Thursday Morning Quarterback: Episode One

Thursday Morning Quarterback is a weekly attempt to humorously recap each new episode of Top Chef Texas on the Bravo Network (as if you didn’t know).
Beware; there are spoilers below!

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With the Longhorns and Cowboy seasons busted, the Rangers loosing the World Series and the Mavs locked out; this will be the closest thing to Texas sports I’ll have for awhile until the UT basketball team gets jobbed by the refs mid-march. Here are my thoughts on the first episode:

Thirty seconds in and they’ve already said “everything’s bigger in Texas” one too many times. I do like the 30 chef field though.
“I don’t like having to compete for the top 16″
- Some bitch who probably won’t make it to the top 16.
BAM! Emeril!
Pink bandana is the new carpetbag.
Unemployed chefs on Top chef? Topical.

The single cut of pig opening challenge is good. I thought they might do something a little more San Antonio-themed, but this is a quality challenge for figuring out where everybody stands.
Wait- are any of these cooks from the South, let alone Texas? WTF?
“I’m a personal chef for celebrities and know everything. How do you cut pork chops again?”
I love you for kicking that dickweed Tyler out, Tom Colicchio.
“You didn’t get to taste my perfectly cooked pork chop I couldn’t make”
Ass.
It’s amazing how much trouble group one had. I thought this opening challenge was way more manageable than the previous opening eliminations where they judged everyone on how they chopped onions. I would never get past that.
Tom is obviously an intimidating judge, but Emeril has some scary intensity bubbling below the surface. If he ever yelled at me in a kitchen scenario; I can’t promise I wouldn’t cry.

Caribbean cruise thinks she had a good dish. Tenderloin and green beans.
But I repeat.
I swear, there are STILL NO SOUTHERNERS IN THIS LINEUP!
Mmmmm, braised crispy pig ears. In soup, no less. Good stuff. Lofty stuff.

“I feel like this is a Chicago competition”- Sarah
Hey, why don’t you go eat a cat turd covered in neon green relish?

Kentucky, North Carolina, Atlanta… Much better.
Nice; different challenge for group two. Rabbit orgy.
Oh, Rick Bayless is your mentor. Might as well just hand you the prize.\
“My style is most similar to Richard Blaise and Michael Voltagio.”
Yeah, your hairstyle.

MY PLAN TO SLOWLY COOK FOOD IN A PLASTIC BAG IS NOT WORKING!
“Who does chocolate with rabbit? Not a lot of people.”
Yeah, just you and Spain. Very exclusive group.

Whitney is one to look out for. Keith too. Funny that two of the Southerners would have VERY well received dishes.

Confit leg of rabbit. Original.
The no-tattoo crew on the bubble. Cute.
I just turned into my grandma.

It’s shaping up to be an interesting season. The chefs so far seem to be a talented bunch, more so than some of the barrel-scraping attempts of previous seasons. It’s interesting that they’re stretching this playoff format over two episodes. It’s exciting, even if it means they won’t really explore the setting until the final lineup is decided.

Overall Grade: B+ Maybe.

Long time waiting room staple Entertainment Weekly is reporting that sitcom star Emeril Lagasse will be joining the judges panel on the next season of Bravo’s Top Chef.

I am genuinely excited about this. While he’s made his share of regrettable career decisions; Emeril Lagasse is an American treasure who singlehandedly turned Food Network into a destination channel (before Travel Channel and Bravo sauntered along and stole all their thunder). He carried the torch for Julia Child through the late nineties and introduced a whole segment of the American population to cooking food they never previously would have thought to try.
He’s a class act; comparable (for better or worse) to a Jay Leno of the cooking world.
Tony Bourdain agrees with me.

They’re also adding avid bottle cap collector Hugh Acheson to the judges panel. Acheson was easily one of the best personalities on the last season of Top Chef Masters, and despite getting eliminated twice, seems to know a thing or two about food.

Plugging Emeril and Acheson into the mix with Padma, Gail and Chef Colicchio will make for interesting chemistry. Anything that keeps Saveur editor and insufferably pretentious douchehammer James Oseland off the main Top Chef show is a good thing.

I find Top Chef Masters to be a worthy spin-off, save for the awful judging.
They mixed it up this last season and added Ruth Reichl, who is awesome, but she seemed to be more in her element on her criminally under-watched PBS show than she was as a judge.
Curtis Stone is Australian, and therefore I cannot like him, as I am deeply prejudiced against Australians. He’s obviously telegenic, but more than that, he seems to be able to speak extemporaneously on a number of cuisines and techniques.
So bully to him; he’s a boon for the show.

The real problem is Oseland and his pissboy Alan Sytsma. Those two are so ridiculously foppish in their demeanor that they shouldn’t be allowed to review a dish unless they’re decked out in powdered wigs and pantaloons.

Also; he looks and talks like John Malkovich in a one-man play about Orville Redenbacher.

Thankfully; they also toned down the appearances of Saveur contributor Gael Green, who despite being in her late seventies, never turns down an opportunity to tell you about all the times she’s been laid.

Nothing stimulates my appetite quite like listening to grandma tell me about the good old days when she screwed Elvis.

I think the most exciting part of this upcoming Top Chef season is the location: TEXAS! They’re actually doing three cities; Dallas; Austin and San Antonio (Ha! Huck Fouston.) so hopefully they’ll take advantage of what I think is one of the more underrated food scenes in the country. Dallas/Fort Worth has the estimable Tim Love along with a slew of other quality chefs; Austin has amazing bar food and the best sushi restaurant in the continental United States and San Antonio has a Popeye’s Chicken across the street from a Whataburger. So that’s pretty cool.

When the next season of Top Chef starts; you can count on Reducer for all the nit-picky coverage and play-by-play analysis you’ll be looking for.