As season one’s self-professed sommelier, Stephen Asprinio would be quick to remind any fan: skillful wine stewarding is not as rare in a Top Chef contestant as the ability to make pastry. Still, in practice, most chefs tend to leave wine pairing to the experts. Of the remaining five chefs, only Angelo viewed wine-pairing Quickfire, which was judged by Food & Wine’s editor-in-chief, Dana Cowin, as a chance to show off what he knows.
Angelo knows many things. And he proved that wine was among his areas of expertise when Cowin chose his foie gras paired with Evolution white wine as the Quickfire winner. It was also the last high-stakes Quickfire, which earned Angelo a trip to London. Not only was Angelo apparently a savvy sommelier, but he was also the only chef to pair white wine with his dish, a choice that distanced him even further from his competitors. Kelly and Kevin did not fare as well under Cowin’s critical eye. Cowin did not enjoy Kelly’s blue-cheese foam. And although Kevin made an amazing recovery, changing his protein from pork belly to quail mid-stream, his wine was picked to pair with pork, not delicate quail flesh — a gaffe that Cowin could not overlook.
The chefs learned that their final D.C.–based Elimination Challenge would be literally out of this world. The chefs visited Goddard Space Flight Center, where they were instructed to create a dish suitable to be freeze-dried and shot into space to be eaten by astronauts. Move over, space ice cream. An exciting challenge for all, but especially for closet space-nerd Kelly, who gushed, “For me to have my food go into space would be really cool.” But the chefs weren’t just competing for a chance to see whose food would go into orbit; the winning chef would drive home in a new Toyota Avalon, while the losing chef would be denied the opportunity to compete in the show’s Singapore finale.
To create a dish that would freeze-dry well, a NASA food scientist instructed the chefs to keep the sugar down, the size of the morsels of food small, and to be generous with the spice. Prep went smoothly for everyone until Tiffany’s mussels froze (and died) in the refrigerator, which meant that she was forced to rethink her dish with the ingredients she had on hand. When the chefs arrived for service at the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center, they discovered the cooking quarters were tight. Angelo was concerned that the lacquer for his short ribs was too sweet. Ed didn’t seem overjoyed with his Moroccan lamb duo either, but despite those concerns, all five chefs appeared to turn in solid dishes.
The judges included Top Chef fave guest judge Anthony Bourdain and Buzz Aldrin (was Aldrin coming or going from his stint on 30 Rock? Is it wrong to call an aerospace legend a media whore? Because last spring Aldrin was almost as ubiquitous as Betty White). It wasn’t clear what Bourdain enjoyed more, eating the chef’s dishes, or poking fun at Eric Ripert. Each time Ripert disliked a dish’s component, Bourdain would disagree and give Ripert, instead of the chef, a hard time. Watching the usually affectless Ripert giggle a bit at the mockery dished up by Bourdain was one of the season’s highlights. It was obvious, too, that Bourdain would only “kid because he loves.”
The margin between elimination and victory was extremely narrow, and the judges found much to praise. Bourdain claimed that Ed “cooked his heart out.” Ripert, alternatively, was clearly smitten with Kelly’s authentic Provençal cooking technique. Angelo felt he needed to volunteer that he had “made love” to his short ribs (blech), but the final product still tasted good to everyone but Tom, who was offended by Angelo’s use of candied ginger. Plus he made a pea purée! Shouldn’t that be instant grounds for elimination?
It was a bit of a surprise when Angelo’s ginger-lacquered short bibs with horseradish crème fraiche, pea purée, and pickled mushrooms was awarded the win, the keys to the Avalon, and an obligatory copy of Bourdain’s new book, Medium Raw — oh, and a trip to watch a space launch, too; poor Kelly, she must have been so jealous!
While it was never stated, Kevin and Tiffany were on “the bottom.” Kevin offended the judges, particularly, by serving sirloin. “It’s Top Chef,” cried Bourdain — “not Top Sirloin!” I added enthusiastically. The flavors of Tiffany’s dish never recovered from the loss of the mussels. Tom complained that her tomatoes were mealy and that she had neglected to skin her peppers, which left the dish with a bitter aftertaste. Against such tough competition, these errors proved fatal.
The judges sent Tiffany home because, on that particular night, she did have the weakest dish. If there is any justice in the world of Top Chef, which of course there is not, then Tiffany will win fan favorite. While she may not have been the most talented of the cast members, she was always fair-minded and eternally affable. It’s disappointing to see Tiffany go home, but she did her 16-year-old self (the one who succeeded at IHOP even after she’d been told that “ladies” didn’t belong in the kitchen) proud.
