Next Iron Chef: Final Four

I made sure that I didn't allow myself to write weekly recaps for Next Iron Chef: Super Chefs - even though I wanted to.  The series has solidified itself as one of my favorites during this fall season.  It has more drama than most shows on network television.  And some of it is funnier than any sitcom.  And, the way the judges blather on about the food, it is like some sort of romance....  That's just weird.  Anyway.  Let's really quick run a comparison of my picks to how things have panned out:

MY PICKS

1. Geoffrey Zakarian
2. Robert Irvine
3. Anne Burrell
4. Marcus Samuelsson
5. Michael Chiarello
6. Alex Guarnaschelli
7. Elizabeth Falkner
8. Beau MacMillan
9. Chuck Hughes
10. Spike Mendelsohn

ACTUAL RESULTS

1. ???
2. ???
3. ???
4. ???
5. Anne Burrell
6. Marcus Samuelsson
7. Beau MacMillan
8. Chuck Hughes
9. Robert Irvine
10. Spike Mendelsohn

Yeah, I haven't done so well.  Only one of my final four is still left.  The thing about this show is that the level of cooking is so insane that on Sunday a guy almost got eliminated because he put powdered sugar on a souffle and one judge didn't like it.  Alton Brown (in a rare moment of non self aggrandizing clarity) asked him, "Are you seriously prepared to eliminate someone because you didn't like the fact they used a dusting of powdered sugar?!?"  The judge replied that in this competition something like that could actually send someone home.  And the crazy thing is that he's right.  So far, no one has had that classic train wreck day where they completely bombed something and got booted.  Every elimination was extremely difficult.  Anne Burrell summed it up best on her way out this week.  "Usually it is whoever sucks less stays.  But in this it has been who is less excellent."  I have a couple of observations before I do a quick evaluation of the remaining chefs.

• Food Network is NOT rigging this competition.  My rankings were based partly on the cynical opinion that the Network was directing the judges (at least somewhat).  They were worried that an early exit could hurt the legitimacy of one of their "face" judges.  Or they were trying to push someone into a higher level of notoriety. Or that they were going to favor their own chefs over Top Chef contestants.  All of those were wrong.  One of the biggest faces of Food Network went out in the second show.  One of the biggest Top Chef contestants is still left - and probably the favorite at this point.  Aside from the slightly annoying way that the females have gotten more breaks, the show has been surprising fair.
• The Females Have Gotten More Breaks.  At the halfway point, Anne Burrell noted that all the ladies were left in the competition and none had been in the bottom two.  Sadly, that isn't because they have done the best.  It seems like Food Network would REALLY love to have a second female Iron Chef.  Personally, I think Guarnaschelli should have been out a couple weeks ago.  And Falkner should have followed her out.  But they are still here.  And, at this point, they have as good of a shot as anyone - if not better.
• I Was Really Wrong About Beau MacMillan.  When I first reviewed this show, I commented on how I didn't like Beau.  I thought he was arrogant and wished he went home early.  Well, I was wrong on that.  When he finally got eliminated, the judges all looked at each other and said how incredibly nice he was and how they hated to send him home.  And it was obvious on the show.  He was the most gracious of the contestants.  And his cooking was great.  It made me think that the reason he was SO bad on Worst Cooks in America was because it was so against his character, instead of because he was just bad on camera or a pompous turd.  
• These Chefs Can Really Cook. Sometimes you have to wonder just how good a television chef is.  Are they really THAT amazing?  Or is it the huge test kitchen, the sous chefs, the infinite budget that makes them great.  That is one of the great things about this show - and shows like Iron Chef.  After watching Bobby Flay for years on Iron Chef and Throwdown (and eating at Mesa Grill twice in Vegas), there is no doubt this dude can cook.  Some of these celebrity chefs or tv judges - we've never seen them do anything.  So to see them on a show like this?  It shows you just how talented they are.  Geoffrey Zakarian is the best example of this.  For years on Chopped and 24 Hour Restaurant Battle, he was just this older judge.  Who the heck is this guy?  Then he competed on Celebrity Chopped and destroyed people.  The other chefs were terrified of him.  Then he gets on this show and has been heads and tails above the others - when it comes to technique and flavors.  Similar story with Michael Chiarello.  It makes you realize just how these chefs got to where they are. 
• Very Talented People are Often Arrogant Jerks.  I hate listening to some of the arrogant comments coming out of these contestants' mouths, though.  Anne Burrell has always been like that.  It is part of her, uh, "charm."  I hate it.  I have no doubt it my mind she is a crazy good chef.  But I hate her arrogance.  On this past episode, she had the chance to put one chef into the elimination round.  She was rude about every dish she tasted - far more critical than the real judges. (Falkner wondered if her taste buds were compromised from having just cooked three dishes with sardines.  Good question, in retrospect.)  Then SHE got voted into the elimination round and was sent home.  She had her arms crossed, had a rude look on her face the whole evaluation time, was very ungracious upon elimination.  It made me glad she was out.  I know that talent and arrogance often go hand in hand.  Doesn't mean I have to like it.

Okay, so there are just four chefs left: Geoffrey Zakarian, Michael Chiarello, Alex Guarnaschelli, and Elizabeth Falkner.  And I think two get eliminated this week, which will set us up for the final.  Below is my scouting report on the last four.  I'm going to include their highlight moment, what could send them home, and their odds on winning.  Of course, remember I didn't do so great predicting.  So don't blame me if you lose all your money betting on them in Vegas.

1. Michael Chiarello  It is hard to decide what his best moment has been.  So far, he has been in the bottom two only once.  In that episode he made handmade pasta and a pesto using peanuts.  In thirty minutes.  The other chefs were incredulous.  Then on Sunday he made a lobster risotto.  In twenty-five minutes.  Risotto takes forty-five minutes.  He did it in almost half that time.  I don't know how.  Maybe he has a time turner.  He doesn't have a lot of flaws.  His biggest problem is that he does not listen to criticism AT ALL.  But, he doesn't get criticized a lot.  It is hard to see what he will do to get eliminated.  Odds: 2 to 1
2. Elizabeth Falkner  She is a pastry chef, the underdog, underestimated by the others.  We know this because she says it EVERY EPISODE.  Frankly, I'm tired of her schtick.  And so are the other competitors.  She has made exemplary food.  BUT, it always seems to be more highly rated because "she's just a pastry chef."  It is like the judges are impressed, but more so due to her background.  That's not to say she doesn't do hard stuff and do it well.  Burrell made the comment, "She's made three ice creams and a souffle.  When is she going to make some real food?"  If the judges pick up on this, that could (and should) derail her.  But they seem to be oblivious so far, and blinded by her ability to do things outside of her comfort range - even when they aren't.  [Good example.  Sunday, she made a tuna jerky souffle.  (yeah, gross)  It was superb.  She got raves, again partly because "she's just a pastry chef."  Zakarian did some amazing, intricate, wonderful beef dish and it was like, "Well he runs a steakhouse.  Of course he did it well."  And then when he made a souffle for the elimination, no one made a big deal about his ability to make such a great dessert when "he's just a steak guy."]  Odds: 4 to 1
3. Alex Guarnaschelli  She's good.  (Her sausage and peppers meal at the ballpark was phenomenal.)  And she's lucky.  And she the judges cut her too much slack.  Every time she has botched her meal (at least three), someone else botched theirs worse.  Or one element of hers was so good that it made up for the one that wasn't.  She's never been in the bottom two - and if she was, I think she would lose.  She gets panicky very quickly if something goes wrong and overwhelmed, but somehow finishes.  If she was to have two things go wrong, she would crack.  And with such a small set of contestants, it won't be as easy to hide her mistakes.  She would have been in the bottom two last week and probably gone home, if it wasn't for the fact that one spot was filled by Burrell's pick.  Like I said - lucky.  You can look at that two ways.  One, luck runs out.  Two, a run to a championship usually involves a little luck.  Odds: 7 to 1
4. Geoffrey Zakarian  If this was a straight up cooking competition, he would have already won.  The other chefs would have quit.  Michael Symon said this the other day.  "Your technique is so consistently good that it makes me hate you sometimes."  He has never really misstepped on a meal.  Any grievances were tiny - and should have been dwarfed by other major miscues of other chefs.  Yet, somehow, he has been in the bottom two three times.  I think two things can derail him.  First, things come so easily to him that there isn't a "Wow Factor" for him.  Falkner impresses by being outside of her comfort zone.  To Zakarian, everything is in his comfort zone.  So they blow his errors out of proportion and minimize his successes.  Second, he doesn't follow the rules.  When they say, "Make one dish" he makes three.  When they put their goofy rules on a competition, if he doesn't like them, he doesn't do them.  He came the closest to elimination on the ballpark challenge because he refused to make ballpark food.  I can totally see him getting kicked out because he is stubborn.  And too good for his own good.  Odds: 3 to 1

Next Iron Chef: Game Changer

I certainly never intended to do a weekly recap of Next Iron Chef: Super Chefs, but that was before two things happened in this last week's episode.  First, the show positioned itself to become the greatest competition show in the history of Food Network.  Second, my entire set of picks from week one got completely turned on its head.  I realized that there actually is not an ulterior motive driving this show.  Literally, anyone can go out at any time.  And it got proved this past week when my top two landed in the bottom three and the person many expected to win went home.

Just to recap my picks, I had projected the following order:

1. Geoffrey Zakarian
2. Robert Irvine
3. Anne Burrell
4. Marcus Samuelsson
5. Michael Chiarello
6. Alex Guarnaschelli
7. Elizabeth Falkner
8. Beau MacMillan
9. Chuck Hughes
10. Spike Mendelsohn

Needless to say, I am a little bit nervous now.  The bottom three were Zakarian, Irvine, and Chiarello.  Burrell got throttled for playing it too safe.  Samuelsson got reamed out again for making too many dishes.  And Guarnaschelli, who looked completely outmatched last week, sailed to the first place finish without a single negative comment by any of the judges.  In fact, the top three were Falkner, Guarnaschelli, and Hughes.  MacMillan still is kind of floating around, limping on his injured ankle - which is kind of a metaphor for his involvement in this whole show.

The battle was to take stadium food and reinvent it as Kitchen Stadium Food.  (Ha, clever.)  I thought the judging as a whole was a bit odd.  Zakarian admitted that he doesn't have a freaking clue what constitutes ballpark food.  So he just made this two ridonkulous dishes that were labeled by the judges, "The best food we've eaten in this entire competition."  That earned him a seventh place finish.  Meanwhile, Hughes tossed out this hoagie that was so messy and disorganized that they could barely eat it.  Naturally, he came in second.  The only intelligent rankings were Guarnaschelli first and Chiarello last.  

The last place finish allowed viewers to finally see the reason why I can't stand Chiarello.  He made some bizarre dish and topped it off with a raw egg yolk in a shell.  The judges hated it and told him so.  Then Alton Brown, being the snotty arrogant turd he is, went on to lecture Chiarello by holding up his egg and allowing the whites to drip off.  "If you are going to use raw egg, you certainly need to make sure it doesn't look like this (whites drip off for effect).  An inability to separate an egg is hardly characteristic of an Iron Chef."  The camera cut to Chiarello.  "You didn't like the egg, fine.  Tell me and move on.  No need to beat it into the ground."  Now, don't get me wrong, I wish someone would punch Alton Brown in the mouth for his self- absorbed schtick.  But that is what he does.  That is why the Food Network put him in this position.  Brown truly believes he is smarter and better than everyone else in the food universe.  You need someone that delusional to stay tough as the host with these big shot chefs.  If I was Chiarello, I would have bristled too.  Then I would have calmly walked to the end of the table and slammed Brown's head and his ridiculous fedora into the plate of food.  It is just that every single time they interviewed Chiarello, he was basically taking the stance that there is no way he should be in last place.  There's a fine line between confidence and cockiness.  All celebrity chefs are confident.  Some are cocky.  I can't stand those guys.  Don't ask me to define it.  Using the cop out the Supreme Court created, "I just know it when I see it."

Anyway, the final showdown between the bottom two was Irvine and Chiarello.  They had to use peanuts and had thirty minutes to create a dish to highlight this.  Apparently this is is extremely difficult since all of the chefs had their eyes bug out like in a Looney Tune cartoon.  Irvine came up with a fish dish - halibut crusted with peanuts on a peanut hummus with a peanut sauce and sauteed vegetables.  It looked awesome - like something he has pulled out of thin air numerous times on Dinner Impossible.  This is exactly why I expected him to win.  He has made a career out of this kind of stuff.  

Chiarello decided to make a fettucini with peanut pesto, along with a side tomato salad.  Take a second and read that again.  He made a fettucini with peanut pesto.  No, he didn't crack open a box of Ronzoni.  He freaking MADE PASTA.  In thirty minutes.  That means he made it from scratch.  The other chefs were just stunned.  Just about every single one of them said they couldn't believe he was making pasta.  In thirty minutes.  This was the moment when I knew Irvine was going home.  You can't compete with that.  Chiarello didn't even blink about the concept of pulling it off either.  He broke down the time and just did it.  He deep fried the peanuts (What?!?) and then used them instead of pine nuts in the pesto.  Then he tossed that with his HOMEMADE PASTA.  (I still am thrown off by this.)  Wham.  

The judges didn't know what to do.  Both dishes were superb.  Irvine ended up getting voted off 2-1 because his peanut hummus was a little too gummy.  And probably because they realized that Chiarello had MADE HIS STINKING PASTA.  The rest of the chefs were visibly shaken when Irvine left.  I think that all of them thought he was going to be in it for the long run. Plus, Chiarello made a great point at the end of the show.  He said that he wasn't upset to be in the bottom two.  That had given him one more experience in a Kitchen Stadium setting than the others.  He is more of a force than I thought.  Actually, it is obvious I don't know anything about the show.  My entire evaluation structure got turned on its head.  There are several things I realized this week.

1. Zakarian is this year's Ming Tsai.  Last year, Tsai could cook circles around everyone.  But the reason he lost was because he too often didn't follow the exact wording of the challenges.  Zakarian is in that boat.  He has more cooking ability than anyone else there.  That's obvious by the way the judges respond to his food.  But if he doesn't stick to the rules, he will get booted out.
2. Marcus Samuelsson needs to settle the heck down.  So far, the chefs have had to create four dishes - Samuelsson has had to do five, since he was in the bottom last week.  Samuelsson has made eleven.  He always does extras, just to impress the judges.  The problem is, they aren't impressed.  They even went so far as to say that the next time he makes extras, they are going to make him tell him which ones to judge and they won't taste the others.  
3. Alton Brown gets more annoying every year.
4. There is a big difference between cooking for "regular people" and cooking for judges.  This is the biggest variable I missed last week.  The challenge this week was crafted for Robert Irvine.  It was basically the same thing he has done before on Dinner Impossible.  You go raid the vendors at a ballpark and come up with dishes with what you find.  I've seen that show.  Irvine excelled and everyone raved.  But, in that case, the Everyone raving was a group of regular people.  It is easier to impress regular people with cooking than experts.  Think about it - when Irvine cooks for three hundred construction workers, do you really think some foreman is going to tell the camera the flavor profiles weren't consistent?  One of Irvine's dishes was a Hot Burg.  He took hot dogs and ground them up and mixed them with the hamburgers he was making.  Brilliant.  Alton Brown said it was great.  It would have killed with average people.  But the judges were unimpressed.  That was Irvine's downfall.  He is the best chef on Food Network's roster when it comes to knowing what average people wants.  That is how he is so successful with Dinner Impossible.  That is how he does such a great job in helping people fix their restaurants on Restaurant Impossible.  That is why he is such a great coach on Worst Cooks in America.  It really is why I like him so much.  And that is precisely why couldn't be the Iron Chef.  They don't want someone who will impress the masses.  They want someone who will wow the food judging elite.  
5. This show is going to be a LOT more exciting than I thought it would be - and that is saying a lot.  There aren't many shows that I watch live any more.  I'll let it record on my DVR and wait fifteen minutes just so I can fast forward through commercials.  The only shows that we, on a regular basis, are too excited to wait the fifteen minutes.  The first is Castle on ABC.  The second is Burn Notice on USA.  And the third is Next Iron Chef.  Pretty elite company in our house.