Spice Girls

Some have called Around the World in 80 Plates a mix of Survivor and Top Chef. This week the intensity of both elements went into high gear. So far, the contestants had at least some familiarity with the cuisines of the countries we’ve visited. But cooking a Moroccan tagine is another story!

First, the contestants had to find the nine spices in a Ras el Hanout by using only their sense of smell. Ras el Hanout is an Arabic term for the best spices in the shop. Many of those spices are used in a tagine. But, as Chef Moha says, it takes a lot of practice to know how to use spices in Moroccan cuisine. The key is in how they’re blended together. It’s easy to get the proportions wrong so that one spice becomes too dominant.

That’s what happened to the Black Team whose tagine was too spicy for the locals. The White Team’s tagine wasn’t much more popular. The Red Team won through hard work and teamwork. This time, they put their differences aside and really pulled together.

As for the game side of the show, Avery seemed to get it right when she said that Nookie is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers. Good chess players see two or three moves ahead and, despite a tendency to toot his own horn, Nookie has shown he has a talent for strategy. In the end, he wasn’t in much danger this week since Avery and Chaz attracted the most votes. You could say that that was because of their confrontation in the kitchen, but Avery’s main fault seems to be that she’s a good chef and thus is seen as a threat. Glad you made it, girl. Keep up the good work! 

XXOO,
Cat