I Smell A Rat
Maybe I’m paranoid. Maybe I’m biased because both parties involved are from the fair city I call home. And I certainly don’t want to turn this into a Top Chef blog…we have enough of those already.
But, I smell a rat.
In one of the challenges during last night's Top Chef episode, the 16 contestants were paired off to compete in making one of eight classic dishes. The eight winners from the previous challenge pulled knives to determine the order of selection. The knife pullers chose who they wanted to compete against and the chosen competitor picked the dish they would each prepare.
Eric got the last pick. He competed against Zoi, the only loser from the previous round left unchosen. They got stuck making soufflé. No one else wanted to cook soufflé because it was significantly more challenging than the other dishes.
Now, here’s what smells ratty to me…
I as noted in a previous post, 13 of the 16 Top Chef contestants have formal culinary education while three are self-taught. Two of those are Eric and Zoi, both of whom currently reside in San Francisco.
Is it purely coincidence that two of the three self-taught chefs ended up in the soufflé making competition? If you’re self-taught and have never worked in one of the very few restaurants that serve soufflé, when would you have had the opportunity to learn to make it? Part of me suspects that Eric and Zoi were set up to fail for the sake of entertaining television.
As I said, maybe I’m paranoid.
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