the judges.

Mark is in a rush – remember now, he’s the only one who went with the charcoal grill and he’s having trouble cleaning it in between burger firings. It’s not smooth, but it’s hardly the “absolute disaster” Tom deems it. The reaction to the food isn’t good, either. Uh-oh.

On to Nikki, or as I like to think of her, the bread basket of Top Chef. She had planned to serve sausage and peppers along side grilled shrimp with hot sauce and spiced cider. She made the sauces, but not the sausage, which they’re not happy about. Also, she’s completely out of peppers and onions by the time the time the judges finally drag their asses to her table. Uh-oh again.

Judgement!

The “fan favorites” are Stephanie, Dale and Antonia. What? No wings? No burger? Oh well. This week’s winner is Dale, and kudos to him since the day probably meant more to him than anyone else. His prize is a bears Jersey… what a crock. Oh, he also gets to keep the grill. Not bad.

Mark, Nikki and Ryan – you’re up. They crap all over Nikki for not making her own sausage, and of course for running out of food before they were able to stuff their faces for the eleventh time that afternoon. Ryan is called out for making inappropriate food, and defends the “dining experience” he offered. It’s tailgating, not a “dining experience” you tool. Richard catches shit for his “messy” station and for putting so much sauce on his burger that the charcoal flavor was lost.

RYAN’S OUT! In addition to being inappropriate food, Tom lets him know it was just “not very good.” I have to give him credit though, because after being eliminated he gives a heartfelt thanks to the judges and shakes the hand of each. He leaves rather emotionally, and says that the show has taught him that “Wow, I’m not the shit.” He’s also extraordinarily complimentary towards his fellow contestants. Yup, on the way out Ryan is pure class. Overall, he’s still one of the most annoying in an extremely annoying season, but a real man on the way out.