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“Top Chef” Recaps: Episode 4.7 “Improv”

THIS WEEK’S KITCHEN ESSENTIALS:

Quickfire: What would Willy Wonka do? Elimination: Welcome to a night at the improv. Padmaism: “I would lick my bowl if we weren’t in front of the camera.”

U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no alibi – The house rises and shines. Well, they shine as much as they can. With self-avowed metrosexual Ryan gone, some of the housemates are feeling a little hit with the ugly stick.

Andrew: I’m waking up this morning and looking around and obviously the room got a lot uglier. Ryan, pretty boy, left.

Antonia frets about the one little mistake that could send someone home at this point in the competition. You mean like leaving fish scales on or running out of food or a having a filthy work station? Oh, wait.

Jennifer gets on her chef gear and says, again, that she is doing this for Zoi.

Jennifer: I can’t be in the middle anymore. I need to be on the top. Everything I’ve got, blood, sweat and tears.

OK, OK, we get it. It’s all very noble and should certainly help you – shall we say – get some when you two are reunited. But let’s move on.

Never skip dessert – The cheftestants walk into the Top Chef Kitchen and what greets them? Desserts. A whole table full of sweet, sugary confections sits so close, yet so far away. Now I don’t have a big sweet tooth (I have more of a bacon and cheese tooth), but even I want to grab a fork and gorge myself into a sugar coma.

The accompanying Quickfire Challenge is – you guessed it – to create a delicious dessert. The presence of guest judge and “pastry icon” Johnny Iuzzini brings this season’s overly gelled hairdo count to an all-time high.

Then host Padma Lakshmi pulls out an advance copy of Top Chef: The Cookbook. My eyes glaze over at yet another gratuitous product placement. Wouldn’t it be easier to just get a flashing neon sign that reads: “BUY THIS!”

Turns out whoever wins the dessert battle will be the only chef from this season to have a recipe in the cookbook. No, this doesn’t mean they’ll have to open up a rift in the space-time continuum. The season was taped in advance of the cookbook’s March 20 release date. What it does mean, however, is that Padma is probably holding up a book with nothing but blank pages.

Sweating the sweets – As the chefs go on a sugar rush, they worry about their pastry skills. Dale has one dessert recipe he brought with him – for shaved ice. Me, I wouldn’t have picked a dessert they sell on the boardwalk for $1. But I guess it could have been worse; he could have picked cotton candy.

Lisa says she swore she wouldn’t make pastry when she went on Top Chef. You see, baking and cooking are different skill sets. When you cook you can make adjustments throughout the process. When you bake, once you put it in the oven you are done.

Richard, whose faux hawk is growing by the second, is improvising his dessert. It comes to him while he is cutting the bananas. Oh, Lord, I sense another food-based pun.

Richard: You know I’m very tongue-in-cheek and very witty, so banana scallops. To me writing the menu is as important sometimes as the food itself.

I know they say the pen is mightier than the sword. But now it’s mightier than the spatula, too?

Cooking with cojones – In the meantime, Spike thinks dessert is a perfect opportunity to show that “this kid has balls” by making a soufflé. Ew, ew, a million times ew. By using those words, he has officially ruined soufflé for me for the rest of my natural-born life.

But what did guest judge Johnny Hairdo make of all their sugary stuff? Well, I’ll get to that, but first I want to marvel at the fact that Richard made banana scallops with guacamole. Guacamole in dessert? Now those are some real cojones. And apparently it works because Padma calls it “strange and delicious.”

The worst: Antonia’s brû léed lemon curd (dish didn’t come together), Spike’s pineapple rum-raisin soufflé (risk didn’t pay off), and Mark’s pavlovas with wattle seed (didn’t compose a full dessert).

The best: Dale’s halo-halo shaved ice (flavors worked well), Lisa’s yogurt with fruit puree (fresh flavors), and Richard’s banana scallops (original flavors). The winner: Richard, who also gets immunity.

Richard: Something I’m trying to show is that I’m not a one-trick pony. I can do the chemical thing and the technology thing, but I also just won with a dessert course.

One trick? No. One joke? Yes. I beg of you, Richard: no more food puns. The comedy gods are weeping.

Have you heard the one about … – Instead of telling the chefs what the Elimination Challenge will be, Padma says they all get a night on the town for inspiration. They are going to see a show at Second City, Chicago’s famed improv comedy group.

Back at the house, the chefs pretty up as much as they can minus their former resident pretty boy. Honorary chefbian Stephanie says how nice it will be to relax and hang out as friends. Has no one watched this show before? For the love of God, wear comfortable shoes and clothing that moves. You never know when you’ll have to cook at 2 a.m. in a taco truck for a bunch of drunks.

Despite whatever subterfuge might lay ahead, it’s looking good that is most on their minds. While the girls compare tank tops, the boys compare undies.

Mark: Me and the boys, you know, we don’t want to clash. Obviously [Richard] wants to wear pink. Goes well with his skin tone, doesn’t it?

Once at Second City, the requisite hilarity ensues. The chefbian and honorary chefbian contingent sure seems to be having a ball.

Kitchen improv – Then the performers ask the audience to yell out words in different categories: colors, emotions and ingredients. Oh, chefs, get ready for cooking with Mad Libs. Turns out each crazy combination of words is a course the chefs will have to make in the Elimination Challenge. What was it Richard was saying earlier about writing the menu being as important as the food?

Lisa: My immediate thought is that we are f—ed.

Well, with words like “perplexed,” “depressed” and “turned on” thrown out there, I’d have to agree. Nothing says “yummy” like depressed food.

Back at the house the chefs pair themselves off and then draw numbers from a hat to get their course. The results:

Andrew/Spike — yellow, love, vanilla Stephanie/Jennifer — orange, turned on, asparagus Dale/Richard — green, perplexed, tofu Antonia/Lisa — magenta, drunk, Polish sausage Mark/Nikki — purple, depressed, bacon

Food porn – At the grocery store, the chefs reveal their game plans. Jennifer and Stephanie decide on a mix of oranges, goat cheese and asparagus. But how will they get it turned on?

Jennifer: I’m feeling pretty good about having a ménage à trois in my future.

Look, whatever you ladies want to do in the privacy of your own kitchen is fine with me. I promise not to tell Zoi.

Richard and Dale and their “perplexing” cooking styles decide to marinate their tofu in beef fat. That sound you just heard was a million vegetarians screaming, “Nooooooo!”

Richard then declares that their dish is like a Seinfeld sketch.

Richard: This tofu tastes like beef … what’s up with that?

That sound you just heard was a million comedy writers screaming, “Nooooooo!”

No Polish jokes, please – Antonia and Lisa have by far the easiest combination: magenta, drunk, Polish sausage. But they bristle at the idea of making a simple beer-and-sausage dish.

Lisa: I’m not going to dumb down my food because of what some drunken schmuck screamed out in an audience.

So instead they pick Chilean sea bass, Mexican tequila and Portuguese chorizo. Antonia says it’s their version of “improv.” I think they have some secret grudge against Poland.

Meanwhile, Spike declares Andrew and his “yellow, love, vanilla” dish another “ballsy” move. That guy needs to get off the gonad analogies. So what’s their big “ballsy” creations? The same damn butternut squash soup Spike has whined about wanting to cook since Episode 4.5.

Spike: I was so happy to be doing a soup because I love making a squash soup. That is something I feel like I should have done a couple of challenges ago.

He then says the ability to make a perfect soup is what impresses a chef. Wow, he really cannot let this whole soup thing go.

But neither can Antonia.

Antonia: Oh, God, if he freaking wins for that I’m going to like vomit in my mouth.

You and me both, sister. You and me both.

Who pulled the plug? – As the chefs get busy, they realize all the electrical equipment, from blenders to food processors, is gone. So they’ll have to, yep, improvise.

This machine-free challenge poses the biggest problem for Spike and Andrew, who need a blender to puree their soup. Instead everything must be mashed and pressed by hand. This also involves Spike straining the soup mixture through cloth. And, with that, we get the night’s third reference to testes.

Andrew: Hey, you know how to work a sack, dude.

I believe I just beat Antonia to that whole vomiting in my mouth thing.

Is that an asparagus in your pocket? – Stephanie and Jennifer decide to make their asparagus look, uh, excited. They lean it up so it is, ahem, erect on a piece of bread. Stephanie says she is a little worried about the bread, which was Jennifer’s idea, because it’s so large. Apparently, size does matter.

Does anyone else feel like they’re having a session on Dr. Freud’s couch with this challenge?

Antonia and Lisa are working on their non-Polish sausage dish. Antonia thinks the plate doesn’t look refined enough. But then head chef Tom Colicchio comes in and throws everyone for a loop.

Waiter, there is an asshat in my soup – Instead of serving the judges and Second City crew on the table already set in the kitchen, the cheftestants have 20 minutes to pack up their food and bring it to their Top Chef house where they will finish the last hour of cooking and serve dinner.

Back at the house, everyone scrambles for burners and space. Andrew and Spike finish early and spend the last half-hour of the competition tasting and seasoning their soup.

They bring it to the judges who – wait for it, wait for it – love it. Tom calls it “simple, straightforward and just delicious.” Someone get Antonia an air sickness bag, STAT.

They’re bringing SexyBack – Stephanie and Jennifer are next with their raunchy asparagus. Stephanie is still worried about the bread and its texture. But it’s time to get the friction on with the judges.

Jennifer: We’ve composed a ménage à trois. …We have orange sections – sex-tions. Stephanie: Then we took a nice, hard log of aged goat cheese …

They have a great routine about dipping the asparagus in orange sauce, and the judges and Second City cast members lap it up. Heck, even Tom can’t hide his amusement. In short, they killed.

But it turns out their dish is all foreplay, no action. The diners don’t like the oiliness of the cheese. They don’t like how hard the bread is to cut. Judge Ted Allen makes sure to get in as much sex terminology as possible in his critique.

Ted: This is not a ménage à trois. This is more of an orgy.

So much for the afterglow.

Richard and Dale’s perplexing dish is next. Spike looks at the big old block of seared tofu and is perplexed by their decision. But the judges are the opposite of perplexed. The tofu elicits “mmm” noises and is deemed “delicious.”

I’m not as think as you drunk I am – Next comes Antonia and Lisa’s “magenta, drunk, Polish sausage.” Spike, who seems to have trash to talk about everyone’s dishes, says it went out cold and “looked like turds.”

After minimally explaining their dish and glossing over the big, glaring there-is-nothing-Polish-on-this-plate issue, the ladies share a tequila shot. But they didn’t bring any for the judges. Ladies, ladies: Liquor up the judges whenever possible. A drunk judge is a happy judge.

Instead of getting a nice buzz from the dish, the diners are – to steal a line from the previous dish – perplexed by the fish and chorizo.

Finally, Nikki and Mark bring out their “purple, depressed, bacon.” Already, they are at an advantage because their dish has bacon in it. So what’s the depressed part, then?

Mark: The bacon is very depressed; it has to share the plate with brussels sprouts.

Well, if this whole cooking thing doesn’t work out for Mark, he can always go into comedy.

Stephanie, Antonia and Jennifer discuss who will make the bottom two. They all agree it won’t be them. Oh, way to jinx it, ladies. But maybe Jennifer realized their faux pas as she cleans up her knives.

Jennifer: I’m packing my knives – this is like a bad omen.

Yukking it up – Padma comes in and calls Dale, Richard, Spike and Andrew to Judges’ Table first. Forget an airsickness bag, I think Antonia is going to need a bucket for this one.

They are the judges favorites. Tom calls Spike and Andrew’s soup “the best-seasoned dish we’ve had all season.” Ted says making soup when “love” was one of their words was great, because it’s such a comforting, loving food.

Spike: That’s just in me all the time, so.

Dammit, now I need a bucket, too.

Dale and Richard get praised for their unusual concept and also for coming together as a team. But what won out – being in love or being perplexed? Love is perplexing, so Richard and Dale’s dish took it.

As the winners, they each get $2,500 of Calphalon kitchenwear. Quick, someone check eBay for two guys selling an obscene amount of pots and pans.

The sound of one hand clapping – The victors get the spoils and then get to spoil the day of the losing teams. They call in Antonia, Lisa, Stephanie and Jennifer. Yes, that’s right, all of the female chefs except the least-talented of the bunch – cough, cough, Nikki, cough, cough – have made the bottom three. Irony is indeed a bitter pill to swallow.

Antonia and Lisa’s dish gets dissected first. Tom asks who made the decision to go with chorizo instead of Polish sausage. Antonia and Lisa say they both did. They said neither of them had ever enjoyed Polish sausage before, so didn’t want to put it on the plate.

Tom cuts their argument to the quick.

Tom: I think you have to incorporate the Polish sausage; that was your word.

Um, duh?

Lisa: This is my first time on the chopping block, and finding out that it is because of a slight wording thing is really tough.

Slight wording thing? You had three word groups you had to use, and you didn’t use one of them. That’s not slight, that’s major.

Who cut the cheese? – Jennifer and Stephanie’s “orange, turned on, asparagus” ménage à flop is next on the chopping block. Tom says he had similar issues with their dish as he had with Antonia and Lisa’s. He thought the goat cheese was front and center instead of the asparagus.

But they had explained earlier that they picked the cheese because it turns a nice orange color when cooked. Nonetheless, guest judge/pastry chef Johnny Hairdo says he thought the composition on the plate was “a train wreck.”

And then the lesbian is put in the awkward position of explaining the penis joke inherent in the dish.

Jennifer: We were definitely trying to make the plate look phallic …We wanted the asparagus to be, like, coming up.

All the judges kind of giggle at this. All the judges except for Johnny Hairdo, who apparently thinks the phallus is no laughing matter. He really hated the bread, which he thought was too big, hard and soggy. No comment.

Padma asks who made what, and all of a sudden I’m not laughing either, because Jennifer cops to making the bread and cheese. All hands on deck: chefbian in trouble.

Cuts like a knife – Back in the waiting room, Lisa is mad that Polish sausage in beer would have been a better dish than Chilean sea bass with chorizo. She’s also mad that some drunken people yelled out “Polish sausage” in the first place.

Lisa: These f—ing people that were drunk in a comedy show said “Polish sausage” and I got faulted.

Well, those were the rules.

The judges deliberate and argue about their central decision.

Ted: So which is worse? Antonia and Lisa not really focusing on the main ingredient or Jen and Steph giving us something that was kind of a muddle?

Tom says whether or not they left a few things out of the challenge, he enjoyed the fish more than the asparagus. Ted, again, brings up the key issues: better dish versus rules of the challenge.

Tom, again, thinks that while they used asparagus, cheese dominated the dish. Johnny Hairdo chimes in that of the two dishes, this was his least favorite taste-wise.

This is not a drill, folks, this is a DEFCON 1 chefbian emergency. We need all hands, all hands on deck!

So long, farewell – Back to face the music, Tom sings them a sad song. He says the challenge was about improvising, and in both cases the dishes got off track.

Tom: You guys are all very accomplished, and this technicality is all we have to go on right now. At the end of the day we had to go by what was our least favorite dish.

And that was? Jennifer and Stephanie’s.

Who has to pack her knives and go? Jennifer.

Even in defeat, Jennifer stands up for herself and her food.

Jennifer: I thought that was a great dish. And I thought that we improv-ed with it well. But I appreciate the opportunity, and I’m sorry that I can’t go further.

Mama, I’m coming home – When the rest of the chefs get the news, hugs go all around. They all seem genuinely shocked to see her leave. Hell, I’m shocked.

Dale: She scared me when she cooked, I thought she was so good.

I have to say, I think this is crap. Stephanie and Jennifer had the best improv act during service. They, more than any other team, got into the spirit of the challenge and tied their dishes’ component to their assigned words. The cheese looked orange, and “orange” was one of their three words. They had “asparagus” and it was “turned on.”

Jennifer: After Zoi was eliminated, I was angry. It definitely made me really want to win it even more. So I’m a little frustrated right now.

I have nothing against either Antonia or Lisa, but they missed an entire component from their dish. There was nothing Polish on that plate. Nicht. Nada. Zilch. Zero.

What bothers me most about this decision is that it shows the inconsistency of the judges. Last week, pretty boy Ryan got the boot because his dish was inappropriate and didn’t follow the rules of the challenge. This week the person who actually followed the rules of the challenge got the axe.

Jennifer: I still have a lot of tricks up my sleeve that I would have liked to use. I am sorry that I’m not going to be able to do it. I think what I’d like to say to the remaining chefs is you have to bring it more than 110 percent. You have to bring it, like, 1,000 percent.

Well, the good news for Jennifer is she’s got someone very special waiting at home for her. I predict many nice, long, consoling chefbian snuggle moments in her future.

Next time on Top Chef: Who needs child labor laws? Who needs to learn to take criticism? Who needs a big hug from Tom?

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