Our good friends at Bravo clearly think they have hit upon a winning formula: manufactured drama (Producer: 'Let's make our cheftestants' grind their meat in hand mills that don't fit onto the prep tables and see what happens!' ~cue ominous music); interpersonal tensions (Suvir: 'The divas were hogging the burners and so I was forced to overcook my veal in a deep fat fryer!' ~cue ominous music); and guest celebrity judges (Sue: 'I love Kelis. Didn't she do that song about milkshakes?' ~stupefied silence).
I know that one of the ways Bravo likes to build suspense is by withholding crucial information from the viewers until the last possible minute, rendering the verdict at the judges' table a complete surprise. While I disagree with this premise (I don't really watch Top Chef with any care at all for who actually wins), I can just about understand it. What I can't understand is the judges' utter inability to articulate what they are tasting and whether or not it's any good. I mean, I know the concept of 'good' is laden with all sorts of cultural and philosophical baggage, but it would help the poor viewer appreciate what was going on, at least, and who was cooking with reasonable skill.
Here's a wild and crazy idea: what if the judges talked about the food? Here's an even nuttier concept. What if the judges used - oh, I don't know - some sort of descriptive language that would aid our understanding of what the competitors were cooking and how it tasted?
Adjectives and adverbs would be a good start.
During the Quickfire meatball judging, for example, I became so hypnotized by Kelis' repetition that I almost forgot to log her verdicts. Here is the sum total of the modifiers she used to characterize the dishes she tasted:
- good
- salty
- edible
- mild
- really good (ooh - an adverb!)
- nice
I was just commenting to Mlle. Malaprop that this was easily the most unhelpful commentary I'd heard in many, many seasons of Top Chef viewing when the Unibrow (yes, he's back after last week's elimination - don't even bother asking why, I don't have the strength) THd that it was all just 'pointless criticism.' I'm not sure that he and I were talking about the same thing, exactly, but I felt his pain.
The worst meatballs came from George ('odd'), Floyd ('salty'), and Hugh ('battle' - but I think that's my handwriting deteriorating along with my will to live). Tops were Sue ('great'), John ('worked well' - my stars, a verb!), and Suvir ('sweet and spicy' - he gets the full treatment with two entirely different attributives - never mind that they've already been worked to death on this show).
On to the Elimination Challenge, where the gladiators were required to update 1960s 'classics' such as Beef Wellington, Beef Stroganoff, and Veal Oscar but not, vexingly, my favorite Chicken Divan. Due to a lack of explanatory verbiage, it wasn't clear until the last two minutes of the episode that the chefs had to produce two versions of the dish - the classic as well as the 21st-century variation - so the fact that each presented a plate with a pair of piles on top made no sense to us, the bewildered viewers.
Once again, the judge's paucity of language did a disservice to the chefs' efforts. George's Chicken a la King was 'soggy'. Christine's Grasshopper Pie was 'off'. Celina's Coq au Vin (that's a 60s classic?) had 'too much vinegar'. To be fair, that last one was an almost-useful remark - it came from James Oseland, of course.
The top three were John for his 'great' and 'well executed' Oysters Rockefeller (so inadequately described that I was surprised to hear it was served warm); Floyd's Ambrosia ('good concept'); and Mary Sue's Devilled Eggs ('delicious').
On the bottom were Sue, whose Duck a l'Orange 'wasn't anywhere it needs to be' (Lyon? Bordeaux? Toledo?) or 'well cooked'; my hero Suvir, who offered up veal that was 'overcooked' and 'tough' (one judge really conjured an image in my mind's eye when she commented that 'it was a big piece of food'); and Alex's bread pudding, which 'wasn't good' and 'quite disappointing' (another adverb!).
It was Mary Sue's turn to to go home. I can't say I was disappointed or surprised, since her own eloquence about her dish was limited to 'One year my father helped me make Duck a l'Orange' - a recollection that was probably meant to sound significant but somehow, well, didn't.
The only truly valuable word to emerge from this episode came to us from James Oseland, who was rendered verklempt by the whole experience.
I know just how he felt.
Next up: we return to Jim's basement for some camembert construction
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