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Apr. 29th, 2008
Top Chef -- 4.7 -- Improv
Apr. 29th, 2008 10:31 pmDue to travel across the damn country, I just finally saw the last Top Chef last night, so here's my review.
I've been a huge, huge fan of Second City Comedy, since I was a thirteen-year-old. Lorne Michaels and his Saturday Night Live has stolen more comedic genius from Second City than any other source. If he was a major league owner, he might consider Second City to be his farm team. The names of Chicago's Improv School alumni are familiar to anyone in the last 20+ years of improv comedy -- Ed Asner, Harold Ramis, John (and Jim) Belushi, John Candy, Bill Murray, George Wendt (Norm!), Dan Castellaneta (D'Oh!), Mike Myers (excellent!), Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey... I mean Good Lord! The McKenzie Brothers, the Ghostbusters... most comedy outside of the Southern redneck tour has had a touch-point in Chicago.
Which makes the improv aspect of this last episode so interesting -- specifically because of the dessert angle.
My background is a foodie-improv wanna-be cook. I've learned a lot of classical techniques in the last year or two, but primarily, since my 20s, I've been a toss-it-in-and-see-if-it-works kinda guy. The rules and history I've learned in the last couple years have been so good, that I'm actually annoyed I haven't tried to learn the techniques and history of food before, because the old cliche is true -- you can't successfully break the rules until you learn what they are.
And then....there's desserts. Cooking can be an art, and it can be a science. For a good chunk of a vast meal, improv will work quite well. Taste, color, texture, flavor, can all be a subjective experience. But dessert... that is a different animal. Many, many, many desserts are science only. The wrong fraction of a teaspoon of baking powder or flour or sugar can throw off a dessert so much that it will not rise/fluff/set/flow the way that it should. Which is why many cooks on the savory side absolutely hate to do desserts, because there's not much room for improv.
So, the quickfire was, of course, complete improve in a short period of time, which was a foreshadowing to the judging later. Richard came off on top again, which is no huge surprise given his MG experience of exacting details.
But the real fun is that the chefs got to pick their teams, even as they were handed the Iron Chef concepts of their themes from the audience of the comedy show. And did any of the contestants really think they were given a free show without having to cook? Haven't they watched Top Chef before? It was amazing to me that when they announced that they would have to cook with the themes picked by the audience that only half of them dropped their heads in immediate realization that they were set up. The other half were that clueless that they didn't get it.
Yellow, Love, Vanilla -- Andrew and Spike. How cunning, since most of the audience can't tell them apart, other than Spike's ubiquitous hat. Andrew finally gets to make his squash soup, at long last! It's a validation of weeks ago, when his Earth-theme should have done it. Except, Spike takes most of the credit of tasting and simmering and tasting and nurturing....
Depressed, Purple, Bacon -- Kiwi Mark and Italian-American Nikki. A good idea of pure comfort-food Pork. Grapes help with the purple, of course.
Green, Perplexed, Tofu -- Dale immediately grabs the immune Richard for two stunningly good reasons -- 1) Richard is just plain good, and 2) with Richard immune, Dale can stand out while still riding Richard's culinary coat-tails. Richard has a brilliant idea of cooking tofu in beef lard (McDonald's fries, anyone?)
Magenta, Drunk, Polish Sausage -- The Lisa/Antonia team spurns the kielbasa, which is actually the point of the whole challenge for them. Chorizo? Please.
Orange, turned on, Asparagus -- Stephanie, Jennifer. It was, for improv comedy, perhaps an obviously easy dish to do, but, like desserts, maybe there was an overconfidence thing.
So, Spike and Andrew, and Dale and Richard are the Top Chefs, and after some jockeying of taste vs. "I meant to do that!", the immune Richard and the crafty Dale get several thousand dollars of premium cookware. Yes, I'm jealous. At least it wasn't a simple soup that nailed it.
The losers are broken into two camps -- The Lisa/Antonia nose-raised spurning of the actual ingredient, vs the actual taste of the Stephanie/Jennifer mix, where Stephanie already has misgivings about the crouton and Jennifer is obviously trying to pull in the ghost of Zoi with the the manage-a-trois theme.
So, Jen, the other half of the lesbian wonder twins, goes home. It was rough, because I think the idea was sound. But, the twice and reigning winner Stephanie was obviously uncomfortable with the quality of the food (even though she hammed up the asparagus spear phallic-swallow with a bit of theatrical gusto). On the other hand, I completely disagreed with the "improv" argument of Lisa. Yes, it's improv, the idea is to wing it. But there are still rules. In Second City (or the British or American "Whose Line is it Anyway") when you ask the audience for ideas, and someone throws out "1965 Cadillac", you don't improv and say, "I don't like Cadillacs, I'm going to improv a 1972 Corvette instead." That's not improv by the rules they have set out. It's ego. On that note, Antonia followed along with Lisa, much like Manuel followed Spike. But Lisa disregarded the challenge. So, I would have preferred either one to go.
But, such is reality show television. So, on to next week.
I've been a huge, huge fan of Second City Comedy, since I was a thirteen-year-old. Lorne Michaels and his Saturday Night Live has stolen more comedic genius from Second City than any other source. If he was a major league owner, he might consider Second City to be his farm team. The names of Chicago's Improv School alumni are familiar to anyone in the last 20+ years of improv comedy -- Ed Asner, Harold Ramis, John (and Jim) Belushi, John Candy, Bill Murray, George Wendt (Norm!), Dan Castellaneta (D'Oh!), Mike Myers (excellent!), Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey... I mean Good Lord! The McKenzie Brothers, the Ghostbusters... most comedy outside of the Southern redneck tour has had a touch-point in Chicago.
Which makes the improv aspect of this last episode so interesting -- specifically because of the dessert angle.
My background is a foodie-improv wanna-be cook. I've learned a lot of classical techniques in the last year or two, but primarily, since my 20s, I've been a toss-it-in-and-see-if-it-works kinda guy. The rules and history I've learned in the last couple years have been so good, that I'm actually annoyed I haven't tried to learn the techniques and history of food before, because the old cliche is true -- you can't successfully break the rules until you learn what they are.
And then....there's desserts. Cooking can be an art, and it can be a science. For a good chunk of a vast meal, improv will work quite well. Taste, color, texture, flavor, can all be a subjective experience. But dessert... that is a different animal. Many, many, many desserts are science only. The wrong fraction of a teaspoon of baking powder or flour or sugar can throw off a dessert so much that it will not rise/fluff/set/flow the way that it should. Which is why many cooks on the savory side absolutely hate to do desserts, because there's not much room for improv.
So, the quickfire was, of course, complete improve in a short period of time, which was a foreshadowing to the judging later. Richard came off on top again, which is no huge surprise given his MG experience of exacting details.
But the real fun is that the chefs got to pick their teams, even as they were handed the Iron Chef concepts of their themes from the audience of the comedy show. And did any of the contestants really think they were given a free show without having to cook? Haven't they watched Top Chef before? It was amazing to me that when they announced that they would have to cook with the themes picked by the audience that only half of them dropped their heads in immediate realization that they were set up. The other half were that clueless that they didn't get it.
Yellow, Love, Vanilla -- Andrew and Spike. How cunning, since most of the audience can't tell them apart, other than Spike's ubiquitous hat. Andrew finally gets to make his squash soup, at long last! It's a validation of weeks ago, when his Earth-theme should have done it. Except, Spike takes most of the credit of tasting and simmering and tasting and nurturing....
Depressed, Purple, Bacon -- Kiwi Mark and Italian-American Nikki. A good idea of pure comfort-food Pork. Grapes help with the purple, of course.
Green, Perplexed, Tofu -- Dale immediately grabs the immune Richard for two stunningly good reasons -- 1) Richard is just plain good, and 2) with Richard immune, Dale can stand out while still riding Richard's culinary coat-tails. Richard has a brilliant idea of cooking tofu in beef lard (McDonald's fries, anyone?)
Magenta, Drunk, Polish Sausage -- The Lisa/Antonia team spurns the kielbasa, which is actually the point of the whole challenge for them. Chorizo? Please.
Orange, turned on, Asparagus -- Stephanie, Jennifer. It was, for improv comedy, perhaps an obviously easy dish to do, but, like desserts, maybe there was an overconfidence thing.
So, Spike and Andrew, and Dale and Richard are the Top Chefs, and after some jockeying of taste vs. "I meant to do that!", the immune Richard and the crafty Dale get several thousand dollars of premium cookware. Yes, I'm jealous. At least it wasn't a simple soup that nailed it.
The losers are broken into two camps -- The Lisa/Antonia nose-raised spurning of the actual ingredient, vs the actual taste of the Stephanie/Jennifer mix, where Stephanie already has misgivings about the crouton and Jennifer is obviously trying to pull in the ghost of Zoi with the the manage-a-trois theme.
So, Jen, the other half of the lesbian wonder twins, goes home. It was rough, because I think the idea was sound. But, the twice and reigning winner Stephanie was obviously uncomfortable with the quality of the food (even though she hammed up the asparagus spear phallic-swallow with a bit of theatrical gusto). On the other hand, I completely disagreed with the "improv" argument of Lisa. Yes, it's improv, the idea is to wing it. But there are still rules. In Second City (or the British or American "Whose Line is it Anyway") when you ask the audience for ideas, and someone throws out "1965 Cadillac", you don't improv and say, "I don't like Cadillacs, I'm going to improv a 1972 Corvette instead." That's not improv by the rules they have set out. It's ego. On that note, Antonia followed along with Lisa, much like Manuel followed Spike. But Lisa disregarded the challenge. So, I would have preferred either one to go.
But, such is reality show television. So, on to next week.
MMMmmmmmm, Tuna. So, the whole seared tuna thing is about as cliche as you can get these days. Even Nebraska steak houses have a seared tuna appetizer, and there's not much originality you can present with the fish these days.
On the other hand, why is that different from a steak bearnaise or a shellfish bisque? It's relatively new, but it is somewhat of a fusion classic in modern cuisine. It could be worse -- it could be fried mozerella sticks or something.
My favorite restaurant in South Beach Miami is Nemo's (which opened long before Pixar). One of their signature dishes is a softball-sized chunk of tuna, rolled in nori seaweed, seared, and presented with a sesame seared rice-ball. It's too good for words.
Today, one of my fish suppliers had AAA-grade sashimi yellowfin tuna on sale, ruby-red and glistening, and the muscle grains were tight and compact. So, I did my part to riff off of the Nemo's.
I made a honey-lime-soy glaze, and served the tuna over a glaze-wasabi stir fry of vegetables and pad thai noodles.
( tooooooona )
On the other hand, why is that different from a steak bearnaise or a shellfish bisque? It's relatively new, but it is somewhat of a fusion classic in modern cuisine. It could be worse -- it could be fried mozerella sticks or something.
My favorite restaurant in South Beach Miami is Nemo's (which opened long before Pixar). One of their signature dishes is a softball-sized chunk of tuna, rolled in nori seaweed, seared, and presented with a sesame seared rice-ball. It's too good for words.
Today, one of my fish suppliers had AAA-grade sashimi yellowfin tuna on sale, ruby-red and glistening, and the muscle grains were tight and compact. So, I did my part to riff off of the Nemo's.
I made a honey-lime-soy glaze, and served the tuna over a glaze-wasabi stir fry of vegetables and pad thai noodles.
( tooooooona )