Thursday, December 9, 2010

This Season's Top Chef



Is anyone watching Top Chef: All Stars on Bravo? I previously posted about how excited I was about this season and two episodes in, I'm still excited about it.  The competitors are all extremely skilled and ready to compete.  But I think that there are two things that have made this season interesting even though it's just starting:  one, the challenges are more creative than they've been in a long time and two, it's very difficult to guess which chef will be eliminated because they are all so talented.

During a regular season, the challenges are pedestrian, the kind of dilemma that I find myself in once a week (cooking in a short amount of time! with no meat! with limited sleep! in a tiny kitchen!).  These have been different and new to the viewers and chefs.  It's also new for them to be cooking among people who are all very talented.  Usually, I can guess which chefs will be in the top 6 after the first episode.  Last night's elimination of Jennifer Carroll, who was a favorite to win, really surprised me.  She seemed stressed out and defiant in a way that she never appeared to be during her actual Top Chef season.  Maybe she was thrown off by working in a team or cooking for kids.  In any case, the fact that she is gone is evidence that no one is safe on the show this time around.  Good luck to my favorite chefs (I'm rooting for most of them, especially Carla, Trey and both Tiffany and Tiffani), and I'll keep tuning in to be surprised!



Photo courtesy of Bravo/NYMagazine

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