Boring, Boring, Bored...except for the snitching!

Two weeks ago the Top Chef equivalent of the blooper reel in any Will Ferrel movie was commencing...Restaurant Wars!  For those of us who watch the show we know this to be a very anticipated event, sometimes much better than the finale, where two teams are made and compete against each other in a mock restaurant.  It's a true battle between the few who will rise, perfuming the kitchen with their talent and reveled in praise...and those untalented few who will crumple to the bottom of the stove, burn under the heat, stink up the kitchen and eventually scraped off with a spatula.

For those of you who did watch...what's up with that Alex, huh?  How much did you want to smack him in his pointy head after he talked to the waiters like he was made of diamonds?  He reminded me of a sad little man who, for the first time and last time ever, obtained a smidge, a molecule of power and let it go to his ego tripping head.  The argument that followed after the Judge's Table where Kenny's team attacked Alex in that cooler room would normally make me feel bad for Alex, he was given a pretty hard bitch slap of words from Kevin and Alex did look pretty pathetic.  However, I just remember him yelling like a petulant child at waiters only fifteen minutes before and any empathy I may have had evaporated.

Kenny's team, the bottom team of the night, ratted out Alex who was on the winning team to the judges.  They tattle-taled on him like it was a school play ground and Tom was the teacher's aide with a whistle.  But Kenny's team was right, Alex did not do anything for his team other than play Fidel Castro in the dining room.  Everyone was supposed to compose or create a dish...Alex's team, fearing his inevitable f-up, went ahead and did it for him...and what viewer would blame them.  Everything he touches turns to cat vomit.  When Kenny's team called him out on it, he lied, of course.  And to the judge's, it didn't matter, I guess because Alex was on the winning team and therefore immune to elimination.

RIP KENNY

Kenny was ultimately kicked out of the kitchen, not a move I was adverse to, he certainly wasn't as good a chef as he claims, he wasn't so much "Big Daddy" as he was "Kinda Lame Duck Who Overdoes Every Dish I Make."  

However, it was just another bullet Alex has dodged and I am seriously wondering what is going on with the show's producers.  He keeps skirting the rules and he keeps on truckin'?  Where is the fairness, Top Chef? 

Oh...and that idiot Amanda is still here.  Surviving yet another episode.  After she was told that her meat was not cooked well, that it was too thinly sliced and overdone, she seriously said, "Wow, I'm really surprised.  That's not what I was going for."  Really?  Really, that wasn't what you were going for?  You were not purposely trying to cook crap food?  Weird!  I wonder what happened?  Oh yeah, it might have something to do with the bitching the whole episode about how the meat was grassfed and "weird" and you did not know how to cook it properly.  That's just a guess.

This show...gah...will be my future aneurysm.

So this isn't exactly mine...

My friend Jenny (shout out!) took me to St. Louis' number one rated restaurant for my birthday last year, Niche. It was amazing.  For dessert we ordered the only thing that you could possibly order when it is an option on the menu...the Chocolate Lava Cake with Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream (picture above).   

So for her birthday, I decided I would make Jenny a chocolate lava cake.  It wasn't too bad...not Niche good...but homemade great.  It was so easy I felt like a master chef.  So here is the recipe, no picture :(, but it doesn't look too much different from above.  I left it in the ramekin and had no chocolate swirl...maybe next time.  

Martha Stewart's Great Food Fast

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temp, plus more for ramekins

1/3 cup granulated sugar, plus more for ramekins

3 large eggs

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate melted

confectioner's sugar, for dusting

whipped cream for serving (YEAH RIGHT!  GET ICE CREAM...MUCH BETTER!)

1. preheat oven to 400 degrees..  generously butter 4 ramekins.  dust with granulated sugar and tap out excess.  set aside.

2. in the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and granulated sugar until fluffly.  add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  with the mixer on low speed, beat in the flour and salt until just combined.  beat in the chocolate (do not overmix).  divide the batter evenly amont the prepared ramekins.

3. place the ramekins on a baking sheet, bake just until tops of the cakes no longer jiggle when the pan is lightly shaken, 8-10 minutes.  removed from the oven, let stand for 10 minutes. 

4. to serve, turn our the cakes, and place on serving plates, top sides up.  dust with confectioners sugar and serve with whipped cream ice cream.  

The trick is don't overbake.  I checked on the cakes after 8 minutes and let them go one more minute...they were perfect.  

Good luck!

Alex Stole that Pea Puree!

After working four years in a jail a few things becoming completely evident.  1. Both men and women are disgusting in different but completely equivalent ways. 2. People think traffic tickets are something police hand out for fun. 3. People lie about EVERYTHING and if you even have a feeling that someone is being anything other than totally truthful, you're probably right.

 Ed vs. Alex 

And that leads me to Top Chef's Alex & Ed.  Alex and that green goop that he stole from Ed in Episode 7: Power Lunch.  Now I hate peas.  They have a weird taste I have never acquired, they have too smooshy a consistency and if they are not covered in gravy from the pot pie they are in, forget it, I'm not eating them.  So to have all this controversy over that vegetable is kinda giggly.  Two grown men fighting over baby food is never all that cool anyway...and these two are exactly the coolest guys to start with.
However, Bravo has to get it's drama where it can.  And it's amazing to me that Alex is allowed to get away with this.  Tom Coliccio's blog said that maybe Ed didn't actually believe that Alex stole his pea puree.  Huh?  Alex has never been a strong contender, he has not won any quickfires or eliminations up to this point.  He is the one everyone agrees, "Why is this man still here??"  All the chefs knew Alex stole the puree.  All the viewers know Alex stole the puree.  Tom doesn't want to admit what he knows to be true because Alex ended up winning for the night...and what did the judge's keep raving over?  The same thing that was vomited out of the exorcist girl--pea puree.

Ed played it cool at Judge's table, though, it was impressive.  They were both in the top three.  It was a smart move in Ed's part, the judge's hate sore losers or sore winners.  They want everyone to be moderately humble as though it was a surprise to the contestants that they had any talent in the kitchen whatsoever.  So we are left knowing that a contestant cheated...not just cheated, but straight up committed a crime like a bastard.  Just another lovely f-you to the viewers of Top Chef.

Ah well, we should be used to it by now, right?