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BONUS! Interview with Top Chef’s Executive Producers
Holy crap, you guys. Something really amazing happened. I got permission to interview Nan Strait (executive producer of Top Chef seasons 1-10) and Hillary Olsen (EP of TC11) from Magical Elves!
I got them both on the phone and grilled them about the Knife Block, pea puree, and many other important topics. Oh, and by grilled, I mean I was a bit nervous and I asked them softball questions. But it was really fun and I learned a bunch of stuff about Top Chef. I hope you do too!
Episode #10 – Cook Your Mom’s Food
Every week the chef’s say they want to be able to cook their own food. But it turns out their also pretty good at cooking their moms’ food. But first, a Quickfire that features the unsubtle sponsorship of Dunkin’ Donuts. Here, guys. Cook something with our sponsor’s coffee on it.
Once that’s over and Shirley has a new air conditioner, it’s time for a very straight-forward challenge that lets the chefs excel: Cook something that reminds you of home.
But cooking well and thinking about your kids can make some people emotional.
But he still cooks so well, Anthony Mackie wants to be his daughter.
What do you crave when you go home? (Is it cheese?)
Also, stay tuned in a couple days for a very special Pack Your Mics Extra!
Episode #9 – The War of the Restaurants
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! No, not the holidays. Restaurant Wars! It’s our favorite challenge of the Top Chef season and this one lived up to the hype. Who will pop up better? The ego driven team at Found?
Or will it be the Bad News Bears of restaurant Fin?
And more importantly, who will go home? An executive chef or a front of the house person?
In the comments, let us know what you’d call your restaurant if it was going to war.
Episode #8 – Hip Tang and The Pig Gang
New Orleans is a cool town. It’s got some great food and more than a couple weird musicians. So challenge number one is making hot sauce for the word-inventor king of swamp funk, Dr. John.
It’s hard to tell what he’s saying, and Padma doesn’t seem thrilled to have him there. But we are. (If you want to see Dr. John actually do something besides eating hot sauce and mumbling, check out this video).
For the elimination challenge, we lost Dr. John but we got… a gigantic dead pig. Which the chefs have to “use the whole animal” (as in eat some face and feet, not as in, leave no evidence a pig used to exist here). They serve this pile of pork to 150 guests in a swamp party and it’s shockingly good. Every bite. All three of the bottom chefs made delicious food. That’s life on season 11.
We also discussed Richard Blais’s new show (Cook Your Ass Off, h/t: Julia). What’s your other favorite food program? E-mail us, or leave a comment below, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.
Episode #7 Tough Potluck
Trumpeter, cook, and weird smiler Kermit Ruffins joins the chefs for a series of forced musical tie ins.
Cooking is like improvisation in music… in that sometimes there’s a trumpet? And then there’s a potluck for a group of musicians, except instead of a potluck, it’s a party catered by professional chefs? Let’s not be too picky about names (who do we think we are, Tom?). Instead let’s just revel in the fact that the chefs didn’t all blow it this week.
And let’s try not to be too sad for this public vote of no-confidence in Patty.
We also talked about which Top Chef restaurants we’ve eaten at (here’s the map of them all in case you want to try). Got more questions? E-mail us or leave a comment below.
Also, we’ve now got our own Twitter and Facebook accounts! Be our friends!
