Was it overplayed???

When I was younger, I liked to listen to regular music on the regular radio.  Not any of that satellite radio, but the stuff for normal people.  When it was time for Linkin Park's second album to released to the public, the radio stations started to play their music all the time.  What do I mean by 'all the time'?  I would remember that a Linkin Park song would play once every 30 minutes.  The radio stations played the song so many times that I started to hate and dislike the song.  To this day, I hate that band and all of their songs because they were so horribly overplayed.  All of their songs sounded the same as they were all emo songs with random rap pieces inside.

As a foodie and chef I became a fan of the first season of Top Chef.  The show was unlike anything that they had on TV at the time.  There were previous competition shows on but none of them consisted of a reality show and competitions each week.  It was interesting to see these great chefs, all working hard and working for their goal of their own restaurant or their own line and it was interested to see how ill-informed some of them were.  I remember seeing some chefs not knowing what some ingredients were or even how to prepare some. 

The first season was good as it was a true test of the show, but after that, the regular seasons just started to go slowly downhill.  Like anything that is put together, the show tried to get the best of the chefs they could acquire.  Obviously, they tried to get the best they could for this season, so any other seasons that feature any other chefs would have been either not thought of as of then or second choice.  The show also started to become what I hated: it moved away from a cooking show and into a reality show.  The producers knew that keeping contestants who would create or keep drama in the show, would help with the ratings and therefore couldn't be let go.  The first season, was perhaps the first season in which there may have been drama between contestants but it wasn't a pivotal part of the show.

As the season went on, you could clearly tell that it became a show of airings and ratings and not real cooking.  Contestants were not required to cook different things but could slide by on the same thing.  For instance in season 5, the only line that stuck with me is Fabio's "This is top chef, not top scallop."  Almost every challenge, Jamie cooked scallops.  Here is my thing, if I was a judge I would say "we know you can cook scallops, try cooking something else.  If you don't, you will be eliminated."  Hey guys, I don't know how to cook scallops, but I can do sugar free jams really well.  If I was on the show and made a sugar free jam with every dish, wouldn't people get sick of me?  People were sick of her, but the producers wanted her on and so she stuck.

Top Chef Masters was a true cooking competition show and the most fun to watch.  It wasn't because it was all REAL professionals, but it was great because they were not cutthroat.  There was no drama as these were all professionals working for charity.  They had nothing to lose and everything to gain.  These chefs of 'Masters" showed off in the faces of every Top Chef regular contestant, how to do the show properly.  Sometimes these expert contestants were even more experiences than the judges, but they didn't care, they were having fun.  I was doubting my own choice to become a chef until the first Top Chef Masters show came on and I saw and gained respect for so many of these chefs.  These chefs, in their many restaurants, big houses and fancy cutlery were more humble and nice and showed off more cooking than the rest of the show.  It was so worth it.  After that first season, when Rick Bayless won, my wife and I went to Chicago to experience his food at his restaurant and it was amazing.  I loved every minute of it and that started my foodie quest in trying new foods and new flavors.

What about Top Chef season 99? Well, as long as there are chefs who dislike each other, fall in love or are gay, on the  show, it will continue on.  What does the show need?  Well, they have been in the major cities in the US but will avoid anywhere that doesn't exist, like St. Louis for example.  They would sooner to Atlanta, Detroit or even Compton before St. Louis.  It is no surprise that as the show went on, ratings dropped: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Chef

There was even a Top Chef Desserts and the show was just bad.  They took their choices for dessert chefs and it was difficult not finding a gay man or a woman in the bunch, I think one guy was straight in the whole set.  I don't have anything against the LGBT community but the show turned into one big drama fest instead of a cooking show.  When I watch a show, especially a show based on a cooking competition, I don't care about your personal life, I want to see how you prepare things.

Over and over, the same formula for drama without focus on technique came up and the same mistakes were shown and by half of the season of Desserts, I stopped watching.  The only show I watched since then was the second season of Top Chef Masters.

So, that is my opinion.  If they did a new Top Chef, that focused on real cooking and had real chefs and restaurant owners as judges; not Padma, but Emeril, Bayless, Moonen or even Mr. Beard, himself.  They should get contestants who are capable of cooking with any protein and do it well, not just seafood or even scallops.  They need chefs who can do desserts.  They need no drama, just cooking.

Top chef insanity

Like most cooking shows, Top Chef has sustained itself by showing the world how chefs in America cook their food and what is the newest way to prepare dishes.  It has become a media goldmine as it is a Bravo network creation but other networks try to copy it with their own cooking reality contest shows.  Although none of them come into comparison with the Top Chef series.  Even though the first season was still the best, like any series, it is still fun to watch.  The thing about contests is this: these chefs have been hand picked.  So, when the best group of 20 or so signed up, they were the best at that time.  What I think is that the chefs from this past season and so forth seem to get lesser skilled each season.  That is why during this last episode, Hung was able to do almost all of Angelo's work and still have enough time and energy to help final preparations with Angelo. 

Now, what I find to be very humorous on the whole deal is the start of the new show: Top Chef desserts.  I didn't think there was the need for one until I remembered that some of the best chefs in the world, cannot make simple desserts.  I remember reading that Bobby Flay could not even make a cookie.  What gets me is that next year will we see a Top Chef Sugar Free or a Top Chef Cocktails?  A chef is a chef and the Top Chef should be one who can execute a dessert and a savory dish.

So, Top Chef desserts episode one:  We are introduced to the challengers in what reminds me of a group of challengers from Project Runway.  The group is so ego centered and filled with the Queen of the Universe attitude that it makes me wonder if I should ever pursue a baking degree as to be thrown in with this lot.  The head judge is a James Beard award winner in pastry and he has some delicious looking food. Johnny Iuzzini, is the head judge and his skills are what will make him perfect for judging the challengers.

The first challenge, the quickfire, was one that had me puzzled at why the producers picked these people.  The challengers had to make their signature dish and then twist it into a cupcake.  Easy right?  Well, you had a guy who eventually won, who had last made a cupcake in Home Ec, a woman who decided to make a meringue piped in the shape of a cupcake and a guy who only makes frozen or cold desserts.  You had some normal dishes turned into cupcakes with things like strawberry puree's inside and other good flavors.  The woman with the meringue didn't turn on her oven and so she didn't even finish.  The guy who calls himself the Snow Queen, I think it was, didn't make a cupcake but a gellato in a glass and called it his version of a cupcake.  So, right off the bat, you have at least one person who cannot bake, in a dessert competition.

The next step, is to work and make something that can be described as chocolate decadence.  What comes to your mind when that is spoken?  They had a table covered in every type of chocolate, well maybe not every type, but dark, milk and white.  What would you do?  A lot of people did simple things and didn't use that much chocolate.  I know what you are thinking now.  It is a chocolate challenge, so the idea would be to use as much as possible, yet people did not do so.  The loser was sent home for making a flour less chocolate cake with a broken mousse on top.  She screwed up as the mousse  didn't set and broke and instead of making another, she just left it be.  She lost for bad decision as they tell everyone on the regular Top Chef show: if you are not happy with it, don't serve it.

Does this show look good?  Well, the first challenge was nice, making what looked like a good start.  But with the preview of this show, what took place and was shown was nothing but crying, screaming, and drama.  Which is why I said it reminded me of project runway.  I don't know if I will be watching as I know that shows like this do keep the most drama -causing person as it makes for good ratings, but for people like me, I won't watch anymore.  So, I may watch an episode here or there, but overall, the tone that it set was one I could enjoy, but not with those contestants.  Should I be on the show?  Yes. 

What would I have done?

Well, maybe a coconut flavored cupcake with a vanilla cream icing on top with pie crust crumbles.
Elimination challenge would feature a flour less chocolate cake selection, maybe 3 of them stacked on each other with a nice raspberry spread on top, to help bring some moistness and bold flavors in.  I would do a dark chocolate layer, with a milk chocolate one on top and then a white chocolate one.  That much chocolate is great and should differentiate itself from one another.  The raspberry topping gives a burst of bold contradicting yet complimentary flavoring to the chocolate dish.  Just like a dollop of whipped cream would do also.  

Is poor execution worse than not making your own food?

http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef/season-7/videos/extended-judges-table-veal-as-a-weapon

Like many others, many millions of others, I watch Top Chef.  But what is even more surprising is how someone who made bad food goes home over someone who didn't make all of his food. 

If you don't watch, here is a summary:

Alex made veal Parmesan, and besides cooking the veal to the point that it was rock hard, made an interesting dish.  Execution and technique was awful in his dish, but he made everything himself.

Angelo made a beef Wellington and bought store bought puff pastry and then made pizzas out of that with the beef and mushrooms on top of that. 

Now, both dishes were bad and both of them were up for a possible elimination.  However, because Alex went home, does that mean it is alright for chefs to buy some of their ingredients at a store pre-made?  I mean, Beef Wellington has 3 main ingredients: pastry, beef and mushrooms, right?  Well, he didn't make the beef and he didn't make the pastry so all he did was throw everything else together?  

So, I'm a chef and I'm making some strawberry stuffed French toast.  Is it right for me to buy store made jam to stuff my French toast?  Since I can already make jam, I would make my own and make my own everything.  So, why did Alex go home?

What I have learned from other chefs... stick to your guns.

The latest thing that I have been into has been the fight of Rick Moonen. Rick is a chef who stands for basic Green principles like finding fish that are sustainable and not endangered and so forth.  He runs a seafood restaurant in Vegas that I one day wish to experience.  Rick has been in the spotlight lately because as a finalist on the show Top Chef Masters, he was chosen by the producers and judges to be the winner. The reason why this is a issue is that it appears that it all came down to one man's vote and that one man did not like the answer to a question that Rick answered.  Jay Rayner, an accomplished critic, had asked Rick if his choice in using venison in his last dish was going against his ideology of being the environmentalist guy.  Jay suggested that using a piece of meat flown in from New Zealand was not being an environmentalist as the pollution and methods used to create that piece of meat were not Green, like Rick talks so much of.  

Rick answered that he is a chef first and in a cooking contest, he should do whatever is necessary to win.

That was the basic answer and the correct answer that someone in a cooking contest should answer.  Essentially: what does the method of getting the product manner when what is judged is how it tastes and how it is prepared?

Rick Moonen was tied for second as Marcus won the title.  Everyone thought that Rick was going to win.  I thought that Marcus won because the judges may have weighed the finalists' charities and suggested that UNICEF which does everything may have been a better choice than just a meal giving charity.  But if that was the case, then come out and say it.  Don't say that Rick didn't win because he didn't answer the question correctly, didn't wear the correct color of socks that evening or even looked into the camera one too many times.  This show was supposed to be a cooking competition and here we learn, young amateur critics such as myself, that we are allowed to review people on their personal choices rather than the way the food comes out and tastes.

After the show, Jay blogged about how Rick was basically crying like a little girl and he as a critic is always right.  Jay is wrong.  Critics should only comment about things they know. Jay, likely cannot even cook the foods in question, so why should he comment about them?  Tom Collichio as a judge, that has merits and he knows what he is talking about.  I am sure that if a chef had told Rick that he lost because he didn't like the way his venison tasted, it would have gone over much better.  Do I qualify?  I think I do.  I have worked in a restaurant long enough to know how food should taste and look.  I have taken classes on holistic nutrition, cooking and even herbalism.  I know the basics of being a chef and with those basics I try to cook new things everyday. Sometimes when I go to restaurants, I order things that are not complicated and so easy that I could make them, so I look at them from a chef's perspective.

Jay, was looking at Rick from a critic's perspective, which like Anton Ego in the movie Ratatouille, doesn't really know anything about cooking the food, only eating it and how it tastes to him.

Under pressure and comments and having the title stolen away from him, Rick sticks to his guns, coming up with an answer and facts to back up his answer to Jay.  Jay has yet to have a response back to Rick.  It is one thing to be stubborn and stand up for your decision, even if it is wrong and proven wrong.  But to not admit that you are wrong when facts are staring you right in the face is not integrity, but stupidity.

Think of it this way: Imagine making your grandmother's recipe for apple pie.  When you get to the judges, they tell you that you did it incorrect.  How would that make you feel?  They don't know your recipe and the way you have done it is exactly the way your family has done so for generations!  What do they know?

That is Rick.  Please show him some support.

http://chefrickmoonen.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-story-of-shameless-opportunist.html

Revelation

The word Revelation, means to lift the veil, as to reveal what is hidden or not known to everyone.  Here a few things that have been on my mind and everyone should know:

1. Calories.  Calories, are not that real, just like Time, it is merely a unit of measure so as it is, it doesn't exist.  Now, the measurement does exist and if you are trying to live healthy or even trying to lose weight, watching calories is one of the ways that this can happen.  This is how it works: 1 pound of human fat, is made up of 3,500 calories.  Also, if you eat or ingest, less calories than you spend, your body has to find energy for those extra calories you are spending and thus, pulls the calories from your body; ie. your fat.  So, you lose weight.  Now, sitting behind a desk all day, working at a computer, probably only burns about 1.7 calories a minute, because your body really isn't doing anything too active. So, if you sit for 4 hours, then you burned 1.7 *60 * 4=408 calories. On some commercials, they show a woman having a special shake for breakfast at her desk, then a salad, so she only consumes a mere 200 calories or so.  This means that her body has to pull on its fat reserve, and burn 208 calories. That means that the woman just lost about 2 ounces of weight.

Now, this doesn't seem much, not counting what she does out of work, assuming her night activities cancel out her food intake, but in a work week, of only 4 hours of work and two 100 calorie meals, she comes down almost a pound.  Again, this is simple.  Now, let's say that the woman, takes in 500 calories all day, works behind a desk for 7 hours, runs on a treadmill for a combined 2 hours, and does some walking around doing general home activities.  Using this site: http://caloriecount.about.com/activities-sports-ac15  The woman would burn 1.7 calories a minute at her desk, 9 calories a minute by running and 2.8 calories a minute doing household chores.  So, we have a 7 hour work day at 714 calories burned, then 2 hours of running at 1,080 calories burned and then an hour of housework at 168 calories for a total of 1,962 calories burned.  If that woman, in this case, still only had 500 calories all day, then she would burn 1,462 calories out of her fat supply.   In a 5 day work week, that would be 7,310 calories or two pounds of fat.

2. Pride and jealousy: When a person has mastered what they think is what they want, then they become proud of their work.  This is pride and not in a bad way because in any job you want to be proud of what you can accomplish.  When I made fruit caviar for the first time using sodium alginate and calcium chloride, I was very proud of myself, for instance, as others have problems doing so. After watching the second season of Top Chef Masters, my wife and I came to the conclusion that we like this show better than the others.  The reason is unlike the regular show, where nobodies fight and compete against each other to become a high ranked chef, this show is already filled with high ranked chefs.  They are competitive, but in a friendly way, like playing a game with your wife, you don't feel bad if she beats you, but you will not just give-up and let her win either.  I love the comrade-ary that these chefs have, sharing ingredients and items and joking with each other.  Sure, they all want to win and are sad when they are kicked off, but they are doing this for fun and for charity. I guess if I used a different metaphor, it would be like a group of the best Baseball players, like the All Star game. Well, that's not a good example, really, as in the show, the chefs are still humbled by each other.  Rick Moonen, who is probably one of the best chefs on the show, still comments on how one of his fellow chefs is better than he: Jonathon Waxman.  Yet in the same way, you can hear Jonathon tell the viewers how Rick is better than he in things as well.

I am not a professional chef and I know that some housewives are better cooks than I, so I am still humble at that.  However, I know that there is at least one chef, Anthony Bourdain for example, who can't bake anything and I'm sure that he would love my chocolate chip cookies, or my giant cinnamon roll or something like that. So, to have a chef, that is obviously a master at what he does, tell you that you do something better than they do is a bit of humility that I have seen chefs do.  Maybe one day, I will get a chance to have some famous chefs eat my food and experience this first hand.   

 3. Anyone can cook: just like the chef in Ratatouille, I believe that anyone can cook.  No matter who you are, buy some ingredients and cook.  It is so easy.  Do you need cooking classes or a fancy French school? No, not really.  Cooking classes or schools don't teach you recipes, they teach you techniques.  You can learn techniques on your own.  Did your mother or your grandmother go to cooking school?  No? Then how did they become good cooks?  Practice.  When I was working on my degree in Holistic Nutrition, there were some cooking textbooks on techniques of healthy eating and preparing of foods.  Instructions on how to prepare things like cooked quinoa or cactus leaf, but nothing that one couldn't learn for themselves. 

If you don't believe me, think of something you like, start off with a protein, like beef, chicken, fish or pork, for instance, and then think of how you want it.  Do you want it boiled, baked, grilled, saute'ed or steamed?  Then what type of flavoring to you like, spicy or savory?  Then what type of ethnic culinary techniques should we use?  Do you want some spicy, Asian inspired beef dish or a home style, southern baked chicken?  If you can do this yourself, do it.  If you need help, contact me: tastymagazine@gmail.com

An imperfect sphere...

Ever since I saw an episode of Top Chef, in which the chef made some food into spheres, I was hooked, thinking it was the best way and a brand new method. After all this time I thought that food was cooked the way it was given, as in, the only way to change the texture of food was to do it by juicing it or mashing it. A carrot has the carrot texture unless you juice it or mash it then it has a liquid texture and mashed potato texture.

So, as great chefs like the ones at WD50 and El Bulli have shown us, using chemicals we can drastically change the texture of things. After reading a free downloadable book on textures and hyrocolloids, by Martin Lercsh, I was very interested in other hydrocolloids. Recipe upon recipe of spherification gave ideas for me to try. One of the recipes used olives and making olive juice and then dripping it into ice cold oil, making the spheres form there. A good idea and worked for the mixologist in the video, but not for me.

I did the next best thing, finding a place that sold a mixture of an unknown percentage of sugar and sodium alginate, I thought it was pure sodium alginate but was mistaken, I used it anyway, using twice as much as the recipe called for. I also bought some calcium chloride for use as well. The recipe had me taking a soda, boiling it a bit, then adding the sodium alginate, or in my case, adding a bunch of the mixture.

I let it cool so it would start to gel. I then mixed water and the calcium chloride and dripped the soda mixture into the water one.
Little spheres formed perfectly and floated to the bottom of the bowl.
I then poured the whole bowl over a sieve and collected the water in another bowl, underneath, to be used again. I rinsed the caviar off in water, then dipped in a separate bowl of clean water. When I had enough, I placed them in a white dish and thought they looked like caviar, my wife, the sushi lover, thought it looked like flying fish roe.
However, the taste wasn't what I had expected: The small balls of strawberry soda flavor, had a gummy shell but a juice on the inside, like a paintball. I rinsed them off multiple times but still, there was a salty or sour flavor afterwards, which could have come from the calcium chloride since it is a salt. I have read online that people say that it has no taste, but it clearly does. It was an interesting process and I am very happy to have done it, but this may not be something I would do many many times.