ProcrastiBlog

I have been remiss in blogging Top Chef and Battlestar Galactica this year. Suffice it to say I'm watching and enjoying, but my ardor for both has somewhat dimmed.

Unlike previous seasons of Top Chef, I don't have a real rooting interest in any of the cheftestants this year. If I were forced to choose I would guess Richard is probably going to win (he's about as well-liked as Stephanie and more consistent). I—along with the rest of the world—loathe Lisa, but she's just kind of a bad trip, not really a boo-hiss, lie-to-your-face villain in the Tiffani/Omarosa mold. An interesting bit of data, for those Lisa-haters who suspect they are suffering from an irrational aversion to her attitude, looks, and posture: she has—by far—the worst record of any cheftestant to appear in a Top Chef finale (1 Elimination win, 1 place, no Quickfire wins; she has been up for elimination or on the losing team in the last seven consecutive episodes (!)). Incidentally, Richard (3 Elimination wins, 5 places, and 2 Quickfire wins) and Stephanie (4 Elimination wins, 5 places, and 1 Quickfire win) have by far the best records of any previous cheftestant, period. (In comparison, the previous three winners (Harold, Ilan, and Hung) had only 4 Elimination wins total.)

On the other side, BSG has been doing a lot of the mythical flim-flam (I don't really care where Earth is or whether they ever find it) and not so much of the intense post-9/11 fractured-mirror business that made the first three seasons so addictive. The characters have been getting pushed around the chessboard willy-nilly without much attention paid to consistency or plausibility (to wit: President Lee Adama), all in service of a presumed "mind-blowing" series finale (to arrive not before calendar year 2009, as I understand it) that I am quite certain will disappoint (I'm not going to be X-Files'ed ever again).

So there's your TV-blogging for the year. Back to work.

Well, then! Congratulations to Chef Hung! I think it was as simple as (to paraphrase Howard Hawks) "one great dish, no bad dishes." I was very surprised to see Casey self-destruct in that way. I think she had a more than 50% chance going in and then... what happened? The only dish the judges like was... Howie's? And she admitted it too! (Take that, Tiffany!)

A note to future cheftestants: I do not advocate ever making a dessert. If it's good, the best you'll get is a "meh" (as Hung did last night) and, if it's bad, your judgment will be called into question ("Why did you choose to make a dessert? Was that the very best dish you could have presented?"). You will not get points for "daring." Nor does it matter that any paying customer would demand something sweet at the end of a tasting menu: the judges aren't paying customers and you aren't a pastry chef. Stick to what you know.

My heart is with Hung. Dude's got mad skills. The worst charge leveled at him so far is that his food lacks "soul" and is not "him."* I have a feeling, if he stays focused, produces at his usual high level, and surprises them with some tasty, "soulful" food, he can take the prize. I don't know, somehow I just identify with the cerebral social outcast. He is Marcel's revenge.

I will not be in the least surprised or upset if Casey wins. She's been consistently excellent, especially in the second half of the season (with the notable exception of the Onion Incident). She's smart, likeable, and cute as a button. If Bravo has anything to say about it, she's a shoe-in.

I will be surprised but not terribly upset if Dale wins. He has a tendency to lose his head in the heat of competition (e.g., miscounting his servings, forgetting his sauce) and is far more prone to misfires (especially, for some reason, adding too much hot pepper) than either Hung or Casey. He also has a hideous faux-hawk. So there's that.

* I love the following, from a Village Voice interview with Hung: "What does that mean, when [Colicchio] says 'We don't see Hung.'? What should I do, make sweet and sour chicken and wontons? I'm trained in French food. I love French food. That is me."

Wow, that was my longest blogging gap in the post-India era. And it's going to get longer, unfortunately. I've been really busy with pretending to be a graduate student, plus my mother is having brain surgery (feel free to do whatever you think may help in this Godless, wicked world... perhaps you could envision a healing light), plus I'll be gone for a few weeks touring the Continent. I promise all my slobbering fans I'll be back in September with outraged liberal me-too-ism, boring posts about OCaml, and Top Chef finale-blogging*. A più tarde, i miei amici...

* I would've put Tre at 3-to-1 to win the whole thing. The smart money is now on a Hung/CJ final. (Casey would be a contender if she could chop an onion.)

Now, that I've calmed down a bit...

I'm still a little perplexed by the decision. Ilan played it safe last week and very nearly got sent home. He played it safe again this week and took the title. According to my sources on the Internets (including Lee Anne Wong), several of his dishes this week and last were more-or-less straight from the menu of Casa Mono (including the bay leaf dessert).

By my count, they each had one miss (Marcel's salad w/o tear-drop vinaigrette, Ilan's angulas from a can), 3 strong dishes, and one "meh" (Marcel's dessert, Ilan's short ribs). The way the show was cut, I thought the diners were much more impressed with Marcel's food. And Marcel's "meh" was at least more creative and interesting than Ilan's.

Here are the good reasons to send Marcel home that I didn't hear come out of the Judge's mouths: the salad course and the missing hamachi showed poor planning and bad judgment (even if the non-hamachi dish ended up being a hit); he's probably less ready to go open his own restaurant tomorrow, considering his style of cuisine will only work in a high-end fine dining atmosphere and he's not quite there yet (Ilan, on the other hand, could probably open a successful downtown comfort food joint next week); in short, Marcel is less capable of realizing his grand ambitions than Ilan is of realizing his own modest ones.

Still, it was a completely uninspiring end to the season. They failed to pick the obviously best chef, which was Sam. And they chose a guy who was a self-regarding, small-minded, ignorant jerk. Seriously, I think that his part in the Marcel-shaving incident---notwithstanding the fact that he never laid a hand on him---was probably worse than Cliff's. Cliff was just physically following through on the logic of the moment, and he did so without excessive malice or force. Meanwhile, Ilan stood by shrieking and laughing, egging Cliff, Sam, and Elia on. He's the only one that seemed genuinely disappointed that Marcel escaped with his hair. And after several months to contemplate what had happened, he fell right back into bullying Marcel without a second thought.

It makes me sick to my stomach. It really does.

That and the big pile of barbecue I just ate.

My faith in reality television is shattered.

Are you psyched for the finale?! If Ilan wins, I think I might cry. Here's my attempt at an objective assessment.

Marcel

Pros: He's creative and interesting. He has a sense of humor about himself and a remarkably professional attitude towards those who teased, taunted, and assaulted him. His colleagues at The Mansion seem to respect him, even if none of his fellow contestants did. He kicked ass last week.

Cons: He didn't make a single memorably delicious-seeming dish all season. He seems to lack some basic cooking chops and gets lost when he doesn't have access to xanthan gum or a thermal immersion circulator. He made foams at least as often as Sam made pickles. And, it must be noted, almost everybody on the show hated him.


Ilan

Pros: He seems to be a skilled cook. He has prepared several dishes through the season that look delicious and which the judges all enjoyed. He showed some leadership skills in the course of the season.

Cons: The leadership he showed was in inspiring others to hate Marcel. So, more your cold prickly Hitler-y leadership,* not your warm fuzzy FDR-y stuff. He's an asshole. Every successful dish he made (e.g., paella, fideos) could have come (did come?) from the menu of his restaurant. The things he made that weren't classic Spanish recipes (e.g., chocolate-covered liver) were often disgusting. Both Gail and Padma seemed ready to send him home last week.**

My Prediction: Marcel by a nose.***

Bonus Prediction: The final Elimination Challenge will not bring back previously eliminated contestants to work under the finalists: this set-up hurt Tiffani's chances last year (recall that all four helper chefs, including her own teammates, picked Harold to win) and it would probably be ruinous to Marcel. I could swear there was promo footage of Stephen Asprinio towards the beginning of the season... Maybe they'll bring back last year's contestants as kitchen helpers? Stephen and Marcel would make a great team...

* Hell yeah, I just went there.
** Although I am typically a very credulous reality television viewer, I must say that choosing Ilan over Sam last week seems to betray an interest in "good television" over "good food."
*** The "by a nose" bit is meaningless. The judge's always present it as if it's "by a nose," especially in the finale.

UPDATE: I meant to say, also, that it is obviously the case that neither Marcel nor Ilan can hold a candle to Harold (or even Tiffani) (and probably Lee Anne). That said, I will note that this is a cooking-themed reality television show and not an objective search for the Best Chef in the Universe. (I believe that's called The Next Food Network Star.) You gotta play them as they lay.

Wow, I thought Sam was going to take it. Marcel really stepped up and cooked this week. And Elia took a nose dive, from sweet and talented to just another bully to clawing desperately on her way out. What is wrong with her? And what is wrong with Ilan? Which do you think is more debilitating: Ilan's inability to sac up and just pretend Marcel doesn't exist, or Ilan's inability to cook anything that doesn't contain saffron?

P.S. There goes the prevailing Internet theory that the timeline manipulation (and ex post Elia-cropping) in the last episode was meant to whitewash Elia's involvement in the whole affair because she was the winner... What's the deal, Bravo? Because, if Ilan wins, none of your editing did anything to make him look any less like a quivering sack of shit... And it's got all the Internets confused and paranoid...

I wasn't going to blog about this week's Top Chef---partly because Tom Colicchio already said pretty much exactly what I was thinking---but I'm doing some late-night web surfing while I wait for some evening coffee to wear off and I come across this stunning little factoid: the footage was edited in a way that tends to cast the participants in the "prank" in a more positive light (WTF?): they were yucking it up and shaving their heads after Cliff assaulted Marcel and, according to Marcel, the assault didn't end when he broke free and left the room. (Via Reality Blurred and Java Junkie.) From there, things get way out of hand... We have people analyzing the lighting and video quality in the footage and digging up new conspiracies.

And here's an interview---conducted before this episode aired, but months after the events depicted---with Sam, Ilan, and Cliff being totally unrepentant (which you might also guess from Ilan's---possibly fake---MySpace page). Way to class it up, boys.

P.S. Besides being a passive-aggressive jack-off, I couldn't believe Sam's whole wuss-bag, "I'll do it if you do. No, not really. You guys are crazy!" attitude about the head shaving. It's "crazy" to cut your hair really short? Even for a man? (And how long was Ilan's hair, anyway? About two inches?) Maybe it's "crazy" when your lustrous, flowing tresses got you voted New York's Sexiest Chef...?

I'm trying to avoid too much basic cable blogging, but I feel moved to comment on the horror of this week's Top Chef. Sam, Ilan, and Betty's "nobody likes you, Marcel, and we're going to prove it" act was straight out of my junior-high nightmares. Isn't it strange that last year's "villain," Tiffany, earned everone's loathing because she wasn't a team player and picked on Dave and Miguel, whereas this year's "villain," Marcel, is visibly trying to be cooperative and is being picked on by everybody else?

I think the key fact here is that the contestants take what is said at the Judge's Table very personally. Despite the fact that those in the "bottom three" are forced to opine on "who should go home"---and despite the fact that it's generally good strategy not to choose oneself---naming names gets you in trouble. Tiffany did herself in by being excessively cut-throat at the Judge's Table (and also the lying). The last straw with Marcel was probably when he failed to credit Sam with last week's win (never mind that standing by and letting others take credit for success is hardly the path to victory).

I didn't like Marcel to start, but his sense of humor in the face of everyone's hostility has really won me over. He's pretentious and arrogant (but, come on, he's not Stephen "You will never succeed, and you will fail horribly" Asprinio (who also won me over in the end, now that I think about it)), he easily descends into self-parody (asked why his turkey roulade was dry, he responded that he didn't have access to a thermal immersion circulator (or, um, butter)), and he probably doesn't have the skill to win the competition. But at least he's not a total dick!

I always hated Betty and I'm glad to see her go. Her excessive cheerfulness seemed to be tautly and thinly stretched over a chasm of extreme bitchiness. Up till this episode, I liked Sam and Ilan and had them figured as top contenders. I'll be rooting against them from now on. And for Elia and Marcel.

P.S. To Ilan: Marcel will stop making foams when make something other than paella.