Top Chef Finale – pt one!
We’re down to the wire, and after some months off to travel, and open restaurants and hone their craft, and Lisa gets herself a butch haircut that makes her look even bitchier then before, the final four are shipped off to Puerto Rico where they step right into their first quickfire challenge, and I hold my breath in hopes that Lisa will go home. She’s really a cocky wench, and has been in the bottom two so often that if she pulls off a win I’ll fall out of my chair. So to speak.
Anyway – they cook up plaintains into crispy fried snacks that are meant to be enjoyed with a cold beer. Yum. Lisa and Stephanie’s are declared the best, while Richard and Antonia fall short of the mark. Stephanie is declared the winner (her first win), and as such she gets to assign sous chef’s from the most recently eliminated four chefs for the next day’s challenge. First, though, they go to a party where Richard refuses to dance and everyone worries about the following day.
Stephanie decides not to screw up anyone, and plays nice with her assignments. She chooses Dale – she’s known him for 10 years – then pairs Antonia with nikki, Spike with Richard, and Andrew with Lisa. The only one’s unhappy are the latter, but Andrew assures us that he’d never throw someone under the bus and will do his best to help Lisa win. She repays this by being a demanding “gray cloud in the kitchen” throughout the challenge. Can I drop kick her now?
The final challenge involves the chefs butchering a whole pig, and creating three dishes from three cuts of meat for a big party. Dale is heartbroken when he realizes he left a bunch of pork out overnight, and he and Stephanie scramble to come up with a third dish to replace it. They do, and it goes over like gangbusters, as does Richard’s four dishes, all of which mesh his background with local flavor – a good strategy as he comes up with the win AND a brand new car.
Lisa’s comment “You won a f’in car, dude?!”
Lisa is in the bottom two – again, this time with Antonia. And in the end she’s saved by Antonia’s decision to place all of her dishes on the same plate, and her undercooked peas. Sigh. I’m sure other viewers aren’t happy either, but what can we do?
We can just hope that Stephanie pulls off the win – which is ok by me, because I’ve been pulling for her since the beginning. I’d like to see a female champ this time around too, and so cross my fingers for a mistake to bump Richard to second and Lisa to fail so badly the judges question not sending her home tonight. Her demanding congrats from the other two at the end was the last straw. As I have to remind my youngest often – it’s ok NOT to be the center of attention all the time. Honest.
