Top Chef Scandal
Imagine you’re in a cooking competition. The challenge: You have to bake a cake. But there’s just one little snag: The judges forgot to give you an oven! Without an oven, you can’t bake your cake. And because of this, you are automatically disqualified.
This is sort of what happened on Top Chef (which I happen to notice accidentally, being not a regular viewer). It was a holiday episode. By chance, contestants got their key ingredients by opening gifts. One lady received a can of truffles. With it she had to make a holiday dish. But as soon as the contest began, she realized: No can opener!
Everybody else had easy-to-open ingredients, cheeses and meats and such. She was the only one who had to waste time banging a can with her knife. As a result, she didn’t have enough time to finish her dish and was therefore disqualified.
Great drama, if this were fiction. Like a Karate Kid type movie. The underdog rises to a challenge against all odds.
But as a real-life competition, I expected more. To me, it looks like the Top Chef producers simply got lazy. They didn’t think through the competition. For that, I feel cheated. So cheated, in fact, that I am not going to finish reviewing their show.
December 29, 2007 at 2:43 am
A.) They had a can operner, she just couldn’t find it. (They showed a shot of it.)
B.) Nobody had to help her in the first place. It’s a competition.
C.) I’m not a professional chef, but I cook a great deal for family friends. I have been without a can opener of any kind myself. It’s very simple to use a knife to open cans.
D.) Even if for some insane reason she couldn’t figure out the proper way to use a chopping knife to open a can — many knives in that kitchen can cut straight through the side of a can.
The chicky was a dumbass and deserved to be tossed.
December 29, 2007 at 9:54 am
Thanks, all valid comments. I must not have seen the shot of the can opener staring her in the face! Mainly I became frustrated, seeing her hammering through the can, clumsily with a knife, while everybody else had their easy-to-open ingredients already laid out. All the more frustrating since it’s a timed competition. Seemed like she wasn’t on an even playing field with the other contestants, regardless of whether she deserved being booted off or not.