Whilst galivanting around the southern hemisphere I missed just one episode of Top Chef Masters, a cringe-making romance-fest involving an on-camera marriage proposal; the unedifying spectacle of What's-His-Name flirting (not too convincingly, I might add) with The Shoes; Gael Greene describing her dalliance with Elvis yet again; and Celina getting the boot for a decidedly un-sexy dish of pretzels and salad. Yes, you heard me. Pretzels and salad. 'Nuff said.
This morning, I settled down expectantly in my favorite toile-upholstered armchair to watch yesterday's DVR'd instalment with only a cup of coffee for company, as Mlle. Malaprop insisted she needed her beauty rest. Without my customary note-taking medium at hand, I was forced to rely upon my memory for the episode's highlights - no hardship, as it turned out, because with only a few competitors left it was easier to keep track of the festivities. And what diversions there were!
First, we were treated to the traumas of our foody fighters as they attempted to cook breakfast in microwave ovens. Of course, they were all offended by the very existence of these valuable appliances and went to great pains to insist they never, ever ever used them in their restaurants and - indeed! - had never touched one (not even once!) in their entire lives. Well, that is as may be - but it seems like chopping off the greens to spite the scallion, if you get my meaning. Had these people really never, ever melted chocolate, reheated leftovers, or defrosted butter with a few beeps and a whirl on the turntable? They all claimed to have kids - did they never take the chill off babyfood? Did they never simmer milk for a custard, heat soup to perfection, boil up sugar to its required temperature, or melt wax for cheese-dipping? Had they truly never experimented to see what microwaves can do?
There's such a thing as being too highly trained (or pretending to be, anyway), and I cackled delightedly as the whiners produced limp bacon (of course!); tough biscuits and bread (naturally!); and chewy eggs (well, what did you expect?). I'm sorry: of sympathy I had exactly none. I adore my microwave and use it. A lot.
But this dismissal of microwaves' usefulness was as nothing compared to the mind-bending manifestations of hubris and lack of inquisitiveness that followed (yes, Unibrow, I'm looking at you!) when the not-yet-Masters were confronted with a selection of severe-looking scientists in bright white lab coats; nifty equipment such as beakers, bunsen burners, and litmus paper; and technical terms such as acidity, viscosity, emulsion, elasticity, and Maillard reaction.
What fun! What joy! Each of our gastronomists was tasked with preparing an edible demonstration of a basic culinary concept for a high school science fair.
How fantastic was that?
Well, not very, if their expressions were anything to go by. Even with the help of their impressively pedigreed sous chefs (a nanotechnologist from UCLA! an evolutionary biologist from Stanford!), our competitors never even scratched the surface of the limitless possibilities offered by this groovy challenge. Unibrow quickly got on the wrong side of his bespeckled geek (a polymer physicist from MIT) by displaying a woeful lack of curiosity about, well, anything at all really and Naomi never seemed to get her mind round the notion that elasticity and plasticity are, like, two completely opposite things.
That was too bad, because of all the projects, Naomi's had the potential to be the most informative and interesting. She originally came up with the awesome idea of demonstrating elasticity through the fabrication of pizza dough using a variety of flours and comparing the effects of their differing gluten compositions on the final product. Somehow, she got side-tracked by gelee (huh?) and melted mozzarella ('Look how elastic it is!' she exclaimed after pulling it to stringy and irreversible oblivion) and we never heard how the gluten experiment turned out.
Other yawn-fests included Traci's use of lemon juice to 'cook' tuna (she didn't seem at all sure about the mechanism behind this phenomenon and mumbled something about 'loosening up the proteins'); Unibrow's emulsion of a simple mayonnaise (it broke down, much to James Oseland's discomfiture); and Floyd's demonstration that beef cooked shabu-shabu style will never get crustily brown even if you leave it to bubble until the stock reduces to a salty quagmire. Mary Sue won for her collection of variegatedly-viscous sauces drizzled over hot crispy churros and that was that.
I admit that as the episode unfolded I went from happy and excited to gloomy and peevish. Having always been taught that cooking is chemistry I was a little dumbfounded by the chefs' failure to grasp pretty simple concepts and present them in an interesting, challenging, and tasty way. My naive supposition that Harold McGee is required reading on all culinary schools' syllabi, was, I am sorry to say, unfounded in fact - and none of the competitors, I presume, has as yet added a copy of Modernist Cuisine to his library shelves.
What a missed opportunity! What a chance to show kids how cool science - especially food science - can be! I was reminded of the Harvard course I plan to audit at the first available opportunity, the one where visiting professors Achatz and Dufresne teach first-years all about the fabulous feats of which molecules are capable when treated with imagination and flair.
Oh, well. I guess they all can't be Top Chef Masters.
Addendum. Naomi's failed gluten experiment called to mind an article by Melissa Clark in yesterday's New York Times online (no, I haven't bought the subscription yet - I'm still on my monthly freebies) about the great strides being made in the quality of gluten-free baked goods. Hold the phone, I thought. What have I been missing? Is there somebody out there who's cracked the conundrum and is producing - even as I self-pityingly lament my misfortune - delicious, gluten-defying pastries and cakes?
I hastily scanned the article and saw the words ethereal, fluffy, tender, and feather-light. Wow! I grabbed my best black Sanford Micro Uniball and prepared to take copious notes on the origin of these splendid products - prepared to pay any price! go through any hoops! put my friendly UPS man to any trouble! - so I could have cases and cases of gratifying gluten-free goodies delivered to my door, directly and without delay.
Alas, 'twas not to be. Careful reading of the article revealed the usual qualifications, caveats, and apologies. Those fabulous muffins were in actuality only 'better then most other whole-grain muffins made with whole-wheat flour' - faint praise if ever I heard it. Cakes tested with g/f flour were 'only a little more crumbly' than their traditional counterparts. The article took joy in the fact that xanthan gum, 'once available only in ... food-processing plants - is now in a health food store near you!'. Ye gods.
I myself take no satisfaction in the fact that 'Sixty [gluten-free] cookbooks were published in 2010 alone': that's sixty too many, in my opinion. Why shouldn't I be disappointed that g/f brownies are 'sticky' and pizza dough 'crackerlike' when made from sawdust and bean shavings? Once again, we are told that we must 'let go of our expectations' and settle for 'different, wetter, softer' doughs and batters.
Well, I'm done settling, thank you very much, and the only expectation of which I've freed myself is that I'll eat bona fide wheat-flour pastry or cake more than once or twice a year.
And you know what? I'm OK with that.
Coming this weekend: ever the optimist, I experiment with an intriguing new recipe for almond and orange cake.
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