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The brilliant and culinarily perceptive Greg Kirschling isn't able to be here to take you through the penultimate Top Chef, but I hope to keep his seat warm by doing what he does: rooting for Hung and Casey.
I should open by confessing that critiquing Top Chef is a little hard for me, as these contestants are not only talented but talented at a skill that utterly confounds me. I have never been a good cook, and on the occasions that I do make something, I follow the recipe so carefully that you'd think it was instructions on how to dismantle a bomb. I have no improvisatory skills whatsoever: If a recipe calls for cumin and I find none in my cupboard, I have no idea what to substitute for it. You could tell me to sprinkle ground-up tennis ball, and I'd have to take your word for it. The very idea of someone telling me, ''Cook an entire meal, you have two hours, go!'' makes my jaw go slack. You might as well be saying, ''Learn how to fly on your own power, you have two feathers and a stiff breeze, go!'' So clearly I'm in awe of all of the Top Chef players, let alone the finalists. The very fact that they can make anything better than scrambled eggs with broken-shell sauce puts them above my reproach.
That said, my skill is crapping on people, so let's have at it. They gotta be them, and I gotta be me.
So Brian's gone. I wasn't that surprised; he was the guy I'd see every week and go, ''Wait, he's still around?'' Having him in the game kind of lessened the suspense for me tonight, especially after the judges announced they'd only be booting one person instead of two in Aspen before the finale next week. Hung is the clear favorite, he wouldn't go; Casey is the upstart fave (and only woman left); and Dale is the charismatic underdog: He's Top Chef's gay Rudy.
And so went Seafood Brian. The writing was on the wall in the quickfire competition, when, having just debarked from a hot-air-balloon ride (because what builds suspense more than a really slow, lumbering airborne vehicle? There's a reason you don't see many blimp chases in movies, people), they were all forced to cook trout by a mountain stream on a camping stove. (It's a land where Glad reusable containers run free!) The chefs all suffered the most rustic panic attacks ever. Well, everyone except for Hung, who was so calm he forgot to add his key ingredient of lemon juice. Food was falling into the grass, pans were sliding over, and they all looked to be sweating profusely. I wanted to watch A River Runs Through It after the episode, just to break a budding association in my mind between placid streams and spattered grease and fish guts.
The guest judge, Le Bernardin chef Eric Ripert (who, legend has it, can sear a flank steak with just his piercing eyes), picked Casey as the victor, saying her concoction had ''soul.'' Hung sniped that he had tasted her food, and his dish was more refined. This couldn't have been a better summation of Ripert's (and many of the other past judges') issues with Hung's cooking. He's a great technician, which is all he seems to judge himself by, but his food lacks the character or passion of his fellow finalists'.
Quick digression: Why was this finale set in Aspen? I don't really think of it as a Mecca for foodies. Is it Glad HQ? When I think of Aspen, I think of a friend of mine from college whose mother lived in Colorado and made extra money by cooking Rice-a-Roni and Kraft mac and cheese to gauge their high-altitude cooking times for the companies. Is that part of Aspen's rich culinary tradition? It is a wondrous land where Pop Tarts only need two minutes to toast, not three. Magnifique!
Okay, on to the main challenge. Padma showed up wearing a cowboy hat and boots, and for a minute I thought they were going to have to cook Jack Palance's corpse. But no, the task was to prepare elk for 40 cowboys and cowgirls there for a rodeo. As a noncook, I love this show because of the little details that organically filter through the challenges: I didn't know elk was lean, and I didn't know that meant it needed to be braised longer. Granted, that will likely never come in handy, since, as someone who hasn't yet mastered cooking a chicken, the odds are good that I will never choose to whip up an elk. But still, it's good to have in my back pocket. If nothing else, maybe there will be a Trivial Pursuit: Cooking Elk edition.
Everyone was allowed to bring $200 worth of his or her own ingredients. (I would have kicked ass: Do you know how much Hamburger Helper $200 can get you? Cowboys love that stuff! Or is it firemen? Well, somebody's got to love it.) As quickfire winner, Casey was the only one allowed to use hers, but she chose to save them for the finale, instead making a mushroom-crusted loin. Assuming she'd still be around to use her ingredients was a gamble, and one that nearly didn't pay off. The judges were underwhelmed, especially by her cauliflower puree, in which she mixed chunks of cauliflower. (Hey, that's the way I'd cook: You know what this dish needs more of? The same ingredient, just in a different form!) Fortunately, her sauce saved the day: The way Ripert raved about its smokiness, I wonder if he invited it up for a romantic balloon ride after the show. Are there privacy windows in a hot-air-balloon basket?
Dale looked like a goner when his tart fell apart, but fortunately he had seen the writing on the wall soon enough to prepare a plan B — potatoes and cauliflower — that ended up working. And not just working: He won the whole damn competition, his first of the series. I had an inkling that he was due for an inspirational victory the way the producers kept hammering home how he'd nearly quit cooking after his last restaurant shut down. It would have been quite abusive to stress his painful past and then, at the end of the episode, all yell, ''Guess what, Dale! Your losing streak doesn't stop here! See ya!''
NEXT: The finale three
