Top Chef - Season 5 - "Down on the Farm"

For starters I am still a little upset that Gail is no longer going to be hosting. I liked her and found her to be kind of cute. This new judge is hardly a looker. At least for a straight male like myself.

Hung, the winner from season 3, is back to guest judge the quickfire. The quickfire is to use canned ingredients and make a delicious dish. They only get 15 minutes to make this dish.
The disappointments were Leah, Radhika and Jamie. Hosea, Stefan and Jeff were liked by Hung. The winner of the quickfire is Stefan. This gives him immunity for the next challenge. Not that he would've needed it as he is currently ranked #1 in my standings.

The chefs draw knives to divide into teams of three. Pork, lamb and chicken are the proteins. They will need to create a family style meal (including dessert) for 16 people.

The chefs are driven out to go shopping. They are not taken to a grocery store. They are taken to a farm to shop on the farm. This is great. They are getting to meet their future dishes. Not sure I would be able to look them in the eye and then eat them. Of course them being at a farm mandates that I include the Mark Wahlberg talks to animals sketch.


Team Lamb is Hosea, Leah and Ariane. Team Chicken is Carla, Jamie and Stefan. Team Pork is Radhika, Jeff and Fabio. The teams have to make desserts in this challenge. I know that there will be an issue with at least one team's desserts. There always is. It always haunts someone.

Team chicken made a soup, which was questioned on such a warm day, but people liked the taste of it. Team lamb did not produce a good lamb. It had an overpowering pesto. Team pork was not impressive but the fried green tomatoes were the star.

Team chicken makes a nectarine and strawberry tartlet which the judges liked very much, especially Carla's crust.. Team pork create a vanilla and lavender scented crème brûlée. It had a bit too much sugar and sweetness to it. Team lamb made a summer berry trifle that was unappealing to look at and not well received.

Team Chicken (Carla, Jamie and Stefan) were the best of the bunch. This kills my prediction that Carla will be the one who goes home. The winner of the challenge was all of them. All three are given the win. Kind of a cop out if you ask me.

Both the lamb team and the pork team are asked to appear in front of the judges.
The team projects can be tough. Some of the chefs take back seats to the other chefs. Sometimes in these situations the teamwork interferes and good chefs get sent home because of a poor team effort. It is hard to call these ones because the judges can go many ways with they analyzing of the teams.

Someone must go home and today that someone is Ariane. Wow. I had her ranked #3 this week. I really think that she should not have gone home. You could've sent home Radhika for not doing much on the pork team. However the judges decided the lamb team was the worst dish so someone from that team had to go. Hosea was fairly safe from elimination. Leah would've been an acceptable cutting. The judges always say they do not consider past performance and only use the current challenge but still, Ariane has had the better season so far. It is a shame to see her go. Not that I think she was going to win it all, but I think she deserves to be there ahead of Leah.


I liked doing the ranked list last week so I am doing it again this week. I included where I would've ranked Ariane. This is the ranking of who is most likely to win Top Chef.
1) Stefan (was 1)
2) Jeff (was 5)
3) Hosea (was 6)
4) Jamie (was 2)
5) Fabio (was 4)
6) Ariane (was 3)
7) Radhika (was 7)
8) Leah (was 8)
9) Carla (was 9)

Labels: Television, Top Chef

- posted by Doug @ 12:16:00 AM