Monday, February 9, 2009

Chef Jacques Pepin on Top Chef


Top Chef Head Judge Tom Colicchio (whose cookbook "How to Think Like a Chef" my wonderful husband bought me for Christmas) and Host Padma Lakshmi (too bad she's not good looking...Ha! Holy Cow, if only I looked like that!)
This Wednesday at 10 pm EST on A&E, Chef Jacques Pepin will be a guest judge on Top Chef. I'm so excited to watch!
Top Chef is one of my favorite TV programs. They're up to the fifth season already! I started watching during the second season, and then was lucky enough to catch a marathon of the first one. The show starts with 16 contestant chefs, and they are eliminated one by one (occasionally two by two), until there's only one standing. That last one standing becomes the Top Chef for that season, and they win all sorts of neat stuff like $100,000, an editorial feature in Food and Wine Magazine, and a spot at the Food and Wine Classic in Aspen.
The show begins with a quickfire challenge, where the chefs are given some sort of rules and a short time limit to come up with the best dish they can, or to compete in skills, or to identify or name ingredients in a dish they taste. For example, on one episode, they had 30 minutes to create an amuse bouche (amuse the mouth...a small mouthful to whet the appetite) using only ingredients they could find in a vending machine. Sheesh. LOL
Then they go on to the elimination round, which is more involved. Again, they have a challenge and usually limited resources or ingredients to work with, and have to make the best dish they can...like cooking a Thanksgiving Dinner using only microwaves and toaster ovens.
If you haven't checked out the show yet, give it a try. It's a lot of fun to watch. :)
By the way, none of my posts are paid...I just like to write about stuff I like. :D

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