Gawker
top chef
Posts Tagged “
Top Chef
”
top chef
top chef
Top Chefs Don't Die, They Fade Away
Joshua David Stein is back briefly to talk about Bravo's Top Chef whose final episode aired last night. Not wanting to spoil what we all have been waiting for somewhat apprehensively since March 12, I promise not to spoil the 'Top Chef' finale until after the jump. Truth be told, however, it's hard to spoil something that's already rotten. More »
disasters
Bravo Plans New Top Chef For Kids
Hey kids 13-16! Do you like truffles? Do you make a mean osso buco or quick salad with radicchio and pancetta? Sure you do. All kids like food. Which is why Bravo, home to more reality shows than there are hours of programming in a day, is getting ready to start shooting Top Chef Junior, a cooking competition for epicurean, wine-swilling, back-stabbing teenagers. More »
top chef
Is Nikki Really This Season's "Sexy Chef" or Maybe Not So Much At All?
Joshua David Stein drops in for a second to bring up an important Top Chef point and to remind you the finale is Wednesday. Check here Thursday for the epic recap. Icky nightlife dipstick Mr. Steve Lewis recently interviewed two women from Top Chef. Nikki "You Wanna De Pasta?" Cascone from this season and Camille "No, not that Camille" Becerra from last season. They both got axed and also asked some questions. Of note: Camille says she purposefully tanked to get home to her kid and bank account, Nikki tries and fails to say anything interesting or insightful and Lewis talks some serious shit against Big Head Todd English. More »
top chef
'Larval Lisa' Will Only Listen to The Criticism Of the Rich
Ohhhh Lisa. Horrible, greasy-haired, bull terrier of a chef that she is, she's still hanging on in this season of Top Chef. Our good friend and blogger Joshua David Stein despises her. Our commenters despise her. Other bloggers and commenters on other blogs despise her. Why? Because she's nasty and petty and back-stabbing and wins only by undermining others' achievements. So yes, there is lots of vitriol on the web. But does she read all of it? Does she care? No. Because people who read blogs and write blogs are too poor for her taste. More »
top chef stalker
Gail Simmons Has 'Alien Eyes,' Spike Has a Boner
As the Top Chef season finale draws near, personalities from the show are popping up everywhere. First was judge Gail Simmons, also of Food & Wine magazine, spotted by a Stalker at a 'wichcraft, sporting "ALIEN EYES!" Then came the wicked, be-hatted former contestant Spike, in YouTube comedy video form. In which he pretends to have a boner. Now if only we could encounter people we actually like from the show like Casey or Lia or, siiigh, Sam. Full Stalker email after the jump, plus Spike's boner video. More »
top chef
Larval Lisa Wins the Battle But Loses The War
Joshua David Stein is back briefly to talk about Bravo's Top Chef whose penultimate episode aired last night. There's really little left to say. Lisa, spawn of the devil, whose unpleasantness is only matched by her durability outlasted Antonia, a chef who was nice and talented in last night's episode. My blood boils. My boils are bloody. And yet, fuck you Lisa. Richard is the real winner. Photographic proof after the jump. More »
top chef
If Lisa Is Right, then the World Is Wrong and the World is Wrongo.
Joshua David Stein is back briefly to talk about Bravo's Top Chef whose eleventh episode aired last night. For a number of reasons this week, it occurs to me that maybe Earth is a crummy planet, or at least crummy to the extent it is inhabited by man. Our reign at the top of the food chain is near its end (Three fine examples of why may be found here and here and here) Last night's episode of Top Chef did little to reinvigorate my faith in man, mankind and man's kindness. More »
economics
How Reality Television Will Get Even Cheaper
Television networks, still reeling from strike-related ratings slips, have gone and broken the glass on their last-resort failsafe. They're cutting costs on reality shows. Executives are looking to further streamline the already seductively cheap 'n easy (that's why there are so many of 'em!) younger siblings of scripted programming by cutting down on non-studio filming and long editing times. Expect more shows, like the odious hit game show Moment of Truth (where contestants reveal terrible secrets while drooling for cash), that really only amount to "two people sitting in chairs onstage." More expensive reality shows like Hell's Kitchen need to be overseas hits before American networks will consider producing their own versions, which doesn't happen every day. What could this mean for reality favorites like Top Chef, Project Runway, and America's Next Top Model? We have some grim forecasts after the jump. More »
angry people
Top Chef's Lisa May Be As Bad As We Think
Joshua David Stein, foodie and blogger, was none too kind about annoying old Lisa in his Top Chef recap this morning. Is she really an insufferable annoyance, full of negativity and back-stabbery? According to our readers, yes! One tipster seconds Josh's emotion, saying that Lisa is "sour and just generally pissed off." Well, all right then! Won't argue with you there. Full tipster email after the jump. More »
top chef
Lisa, The Mean Self-Serving Hack, Lives To Cook Another Day
Joshua David Stein (yes that Joshua David Stein) is back briefly to talk about Bravo's Top Chef whose eleventh episode aired last night. Back on Wednesday at 10:00pm, when I hadn't been exposed to the horrors of the latest episode of Top Chef, my life was cozy and safe. Lisa, I thought, the worst of the contestants could not last any longer. Surely, I thought, Bravo's producers would tire of her petty villainy, her lack of talent and, quite frankly, her ass face. Unfortunately, this woman, who I and many others have come to despise, succeeded in perpetrating her con against humanity for one day longer. More »
top chef
Ugly Sweater, Fats and Villainy Invade 'Top Chef'
Joshua David Stein is back briefly to talk about Bravo's Top Chef whose tenth episode aired last night. Another episode, another crap challenge in which the contestants must cater to some non-foodie clientele in a mass production environment. Last night's challenge: make box lunches for Chicago cops so they won't get fat(ter). There are seven chefs left and not one made donuts! Pussies. More »
top chef
Extremely Poor Man's Angelina Jolie Kicked Off 'Top Chef'
Joshua David Stein is back briefly to talk about Bravo's Top Chef whose ninth episode aired last night. As Sam Cooke once sang (and Big Baby Huey covered later), "It's been a long time coming." On yesterday's Top Chef, finally, change did come. Nikki Cascone, proprietor of Soho resto 24 Prince and proud Italian-American, was sent home. This would be a spoiler but really who didn't know that little miss thing was just biding her time. The only surprise is that she lasted this long before being sent to make glue. I mean, mamma mia, how many times can one casalinga make a bowl of pasta? Last night's episode still held some signs of pandering to the Lifetime crowd. They replaced the popular restaurant wars with wedding wars, in which the competing teams were made to create a meal according to either the groom or the bride's specs. But, for the most part, the episode redeemed the show. After the jump, RELAY RACES, LEADERSHIP, and SCOTTIE PIPPEN!!! More »
top chef
Snuffles, Has Lifetime Already Bought 'Top Chef'?
Joshua David Stein is back briefly to talk about Bravo's Top Chef whose eighth episode aired last night. As has been much chewed over, Lifetime, a channel for femiladies recently bought Bravo's Project Runway, a show for gays and also anyone else who is fierce and worthwhile. Fears have been raised, as mentioned in an article by former Gawker Mama Rose Doree Shafrir, that the show's edginess will be transmuted into some life-affirming pastiche of pastel Hallmark aphorisms and dime-store candy. This is probably true. But, last we heard, Top Chef was still property of Bravo television which is why last night's episode didn't make any sense: it was cheap; it was cliché; it was precious; it was pap. Also, is Gail Simmons pregnant?More »
top chef
Is Top Chef Just One Big Lesbianic Morality Play?
Joshua David Stein is back briefly to talk about Bravo's Top Chef whose seventh episode aired last night.In the last episode of Top Chef I watched on live television, Zoi the Meanish Lesbian got booted off. Since then I heard that Pretty Boy was ousted too which isn't a big loss to anyone since he couldn't cook and could barely talk. He was all shim-sham and snake oil charm. Last night's episode, however, was particularly notable for its strong lesbian plotline (gay tension has been done before but between men) and the particularly weird phallic imagery. Also, Betrayal! Truth! Consequences! Asparagus! More »
top chef
Has Crazy Culinary Crapper Andrew Jumped the Shark?
Joshua David Stein is back briefly to talk about Bravo's Top Chef whose fourth episode aired last night. In one of the first shots of last night's Quick Fire challenge, presided over by special guest and legitimate superstar Daniel Boulud standing next to a Padma Lakshmi whose dress fell like a cataract of silk and sex over her rear end and opened up like a yawning chasm in the front to reveal two perfectly shaped bosom mounds, we see Andrew, the red-bearded manic chef from Ft. Lauderdale, currently working in New York as the sous chef at Le Cirque. While Boulud explains the challenge, remarkably sponsor-free, the chefs eye him respectively. Some nod. They are actively listening. And then there is Andrew who is rocking back and forth with a ferocious intensity written furrowing his brow. He looks like a schizophrenic Wallace from Wallace and Gromit but scary and at the same time sad. It wasn't ever like his weirdness was an act but previously his mania seemed controllable. More »
Blogging: Better Than Shouting At The TV
Gothamist, the most earnest blog in New York, got a little snarky with Top Chef judge Ted Allen yesterday. The site ran an open letter to the ex-Queer Eye, criticizing him for referring to a Waldorf Salad as coming from "Middle America" on Top Chef this week. Today Allen responds to the Gothamist letter, repeating his contention that the mayo and fruit-based salad is Middle American while admitting that it did indeed originate here. It's times like this when I love the internet. Oh, look, Gothamist has made me all earnesty too.
Gothamist, the most earnest blog in New York, got a little snarky with Top Chef judge Ted Allen yesterday. The site ran an open letter to the ex-Queer Eye, criticizing him for referring to a Waldorf Salad as coming from "Middle America" on Top Chef this week. Today Allen responds to the Gothamist letter, repeating his contention that the mayo and fruit-based salad is Middle American while admitting that it did indeed originate here. It's times like this when I love the internet. Oh, look, Gothamist has made me all earnesty too.
