Bad Weeds

Here we go yo. 

The Healthy Choice $150,000 is still mysteriously hidden in the freezer section of the Top Chef kitchen and none of the remaining chefs have noticed. 

Stephanie Izard is in the house. She is the winner of Season 4 and a very successful chef in Chicago. She has curly hair that makes mere mortals envious. Someday, it is ordained, she will take my brow and I her locks. Kind of like trading our signatures for a couple of weeks just to see what’s up. She has yet to be informed of this plan, but I am thinking she’ll be totally cool with it. 

Foiled again. Open up the food stuff and you have to use it. And you have to cook in it. The Bart Knight? He likes this. Stephanie plays up this angle stating that she loves foil. Tesar is totally flummoxed by a pineapple… “WHAT AM I going to do with a pineapple?” Obviously boiled beef with pineapple thingies comes to mind. Hmmm. 

Beautiful Kristen is channeling a sponge cake which ends up being one of those things that may taste good, but looks like it was, well, cooked in small bundles of angrily scrunched-up Reynolds Wrap. Meanwhile, Bart is making a foil helmet to channel his home planet. Tesar is contemplating that all Asian food is anchored with pineapple. I am lost in my own foil outfit, cause I like to play along at home. 

Micah would like you to know about his gift. His gift is that food ideas just come to him like an indescribable miracle. Most people would call that getting paid to be a… wait for it… chef? “I am a tax accountant and I have a gift, a miracle blessing among mankind, 'a super power’ if you will, to do your taxes.” I keep expecting to look over and have Bart making a life-sized Noah’s Ark with two of each animal, all made out of FOIL.Time is up and Danyele slugged out a bean soup. Padma completely crushes Micah by noticing his completely raw lamb panzanella thing. (QF tip: Padma is not a rare meat lover, but when you get to EC, bring on the rare to MR cause the rest of us like that and can outvote her). Stefan is cooking salmon and potatoes. I still don’t have any idea what the Asian element in the dish is, but who knows. Kristen giggles and the innuendo between them continues like a pesky form of herpes. Tesar presents his dim sum of beef and pineapple, and it gets pretty good accolades. He’s got skills, there’s no denying. 

Brooke has given Padma onion breath and there will be hell to pay. Josh‘s moustache looks particularly waxy today as he makes a chicken foil thing. Kristen’s cake rocks and looks like a deconstructed cake cooked in foil would… but it tastes great. Bart has cooked some fish, but is most proud of his foil colander. The fish is cooked perfectly. Sheldon has made a stunning plate that is not served in foil.

Many many on tops. Kudos to them in the foil challenge, but there must be a winner, and today it’s Kristen. Cake in foil. Remember that for your next camping trip. Bart will make you a foil tent to sleep in.

On to a berry special challenge for this EC. Head to head and Josh likens this to wrestling. I think Ric Flair, but Josh thinks Greco-Olympic glory. Either way a picture is shown of him in a Canadian tuxedo looking all dapper and OKC chic. Kristen is alone in this head-to-head battle with precious immunity to keep her company. Lizzie ain’t scared, cause she cooked for Nelson Mandela twice and single-handedly ended the apartheid regime in her native land when she was seven yrs old. 

Cloche time. Tayberry, Strawberry, Gooseberry, Blueberry, Strawberry, some other some other berries. This is like a kids' cartoon I was forced to watch with my kids featuring Apple Dumplin’, that selfish little brat. Tesar is already calling out Stefan for using frozen fish. Stefan answers this war cry by fondling Kristen. A truce is called, but its tenuous at best. 

Into the minivans and off to the farm! It’s a field trip. Micah looks forward, completely deadpan, to jump into some berries. Some crotchety old farmer delivers a load of berries. Josie is out to Razmataz the sushi world with her “Rock 'n' Roll” sushi roll. Evidently this is a harbinger of the end times, and I have put on white Nikes and am going to be with the rest of my cult for a long, long time. 

Bart is on a blender hunt. In the chivalrous world of Belgian knightdom, if someone asked you for a blender you are tasked to provide. The wheel of fortune spins badly on Tesar for his blender selfishness, and he gets rained on by said blender. Life, evidently, is a bitch. 

H2H (Head to Head) competition is driving these people to bad words. Danyele says, “Over your head, d--khead.” I am so using that. This is not a kids' show anymore -- it hasn’t been since Grayson’s “sex in the mouth” comment last season in Texas when they all succumbed to heat stroke and let that Paul guy win. Total sham. (Just kidding Sarah!) My kids still watch, but I make them wear bad-word earmuffs. 

Kristen wants to go home to Korea to see where she’s from… this is the best answer ever to the question of how would the money be used. My answer of 5000 King Kong Ice Cream Kones is just plain stoopid in comparison, but I stick with it. 

I like me some King Kones.

In the competition you really get to see how some people deal with being in the weeds. Josie, she talks. And talks and talks. When nervous and behind she likes to ad-lib cooking demonstrations. This did not make her food any better, but only got pointed out a lot by the judges. Overall, the food looked pretty good. Lots of people fighting each other. Stefan got the better of Tesar even while rocking the frozen fish. Brooked took Bart with her chocolate pudding that almost didn’t get finished. Sheldon squashed Micah in Crudo vs. Chicken Biscuit 2012. Lizzie mauled Josie, but really Josie mauled herself. Josh won his head-to-head by not cooking pork, the meat he loves, but doesn’t cook very well in front of a camera. Kristen won her little challenge against herself and pulls out the big win as well. On re-entering the Stew Room, did Stefan say that “wifey” won? I feel like some naughty time is happening. 

Danyele gets the boot. She was looking tired of the rat race anyhow. 

Best of luck to you, Danyele.