Top Chef Masters

[solipsistnation]

In a very real sense, that was the episode of Top Chef I've been waiting for as long as I've been watching the show.

Every week, I watch chefs receive challenges and do things that, while usually challenging, are well within their comfort zones. Offal is still meat; burgers are still beef; seafood, chicken, so on and so forth. You can win Padme's heart with bacon and booze. Tom likes his beef. Everyone likes scallops if you cook them well, but if you don't you might as well not even have unpacked your knives in the first place.

More than once I've said, "You know what would be a REAL challenge? Cook vegetarian food! YEAH!" And this week finally they had a challenge that was not only vegetarian, but VEGAN. And gluten-free AND soy-free! Vegan cooking stymies the French traditionalists, who suddenly can't just sautee everything in butter. Soy-free and gluten-free blocks chefs who might try traditional dishes with seitan or some kind of fake meat. And gluten-free... Well, it MOSTLY blocks pasta dishes, although... No spoilers. So, yeah.

Anyway, without TOO many spoilers...



I found the winner disappointing-- clearly these vegans don't really put any effort into eating well. Gael's comment about vegan food usually showing up in shades of beige was rather telling-- there are some fantastic vegan meals to be had. Hell, if nothing else you can just punt and throw a bunch of red and yellow peppers on there. Sure, they give ME the shits, but lots of people like them. If your vegan food isn't colorful, you're doing something very wrong.

So, the idea that you can make a decent pasta dish being a revelation to these vegans is more a commentary on THESE vegans than on the potential of vegan food. Clearly they haven't bothered to, well, even look around much at a Whole Foods. Professional chefs who usually order their ingredients in bulk from wholesale being unfamiliar with grocery stores is one thing. Pop stars, who are at least nominally actual people who eat actual food, being unfamiliar with supermarkets is another.

I realize that I live in a somewhat unusual part of the country as far as food choices go, but right now, if I wanted fast food, Chinese food, Asian and Malaysian fusion food, Mexican food, pasta, Middle Eastern food, or sushi, I could walk out the door and within half an hour be served a totally vegetarian or vegan meal full of flavor and color and all kinds of awesome. Considering that LA is not only still California but ALSO much larger than the Santa Cruz area AND full of rich crazy people, I'd guess that the vegan options there are even more interesting. Even if you're eating a vegan diet (and my own diet is mostly vegan these days, since dairy makes my tummy unhappy and since stophittinyrslf mostly cooks for me), there's no reason to sit around eating rice cakes and whining.

So, yeah. I really love watching Hubert Keller cook and serve his food. His eyes light up, and he radiates total gleeful delight. He's grateful toward the people who eat and love his food, and accepts criticism gracefully. His attitude toward the challenge was great-- he knows how to make healthy food, so he sat down and made something great.

Even Rick Bayless, who is the nerdiest chef I've ever seen ("There are three totally different kinds of guacamole there! They can't even PERCEIVE it!") received the challenge and stepped right up. He knew how to make delicious vegetarian meals already, and got right on with the vegetables and corn and stuff. He usually grates; he still grated this time, but at least he didn't whine about the challenge.

Anita? Well, grilled eggplant is good, but oily eggplant isn't. I think she was defeated the moment she heard what she had to do.

Art "I'm why Oprah is fat" Smith punted. I'd love the recipe for his non-dairy brittle, but, well, I don't know anyone who thinks Rice Dream is a decent non-dairy ice-cream-like frozen dessert thing. Of the possible choices, it's really one of the worst. Of course, without being able to use soy you lose out on a couple of the better ones (Soy Delicious is decent.) As the judges pointed out, though, a sorbet would have avoided the whole problem AND been delicious and non-dairy. And, as is typical of Top Chef, he based his whole dish on an ingredient with which he was unfamiliar and it screwed him over. Oh well. I wish I could say I was sorry to see him leave, but I'm not. Anita could at least redeem herself; Art Smith has been annoying all along.

The winner, whose name I forget and I am too lazy to look up? I've started calling him "The Frat Boy" because he's such a dork. He was almost contemptuous of his diners and their choices (and the restrictions forced upon them), and his dish, while not as much of a punt as the dessert, was still pretty weak. He only won because the audience hadn't looked around the shelves of a Whole Foods or any other half-decent supermarket to find non-wheat-based pasta.

Anyway, I'm glad to see they finally did a vegetarian/vegan challenge, and I'm glad to see that people I expected would do well (Hubert is so dreamy!) did.

I'm still rooting for Hubert (Dreamy!) Keller to take the prize. We'll see next week...