Hey, That’s My Name

486

Data courtesy of the Washington Post. (Note: Due to icasualties.org still being down, I have turned to a new resource and the numbers do appear to be different from here.)

4,021

Data courtesy of the Washington Post. (Note: Due to icasualties.org still being down, I have turned to a new resource and the numbers do appear to be different from here.)

Who else besides me is totally psyched for Dollhouse, show of hands?

As if I needed any other reason to be excited, the Joss himself confirmed today that Angel‘s lovely and talented Amy Acker will be joining the cast in a recurring role. Huzzah!

After last week’s full on drama, this week was pretty tame. Let’s face it, in order to beat it, somebody would have probably had to land a punch on something other than piece of furniture. In fact, the part I enjoyed the most was seeing all those Chicago tailgaters loving on all the food the cheftestants were serving up outside Soldier Field. It should be very telling that both Chicago natives ended up in the top three. They certainly knew their audience and played to it well.

THE QUICKFIRE

The chefs were tasked with selecting a beer from a buffet of 16 varieties, then create a dish to be paired with that beer. Guest judge Koren Grieveson of Chicago restaurant Avec gets the series award for best poker face. She looked disappointed and perhaps even a little resentful of just about every chef and dish she came to. Dale, Nikki and Spike were her least favorites (Spike kept up the petulant child attitude, insisting that she “didn’t get” his cutting board of clams, cheese and sausage and that “all beer tastes the same” to him). Richard, Stephanie and Jennifer were tops and Jen, who claimed to have poured all her negative emotions at Zoi’s dismissal into energizing her dish, won immunity. It was a nice moment. I’ve always gotten the impression that Jen was better than she was showing and if Zoi’s departure is what she needed to light a fire under her butt, I’m anxious to see how good she actually be.

THE ELIMINATION CHALLENGE

A true Chicago challenge: make food for tailgaters prior to a Bears game. This is the first time since the season premiere that the elimination challenge has required the chefs to make a dish on their own, no hiding behind team members this time. Dale is totally jazzed about this challenge, being a Chicago native and fan of the team. A few others aren’t nearly as positive. Richard is concerned that his cooking style doesn’t quite match the atmosphere, but he’s going to repurpose a dish he’s made before to keep some of his usual flair, but package it more casually. Ryan, on the other hand, has decided to just dismiss the parameters of the challenge and cook like he normally would, ignoring the restrictions tailgating might imply — I’m sure that’ll work out well for him in the end, especially since he’s had such a great history of making really good food that the judges liked.

The group gets to Soldier Field and starts setting up. They each have the choice of gas or charcoal grills. Mark declares that he was the only one with the “testicular fortitude” to use the charcoal grill — definitely my favorite line of the night. Unfortunately, while I prefer charcoal to gas grilling for a lot of reasons, this doesn’t bode well for everyone’s favorite Kiwi (well, you know except for that hobbit guy).

In general, the response from the crowd and the judges is extremely positive (the crowd moreso than the judges, because, let’s face it, Chicagoans like food). Both groups seem to be pleased with Stephanie’s pork tenderloin, Dale’s ribs, Antonia’s jerk chicken sandwich, Richard’s “Pate Melt” (it’s pate, but  he made into a burger, get it?), Spike’s chicken wings and Andrew’s shrimp. We hear some crowd members praise  the sauce in Jen’s dish (it was tzatziki) and Lisa’s skirt steak. No one really says much about Nikki’s food, but by the time the judges get to her station, she’s almost completely out of food and very concerned that they won’t get the best impression of her dish, which was sausage with peppers and some grilled shrimp “in case people didn’t want sausage.” Mark’s station is a mess and he looks completely discombobulated, dropping stuff, using the same spoon to taste the soup that he uses to stir it (I completely believe this happens in the back kitchen of restaurants, but there’s something to be said about keeping up the illusion when people can see you doing it). To top it all off, his chicken skewers are not great and he’s particularly happy with them either. In appearance, Ryan’s working it. He’s playing to the crowd and he’s got something of a mini gourmet shop set up with bread salad for the main course, poached pears for dessert and brandy cocoa to drink. The common folk complain that it’s very difficult to eat.

There’s some entertainment during the festivities. Dale succeeded at making me like him even more when he showed his humble, child-like wonderment as some legendary Bears players showed up to taste his food. The “Fridge” was there! (I’ve never been a football fan, but I loved that guy when I was a kid and I’m quite certain that the only reason was because I liked his name.) Andrew decided to wear a football helmet at his station to represent that this was him “playing his game.” After he had served the judges and a little before they had walked away he decided to take the helmet off, but it got caught on his ears and he was having a little bit of trouble. This caused Gail some great entertainment and she later described him as “a trip” to the others. I heartily agree.

The tailgaters have been given comment cards to rate the food and their scores determine who ends up in the top and bottom three. Stephanie, Dale and Antonia are at the top (for those of you not keeping track, there’s only been one instance where Stephanie has not been here). Guest judge Paul Kahan, owner of Avec and Blackbird, another Chicago restaurant, declares Dale the winner. And if Dale hadn’t already had a totally awesome day, he learns that he will be taking home the $5,000 grill he was cooking his fabulous ribs on, as well as a Top Chef Bears jersey (it certainly seemed like he would have appreciated that latter prize much more than anyone else). He accepts the victory quite humbly. Dale’s growing on me.

Nikki, Ryan and Mark are the bottom three. While the tailgaters named them the bottom, the judges will determine which one goes home. They’re disappointed with the food each of them presented, all around. They don’t understand why Nikki didn’t make her own sausage, it makes her dish seem lazy and thrown together. They also don’t get why the shrimp were there as they weren’t really part of the dish and Paul thinks it would’ve been more interesting if she would have combined them. Ryan prattles on for an eternity about why he bucked the tailgating challenge to do his own thing as Tom tries to interrupt him repeatedly. Bottom line: tailagating was the challenge and he didn’t do it and even if it weren’t, his food wasn’t good enough for fine dining, either. Mark’s chicken wasn’t that great and Tom didn’t care for the texture of his chowder, but largely it seems like he’s getting bad marks for the messy station and double dipping his soup.

I’d be happy with Ryan or Nikki leaving because I think they’re both subpar. In the end, Ryan gets sent packing. He leaves very graciously, much in the way Manuel did and it’s possibly the only time in the competition that I’ve found him endearing. He gets a little welled up in the stew room as he’s saying goodbye and, counter to last week, it’s the only real emotion we see there this week.

THE CHEFTESTANT BREAKDOWN

Dale: I’m not saying Dale’s not ass, clearly he can be, but I’ve really taken a shine to him the last couple of weeks. It probably helps that another contestant has been doing a much better job of playing the villain. He really showed a lot of joy in what he did this week. Clearly he works better on his own. The guy makes good food and while he can let his emotions get the better of him, he did take initiative to apologize to Lisa for his outburst. I didn’t see Spike apologizing to Jen or Antonia, did you?

Stephanie: They showed her talking a little bit of smack about Ryan and Mark in the one-on-one interviews, which seemed a little uncharactistic for this quiet force. She ended up in the top of the Quickfire and the Elimination this week. She has a better record at the judge’s table than any of the contestants. The girl’s consistent. She’s clearly got serious chops.

Antonia: Her last two showings were not the best and it’s hard not blame that on the teammates she was saddled with. One of them’s already gone and the other is clearly a headcase. She’s very similar to Stephanie in my mind, very consistent and she doesn’t often draw a lot of attention to herself.

Jennifer: Showed that when her girlfriend’s not in the competition she can focus and produce some really good food. I’m hoping to see some good stuff from her in the next episodes. I think she’s got more to offer than we’ve seen.

Richard: Usually the one getting most of the attention, not a lot of fanfare was coming out of his corner this outing. He showed well in the Quickfire and his elimination food certainly played well to the crowd, but nothing spectacular. Granted, the challenge didn’t play to his strengths. Bears fans probably wouldn’t take kindly to white chocolate and wasabi on their food.

Andrew: Still the most entertaining. It was nice to see him pried away from Richard to be reminded that he is, in fact, a good chef in his own right.

Lisa: Last week’s winner and tops the week before that, she spent most of this week bitching about Dale. While I didn’t really think much of her either way a few weeks ago, I’m largely annoyed with her and I’m inclined to side with Dale. She big with the negativity and now she seems to be living to spite Dale. It’s really just kind of sad.

Spike: I used to like him. NO MORE. He has done an expert job of falling out of my good graces. I don’t think he’s the worst chef there, but I’m so ready for him to go home. I don’t blame everyone else for wishing he was gone instead of Zoi. She may have been kind of whiney but it’s nothing compared to his blame everyone tactics. He’s clearly rapped up entirely to much in the competition aspect of the show and not focusing enough on actually cooking the food the challenges require. Let us also not forget that, now that Ryan is gone, Spike is the only cheftestant left that has never been on the winning side of the judge’s table (though he’s been on the losing side thrice).

Mark: I think Mark is one of the best cheftestants to have wound up in the bottom a lot and I think that, unlike a lot of the others that have found themselves in the trenches repeatedly, he has done so because he is very willing to take chances. Unfortunately, sometimes those chances don’t pay off. I also think that sometimes it’s a cultural dissonance thing (e.g., the New Zealand chowder that Tom didn’t like). He’s a good chef, but he doesn’t play it safe nearly as much as the other guys and I worry that this will be the death of him. Sometimes it earns him major brownie points, but if he keeps it up as the competition gets fiercer, he’s gonna find himself heading home, which would be very unfortunate.

Nikki: I hope she has her bags packed because I don’t think she’s long for this competition. Her first time alone since she wowed with lasagna and the judges were not impressed at all. She’s survived this long by not being absolutely terrible and only being not very good. As the herd thins, it’s becoming more obvious that she’s dead weight.

Ryan: Much like Nikki, he had failed to be as good as his competition and, unlike Nikki, he had never been good enough to be in the tops at the judges table. The fact he completely rejected the constraints of the challenge (which is kind of the point of having a challenge to begin with) was what sent him packing. See ya later you lovable metrosexual (he said it, not me!). I’d tell you we’d miss you, but I’m not a very good liar.

NEXT ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK

My money’s on Nikki. Though if next week goes back to the group challenges and she gets a good partner she could be saved. If she’s on her own again, though, I think she’s toast. Next week looks wildy fun, though. I don’t know what Stephanie and Jen were doing, but it looked like a riot.

SCOTUS: Death By Lethal Injection Is Constitutional

I find this disappointing. But then, I don’t agree with the death penalty to begin with, so quibbling about how we go about putting people to death is kind of a side argument to begin with.

Anyhoo, for those of you a little unclear, some have recently called the lethal injection cocktail into question. It’s been reported that one of the drugs in the cocktail causes paralysis, which masks the excruciating pain brought on by other drugs in the cocktail. Needless to say, that would kind of go against the whole “cruel and unusual punishment” thing. But the Supreme Court has voted 7-2 in favor of lethal injection. The Daily Kos breaks down the opinions pretty thorougly in their post (linked above).

It’s disappointing. But then, I’m constantly disappointed on this issue, anyway, so it’s not an unfamiliar feeling.