Rainy Weather Supper

A bowl of homemade tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich almost makes one forget that it's raining.

Top Chef Las Vegas Episode Eleven Recap

Six chefs left and the finale is looming. Who will Padma send home this week? Yeah yeah, we know who you *want* it to be....

Once again we meet our intrepid cheftestants in the McMansion, getting ready for another day in the salt mines. Jen thinks it's a big deal that DoucheyMike isn't around anymore. And Bryan, although enjoying his TC experience, is feeling a bit homesick.

Cyborg technology is apparently quite advanced. They can breed now.

He's allowed a brief phone call to his family. His almost-2-year-old son, Thatcher, answers the phone with an excited, "Bryan!" Gee...only a few weeks away and already the family treats you like a stranger.

Rather than the M Resort, the cheftestants head to the Venetian where they are whisked to a kitchen in the bowels of the hotel, somewhere deep under the faux canal with faux gondoliers and overpriced gelato. A phone rings - it's for the chefs.

If DoucheyMike seemed excited about cooking for scrawny vegetarian Natalie Portman two weeks ago, then how would he react to the voluptuous Nigella Lawson? Alas, we'll never find out. And I'm not all that sorry.

The Breakfast in Bed Quickfire requires that the cheftestants each prepare a yummy breakfast for Padma and Nigella and wheel it through several rings of hell to their suite somewhere upstairs. They, in the meantime, are having fun in bed.

What passes as fun for you, dirty-minded reader, is not necessarily the same thing that turns on our raven-tressed lovelies. A damn shame.

Eli and Robin head off to cook first.

Eli decides to make a Reuben Benedict with 1000 Island hollandaise, and Robin scurries around like a chicken with her head cut off, making something or other. They deliver their dishes to the ladies.

Robin ended up making blintzes with pineapple, and the ladies don't seem too impressed. Eli presents next and his dish is very well-received; Nigella thinks it would make a great hangover breakfast.

The next duo to cook are Michael and Kevin. Michael spends the first 5 of his 30 minutes cleaning up the mess Robin left behind, which puts him directly into the weeds. He of course can't make anything simple, and concocts Huevos Cubana, with banana puree, rice, bacon, and arugula salad. Kevin, pretty much his polar opposite in the kitchen, does steak and eggs.

Finally, Jennifer and Bryan create their dishes. Jen does the American classic, the aptly-named, "shit on a shingle."

Bryan does a four-minute egg, polenta, asparagus, crab and a vanilla butter sauce which does not go over well with Nigella.

After Nigella and Padma finish pigging out, they get dressed (after taking a shower together) and summon the cheftestants for judgement. Nigella's least favorite dishes were Bryan's and Robin's. Her favorites were Kevin's and Eli's, with the latter being the winner. Padma then announces that Eli will get his recipe published in the Top Chef Quickfire Cookbook. Viewers who watched the preview vids for this episode and have the cookbook (or who, like me, read too many blogs and face the dreaded spoiler on a regular basis) already knew the winner. If I remember correctly, Richard Blais was the only cheftestant from season 4 to get a recipe in the original Top Chef Cookbook...and Eli just so happened to be the best man at his wedding. Coincidence? Most likely.

On to the Elimination Challenge. The cheftestants are to celebrate the Strip by creating a casino-inspired dish which will be fed to 175 of "Las Vegas' Elite" (to me, this means Cher, Elton John, and Wayne Newton, but apparently it merely refers to non-tourists who wear things other than ugly shorts and baggy t-shirts).

The knife block comes out.

Each knife bears the name of one of the gaudy hotel/casinos on the Vegas Strip. Bryan draws Mandalay Bay, Michael draws New York, New York, Eli gets Circus Circus, Robin gets the Bellagio, Kevin draws the Mirage, and Jen gets Excalibur.

Each cheftestant has a car and driver to ferry him or her to their designated Palace of Sin. First we see Michael disembark at New York New York. He is immediately inspired.

Next, Jen goes to Excalibur to eat roast chicken with her hands at the Tournament of Kings.

She says she's having a hard time focusing and doesn't know what she's going to do. She's been slipping more every week, but I think the beer had to have something to do with it this time.

At Mandalay Bay, Bryan opts to head directly for the shark reef, where he encounters a sign touting sustainability. (You know Rick Moonen, whose restaurant rm seafood is in Mandalay Bay, had to have something to do with this.) Immediately the idea unit in Bryan's circuit board starts blinking.

On his way out, he visits the gift shop to buy something for young Thatcher.

This disturbs me. First we see Bryan claim he misses his kid and phones home. Now he's buying toys. This is usually a type of loser edit. I express my thoughts to Mr Minx who says he thought Bryan's eyes looked red in one of the Confidentials. Nooooooo! Not my favorite expressionless chef! I calm myself by repeating, "this does not compute," and put my attentions back to the show.

Robin is at the Bellagio, one of the rare classy joints on the strip. She is awed by the Chihuly sculpture in the lobby and vows to make something with gelatin. Sure, I see the connection too.

Kevin is at the Mirage, where he is impressed to see waterfalls and flowers. He looks around carefully, hoping to spot some leprechaun brethren; finding none, he goes to the dolphin show.

Finally, Eli gets to Circus Circus where he's disappointed to find there's no big top, no clown cars, no lions, tigers, or bears, just lots of circus-y junk food like candy apples and cotton candy. He calls his mommy for permission, then gorges himself on sugary treats before heading back to the McMansion and the rest of the cheftestants.

The next morning, the chefs head to the Top Chef Corporate Sponsorship Kitchen for 3.5 hours of cookery, after which they pack up and go to the rooftop of the World Market Center, where they draw straws to decide who will be the one to push off Robin. They get another hour to set up and do finishing touches before the hungry hoardes arrive.

Not surprisingly, Jen is having issues. Robin is as well, as the sugar work she attempted to recreate the look of Chihuly glass did not set up. And Michael is worried that he has to crisp up 175 portions of chicken wings.

Padma and the judges arrive and head straight for Jen's station, where she is not quite prepared. Padma snottily remarks that Jen's empty table looks as if she's sold out of food. Jen's dish is inspired by the Sword and the Stone, using overcooked beef in place of stone.

Next the judges visit Kevin who has made cured salmon with tomato water. Nigella enjoys it quite a lot.

Good thing the cameras didn't catch any of the men from the waist down.

Michael's curried chicken wings, inspired by something the FDNY might eat, had nicely crisp skin and a disc of cold bleu cheese sauce that some of the judges loved. Toby, in place of Gail (because three sets of boobies would have been too much), wasn't entirely impressed.

Robin indeed used gelatin in her panna cotta - too much of it - which caused it to set too hard. And without the sugar work, it was difficult to see the connection to Chihuly.

Bryan prepared an escabeche of halibut with parsley coulis that Nigella thought had fantastic balance. Whew! They liked his dish. He's not going home. Not that I ever thought he was. Of course not.

You know, I think Nigella would make a great permanent judge, don't you?

Finally, Eli's caramel apple and peanut soup with raspberry froth was a bit of a mess. Padma didn't like it at all. The textures didn't work. Toby, however, admired his willingness to try something that might fail. Speaking of fail, I'm wondering where Toby left all of the amusingly harsh insults he tossed about last season.

Then comes a Fake Out Scene that's so dull, it should have been included in last week's Reunion Dinner Special. The chefs open Korbel and toast each other.

/end Fake Out Scene. Yawn.

The cheftestants then head to the Glad Family of Products Stew 'n' Booze Room to stew and booze. Padma shuffles in and drones that she would like to see Michael, Kevin, and Bryan.

Everyone loved Kevin's broth. Bryan's dish was "quiet and elegant" according to Nigella. Toby called Michael's food "effeminate" to which Michael replied, "I believe a chef's personality should be evident on the plate." Huh? Did he just out himself?

Girly or not, Michael is awarded the win, and a big old bottle of Terlato wine. Plus, a trip to the Terlato winery in Napa. I'm sorry, but "Terlato" sounds to me like a euphemism that Archie Bunker might use for bad wine.

The remaining chefs - Jen, Robin, and Eli - are on the chopping block. Jen didn't have a clear vision of her dish, and Tom said she had a lack of knowledge about Medieval food. Because food back then spoiled for lack of refrigeration, it was usually heavily spiced. Oh yeah? Well tell the bozos at Medieval Times that. I hardly think that their Lipton dehydrated-vegetable soup and plain roast chicken could be called "spiced" at all. Toby suddenly gets pithy again and says Jen's dish was more Spamalot than Camelot. Heh. Good one.

Robin's panna cotta was too firm.

Damn, she's hot.

Finally, Eli, who thought he was conceptually on the mark, was told his dish was a failure. Padma didn't want to eat it again, and Nigella said her good upbringing was the only thing that prevented her from spitting it back into the cup. I love that woman.

But just when it was starting to look like Eli was out, Padma asked Robin to please pack her knives and go. :::putting earplugs in to drown out the deafening roar of approval:::

You'll hate me for admitting this, but I got a little choked up as Robin thanked the judges and packed her knives. She should be proud of lasting so long in such fierce competition.

Next week: Thomas Keller and Bocuse D'Or!

What to do with Leftover Sauerkraut?

Make a reuben! Pastrami, Russian dressing, Swiss cheese, and sauerkraut on griddled rye bread.

Worst Cooks in America

The Food Network is putting a new spin on Next Food Network Star, this time calling it Worst Cooks in America. Twelve of the "most hopeless" cooks in America will compete for a prize of $25,000.

The five-week series will put the "recruits" through a culinary boot camp led by two acclaimed chefs: Anne Burrell, host of Food Network's Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, and Beau MacMillan, executive chef at elements in Phoenix.

"Watching the Worst Cooks in America struggle to become great cooks, makes a show that is very funny, dramatic and moving," said Bob Tuschman, Senior Vice President, Programming and Production, Food Network. "Ultimately, it offers hope for even the most kitchen-challenged of our viewers."

The winner - or loser - will no doubt get his or her own show on the Food Network.

The show starts Sunday, January 3rd at 10pm (after Iron Chef America). Sounds like a potential trainwreck. Will you watch?

An Unusual Soup

Last week I was finally able to read through the penultimate issue of Gourmet. What stood out most to me was an article on Chef Edward Lee of 610 Magnolia in Louisville that offered an unusual recipe of sauerkraut soup with scallops - I have a genetic appreciation for sauerkraut and scallops have always been a favorite. The recipe sounded pretty straightforward so I thought I'd give it a try.

A word of caution: when blending the soup, the sauerkraut tends to clog the blade and send the juice oozing out of the blender lid. After a couple of unsuccessful pulses, I poured out most of the liquid and blended all of the solids into a paste, adding a few tablespoons of broth back at a time. The resulting puree was then stirred into the remaining liquid in the saucepan.

The spice rub on the scallops required sumac, a tart flavoring popular in Middle Eastern cuisine. I could have sworn I had some on hand, but couldn't find it. I substituted dried orange zest, which lacked the tartness, but since there was plenty of sour in the kraut, it worked well enough. And speaking of tart - the taste seemed a little one-dimensional, so two teaspoons of honey was added to the finished soup, rounding out the flavors yet adding no discernible sweetness.

Mr Minx isn't a fan of the scallop, so his portion was made with shrimp, which worked just as well. We were both happy with the end result. If one didn't know it was sauerkraut, it would be hard to pinpoint exactly from what the soup was made.

While the seafood worked very well with the soup, my brain can't help but concoct other variations using pork meatballs. And sliced frankfurters and croutons would make for a nice "deconstructed" dish reminiscent of a ballpark favorite. Croutons (particularly those made from rye bread) alone would make this a nice starter for a traditional Baltimore Thanksgiving dinner; sauerkraut always seemed odd and out-of-place next to turkey and cranberry sauce, but this creamy version has a favor that would seem to mesh better with the rest of the meal.

So...unusual, yes, but also delicious. And potentially versatile. Sauerkraut isn't just for kielbasa anymore!

Umi Sake

When I saw the photo that accompanied the Baltimore Sun review of Umi Sake, a new sushi/pan-Asian restaurant in Cockeysville, I thought, "mmm...pretty sushi - wonder what it tastes like." The other night, I found out.

Umi Sake is in the building that used to house Pacific Rim, long our sushi restaurant of choice. When that closed a few years back, we started going to Yamato Sushi in Timonium, then to Sushi Hana on Falls Road because it was closer. After the sushi tour of Towson - which I wrote about here - we went to Kyodai. So many good sushi restaurants nearby! But we thought we should venture a bit farther north this time and give the new kid in town a shot.

The restaurant has been completely transformed since its days as Pacific Rim - it's rather plainly decorated but that is a welcome relief from the 80s decor it once sported. We ordered some green tea and took a few moments to peruse the menu with its description of fancy rolls. There's plenty of other non-sushi food to be had at Umi Sake, but we weren't interested in any of that.

We started off with miso soup that had a bit more flavor than most versions and a Korean seafood pancake, or pa jeon. The small, crisp-edged round had bits of shrimp, scallop and scallion with the satisfying spongy chew of a good pa jeon.

Next we had some nigiri sushi in the form of "white tuna" a.k.a. escolar, and regular tuna. Both fish were impeccably fresh and buttery.

We also ordered three of the fancy rolls. On top is the "Perfect Fantasy" roll which sounds like porn but is actually a roll filled with shrimp tempura, crab mix, and cream cheese and topped with eel, avocado, and tempura flakes. Cream cheese is a weird addition to sushi, but it somehow works really well with eel. Go figure.

The next roll is the "Spicy Titantic" roll with spicy crab, cucumber, and cilantro, wrapped with tuna and avocado and finished with a sweet lemon chili sauce. Or that's what the menu said. The roll was sadly not at all spicy, nor did I taste any cilantro. And the "sauce" on top was actually bits of pineapple and mango. Mr Minx said he had a blast of citrus in his first bite, but I did not get any. That's not to say the roll wasn't tasty, just not what we expected.

Finally, we ordered the "Eight is Enough" special from the Sun photo: eight pieces of sushi, two each of four kinds, each piece in the pair slightly different from its partner. My favorites were the crisp fried rice cake topped with tuna tartare and either wasabi or spicy mayo (top row, 2nd from left, bottom row 2nd from right) and the tall roll topped with a mixture of crab, shrimp and scallop (top 2nd from right, bottom 2nd from left).

We were impressed. The seafood was very fresh, the rolls were inventive and fun to eat, and the service was great - our waitress was very attentive with the tea pot. And...the food was fairly cheap for fancy sushi. We're used to paying double digits for rolls like these elsewhere, but the most expensive fancy roll at Umi Sake is $9.50.

We'll definitely be making the drive to Cockeysville again.

Umi Sake
9726 York Rd
Cockeysville, MD 21030

We Have a Winner!

The winner of the MinxEats French's recipe contest is....Chris! All I need is your address and your apron will be on its way!

Congrats. :)

Thai Chicken Flatbreads

I read this recipe the other day and thought, "I have to make that!" Actually, Mr Minx made it. We had leftover store-bought roast chicken in the fridge already, so that substituted for the marinated chicken in the recipe.

The sauce is outstanding and I'm looking forward to using the rest of it on some shrimp skewers, or maybe some of the various dumplings we have in our freezer.

Prosciutto and Peas

Make that prosciutto and edamame.

We had some prosciutto hanging out in the fridge so Mr Minx used it to whip up some fettuccini with garlic, shallot, crispy prosciutto, and edamame. We had peas, but like these better.

Top Chef Reunion Dinner Special Recap

This week, the powers that be at Bravo decided to break the momentum of the swell of excitement that has been building on Top Chef Las Vegas (yawn). Instead of more Voltaggio bickering, we are treated to Marcel Vigneron being himself (you know, a complete and total ass) in a Top Chef Reunion Dinner special. Double yawn.

Bravo execs must have themselves bickered over whether the dinner party should be a nice family show full of fun, feel-good moments, or one filled with bad memories and acrimony. They chose the latter. Where it might have made for good tv to feature the most irritating chefs from each season, they instead made it easy on themselves and invited the finalists from each season, several of whom were pills. And to host this fun fest? Chef Fabio Viviani, who must have signed his life away to Bravo.

The show starts off like a finale episode, with scenes of chefs arriving at the airport in Los Angeles and then traveling to Social, once the location for the Elimination Challenge in episode 5 of season 2.

Tiffani Faison from season 1 arrives first. Fabio has already started drinking because he knows what is to come.

After Tiffany, we see her season's champ, Harold Dieterle arrive.

Next up is season 2 winner Ilan Hall and season 2 asshat, Wolverine Marcel.

Suddenly, the "Top Chef Reunion Dinner Special" becomes the "Marcel Vigneron is a Douche Not-So-Special." Marcel explains why everyone hated him.

Oh, we do get to see the other chefs for a bit, too. Season 3's Dale Levitski and Casey Thompson come in next. Dale talks about how he bonded with Sara Nguyen during their season and that they now live together and she's his "girlfriend/little sister." Casey says she had a little sister too that season - Hung. And on that note, season 3 winner Hung Huynh strolls in.

Season 4 finalist Richard Blais enters and is asked by Fabio if he copied his hairdo from Jennifer Biesty. Lisa Fernandes, sporting a new extra-butch buzzcut, is next to arrive. When asked what she's been up to these past few years, she states she's still with her same girlfriend. Um...I think Fabio meant chefly accomplishments.

Season 5's Carla Hall walks in next and Casey shits herself. It's the first time they've encountered each other since their unsuccessful pairing in that season's finale. But before Casey gets a chance to duck and hide behind the bar, Stefan walks in and starts flirting with the lesbians.

Fabio then grabs another glass of wine and sits down to talk with Marcel, Tiffani, and Hung, three of the more abrasive characters ever to appear in the Top Chef Corporate Sponsorship Kitchens.

Tiffani really owned up to her past bad attitude. But Marcel remained childish. He didn't want to answer any questions about the time he was hit over the head with a bottle by an angry Top Chef fan, requiring 30 stitches. Or about anything else vaguely interesting. Stefan then joins the klatch.

Fabio has enough of the chatter and brings out the knife block. While it would have been fun to watch him throw the knives at Marcel, it's merely a signal that there will be some sort of cooking challenge. Harold's thrilled.

The sight of the block prompts Blais to do a riff on his inquisitiveness.

One person from each season draws a knife which is numbered from 1 to 5. This number represents the course that they will be expected to prepare for the dinner. Hung, Casey, and Dale are doing the first course, Tiffani and Harold get second, Ilan and Marcel get third, Blais and Lisa get 4th, and Stefan and Carla get 5th course. Each season/team has an outrageously high budget of $500.

Cut to the chefs rushing around Whole Paycheck. At one point Stefan is holding a jalapeno pepper in his right hand and a large cucumber in his left. As Carla approaches, he nods toward the jalapeno and says, "Fabio," then indicates the cucumber and says, "Stefan." Carla gives him a "you wish" and walks off.

Ilan and Marcel decide to blow most of their budget on expensive wine. Although they exchanged some pretty harsh words in the past, they seem to have buried the hatchet. Unfortunately, Ilan wasn't strong enough and the hatchet bounced off Marcel's hair....

Back at the Social kitchen, Tiffani remarks that this time she's cooking in a kitchen full of professionals. Is she saying that they weren't professionals in the past? Meanwhile, Stefan is flirting with her. She calls him a "lesbian opportuniwhore," to which he remarks, "look out, Lisa!"

Time's up! Knives down! Everything gets plated and brought to the table, family-style. Looks like the former cheftestants are getting a lot of cold food today. Fabio stands up and gives a long-winded broken-English toast about being a weener and heem sorry he not have been een keetchen with them all.

Fabio then introduces a never-before-seen clip from last season: Blais, Casey, and Marcel in front of Judges' Table, being interrogated after the finale. Marcel, not surprisingly, is being a douche and insists on talking while the judges are talking, prompting Toby Young to tell him to shut up. Marcel then stalks off like the immature brat he is, feigning offense at being called offensive.

That causes Fabio to ask if the cheftestants thought they were unfairly criticized in their season, prompting a montage of various judges saying mean things. We then get another montage showing the cheftestants boozing it up.

Marcel and Ilan then serve their salt-crusted fish dish, giving the producers the opportunity to swing the topic of conversation back to Marcel, King of the Douches.

We momentarily move away from the Marcel Show and face the tension between Carla and Casey. Carla is happy for the opportunity to clear the air.

And Casey acts all innocent. She thinks we've forgotten this.

The chefs then decide they are tired of talking about Top Chef and what they went through. This incenses Fabio who stands up and demands the cameras be shut off. Which they aren't. So we get to see him yell at the group like an angry father, saying that eef they don' wan' to talk, they-a should pack up-a da food and leave because they-a make heem look-a stupid. And the cheftestants all laugh at him, making him look-a stupid.

Back to the Marcel Show: Fabio asks him about the head shaving incident, which he relents to relating with the help of a montage. And I relive cheering Cliff on as he wrestles the little jerk to the ground. Ah, memories! We are also subject to a montage of fights between cheftestants, namely, Howie and Joey in season 3, and the chair throwing incident between Spike, Jen, and Dale in season 4.

And finally, a montage of stew room antics which include faux magic, Glad beds, and volleyball. And I'm looking at the clock and thinking, "oh shit, is this going to be a super-sized episode?" But the credits start coming up on peoples' torsos and I'm relieved.

The end. Let's not do this again, shall we?

Next week: The Voltaggios are back, serving breakfast in bed to Nigella Lawson and Padma. Unfortunately, nobody gets naked.