TV-Hell's Kitchen Review Episode aired 4/15/08 and Top Chef Episode aired 4/16/08

Chef Ramsey cusses on in "Hell's Kitchen" as the contenders continue messing up.

The girl's team finally wins one and a fellow who tried desperately to quit finally is fired by Chef Ramsey.

While over at Bravo TV the Top Chef Chicago hosts a Chicago Bears' tailgate party. The would-be Top Chefs prepare tailgate meals that, in some cases, make no sense.

With a visit from the original Chicago Bear and Refrigerator Perry. All with pics and video you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.

Pic of the Day

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Chickens and Crybabies

Pics of Top 15 Contenders in Hell's Kitchen 08

I continue to watch the Hell’s Kitchen 2008 reality series but it’s boring. Below I cover the ongoing Top Chef Chicago reality series and as a concept, both in terms of food preparation and competition, the Top Chef series is way more informative and intriguing.

With Hell’s Kitchen, it’s the same food every week, the same restaurant, the same scene, the same Chef Ramsey cussing at the contender chefs, the same contenders sobbing from their failures or Ramsey’s tirades, the same restaurant closing due to poor performance in the kitchen, the same restaurant customers getting angry at delayed meals, the same old, the same old.

Sure at the beginning of the show Ramsey usually devises some kind of contest involving food. One of the teams will win and as a prize there’s usually some photo-op event with Chef Ramsey. The losing team will be given some disgusting task, also a photo-op. Nothing much in terms of cooking or food preparation is offered.

I lament about this every week, yes I know. Hell’s Kitchen has a tremendous lead-in from American Idol. Without this I doubt this reality series would get any sort of audience.

Since I am covering the Top Chef cooking reality series I will continue to review Chef Ramsey’s boring little show but I shall continue to hope that the show’s creators will get a clue and make this show more about cooking and food preparation than Ramsey’s stupid temper. Or maybe that American Idol lead-in will disappear and Hell’s Kitchen viewership will go down to almost nothing at which time the world shall know I was right.

Heh.

In the HK episode aired on 4/15/08, the teams were challenged with cutting up a whole chicken. Hey, I remember when chickens had to be cut up into various parts for frying, when a chicken was purchased whole and cut up at home. It didn’t take long for the industry to come up with “cut up chicken” right in the package and life in kitchens across the fruited plains became much better.

My mother showed me how to cut up such a whole chicken but I never had to do one myself as this is America and such things are done by somebody else with us paying for the labor. Thus I am surprised that professional cooks must still cut up whole chickens down to its component parts but I suppose it’s part of a Chef’s job. A whole chicken breaks down into eight parts, as I learned in this episode: 2 breasts, 2 wings, 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs. Well I always knew these parts came from a chicken but I’d never much thought about it.

At any rate, the female team won the chicken-cutting challenge. The girls got treated to an afternoon at a Texas roadhouse where last year’s crybaby contender, Aaron worked!

Hell’s Kitchen opened up that night as usual. See the paragraph above where I describe the every week sequence of events and know that’s how this episode occurred, according to the stock footage repeated so many times in the past.



Chef Ramsey was so angry at that evening’s restaurant service that he refused to name a winning team.

It was during the kitchen dramatics of that evening that contender Jason begin his sobbing routine. Crying, you see, is part of everyday life in the kitchen of, heh, Hell’s Kitchen. Last year’s sobbing contender Aaron smiled and said he no longer cries, now that he’s away from the constantly cussing Ramsey. Jason sobbed this episode over his inability to remember the dessert menu for God’s sakes. Female contender Vanessa cried because she burned the meat.

Jason was so distraught that he volunteered to quit right on the spot. At this time, for some odd reason, Chef Ramsey decided to show a little heart. He refused Jason’s resignation and the restaurant service continued on until shut down.

Petrozza from the guy’s team was charged with nominating a fellow for elimination. Christina from the female team was charged with the same task, only she was to nominate a female for elimination. Petrozza nominated who else but the sobbing Jason? Christina nominated the sobbing Vanessa of the burned meat.

Crying, it would seem, does not impress the other chefs.

So even though Chef Ramsey refused Jason’s original resignation, it was at the elimination segment that Ramsey FIRED Jason.

I tell you, the whole thing doesn’t make any sense at times.



Contenders, 2008 "Hell's Kitchen"
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Vanessa, 31,Line Cook-
RosAnn, 33,Receptionist/Former cook-
Craig, 30,Sous Chef-
Bobby,37, Executive Chef-
Louross, 24,Hotel cook-
Dominic,43,Stay at Home Dad-Sent Home 4/1/08
Jen, 24,Line Cook-
Corey,25,Private Chef-
Jason,29,Sous Chef-Sent Home 4/15/08
Shayna,28,Owner, catering company-
Matt35,Sous Chef-
Petrozza,47,Catering Director-
Sharon, 31,Room Service Chef-Sent Home 4/8/08
Ben, 29, Electricia/former chef-
Christina, 25,culinary student-



Tailgating with the Chicago Bears

Click to View All Top Chef Chicago 08 Contenders

This reality cooking series, featured on Bravo on Wednesday nights at 10 pm, is technically called “Top Chef Chicago”. I must suppose that all cities can have a Top Chef so the city designation is needed. I do know that all of the events on this series take place in Chicago and I know pretty much nothing about that city.

Except I DO know Refrigerator Perry, a football player on the Chicago Bears in the nineties and no less a personage showed up to test the Top Chef contenders’ tailgate offerings. The Chicago Bear mascot himself showed up in fact and this was a most interesting episode in that the Chefs were charged with concocting a dish for a morning of tailgating at the Cub stadium and tailgate food is generally very American. Tailgate cooks will go to great lengths to serve up tempting and delicious food under less than perfect cooking circumstances.

This series always begins with a little cooking or food related challenge. The winner of this small challenge is exempt from elimination on the bigger challenge. I imagine this setup is a way of filling up time as the larger challenge might not take up a whole hour’s time. It does add to viewer enjoyment of the show as I see it. I’d think foodies and cooks watch this type of show and such as food and cooking stuff holds this category of viewer’s interest.

On the episode originally aired on Wednesday 4/16/08, the challenge was to create a food that would be perfect for serving with that All American drink, beer. My first thought was something with shrimp.

The most notable dish as prepped by one of the contenders was a dish by Dale which involved, I’m not making this up, pretzel crumbs sprinkle over meat.





So Jennifer won the beer challenge and was exempt from elimination for the next big challenge, which was the Chicago Bear tailgate party.

The Top Chef producers did a good job of covering this event. It began with the contenders in a kitchen, prepping their food and packing it all, of course, in Glad containers for transport to the stadium. Each contender had $350 to spend on food, 2 hours to prep the food, enough to serve 80 people. The fans themselves would rate the food and decide the winners. The judges, naturally, would also taste the food and comment extensively on same.

In no surprise at all, Refrigerator Perry, who now looks like a big Mac truck, liked the steak and ribs over all the offerings.





The top three choices for this challenge were Antonia, Dale and Stephanie. Dale saved himself from the humility of the pretzel crumb crust by being chosen as having presented the best dish at the Cubs tailgate party.

The bottom three as chosen by the fans were Nikki, Ryan and Mark. Nikki’s big crime as the judges grumbled was her failure to make her own sausage. Well there you go. I have no idea how to make sausage but I must suppose that those who would be famous chefs must know such things. You’d have thought Nikki served twinkies at her tailgate stations such was the disdain over her store-purchased sausages. Frankly I don’t think the Chicago Cubs fans tasting those sausages, grilled onions and peppers cared whether Nikki made the sausage herself but the fact that Nikki ran out of the essential side stuff of peppers and onions when serving the judges was a big no-no.

Mark, an Australian, served some sort of chowder but more than anything Mark was accused of being excessively dirty during his cooking sessions, even caught in the act of “double dipping”…ie tasting something off of a spoon that he later put back INTO his cooking food. That’s just nasty.

It was Ryan who came up with some sort of poached pear dessert covered by crème fraiche that lost the competition and was subsequently sent home by the judges.

Whatever was Ryan thinking? Poached pear and crème fraiche for a tailgate party? Throughout the whole show Ryan kept preaching during those little talking vignettes how impossibly clever he was with his fine dessert, how different, how the fans will rain praise upon him for providing them such a classy choice.

Ryan also served something called a “bread” salad now go on. Salads should not be made out of bread but hey, Ryan spent so much time patting himself on the back that he could barely get his hands down long enough to get his knives packed up and go home.

Top 12 Contenders Top Chef Chicago 2008
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Nikki Cascone, 35-
Mark Simmons, 29-
Staphanie Izard, 31-Chef/Chicago-
Dale Talde, 29, Sous Chef/Buddakan-
Richard Blais, 35, Chef/Trail-Blais-
Spike Mendelsohn, 27-
Antonia, 31, Executive Chef/Foxtail-
Zoi Antonitsas,30, Chef/Consultant-Sent home 4/9/08
Jennifer Biesty, 35, Exec. Chef/Coco500-
Ryan Scott, 28, Chef/Mgr/Café Myth-Sent Home 4/16/08
Lisa Fernandes, 27, Sous Chef-NY-
Andrew Dambrosi, 30, Sous Chef, Le Cirque-


Prior Links to Hell's Kitchen and Top Chef Chicago 2008 Episodes
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Premiere Episode
Episode aired 4/8/08
Episode aired 4/15/08