All I want to put in this post is ‘Oh, Carla.’

*sigh*.

I feel amazingly ripped off by Top Chef this season. Really and truly; Hosea middle of the roaded to victory. Maybe it was a strategy; he was never the worst; people didn’t want to ditch him. He was never the best; no one was really gunning for him. He seems to have put out a consistent meal; Carla’s first two dishes were easy winners, but she turfed two. Stefan did two world-class dishes, and two that people thought were good but pedestrian. And Hosea once again wasn’t the worst, did quite decently on the venison, and had the advantage of Stefan’s tired dessert and Carla’s failed cheese dish.

Mediocrity won, and I’m really dissatisfied.

I went to an event tonight at a cafe, where I consumed no drinks. I consumed no pricey drinkage because I had blown my money on ale and whores….uhm. Ok, mardi gras or not, I’m unlikely to indulge that way. But I’m very broke, and I’m going back to school this summer, and….should not be spending my money on cooking equipment at Goodwill.

A woman at Goodwill saw me carrying them out, and looked at the frying pan, and said, ‘Oh, what a nice pan for you to find.’ and I was glowing from it at the time, and I blurted, ‘Especially since it’s Calphalon. It’s probably worth $100.’

She said, “Oh, no, dear. you must be mistaken.’

‘No, I’m not. And this poaching set is amazing; I don’t know the brand, but there are signs it’s quality.’

‘Oh, you meant the two of them together are a set?’

‘No. the pan alone is definitely over $100 on its own.’

And then she walked off, obviously thinking I was deluded. $100? For a frying pan? Pshaw!

The pan is the Calphalon One CR1392. $150 list price. The poaching sauce pan was harder to find; turns out it’s actually a professional Fagor 6-cup poaching set, and cached pages seem to put the list price at $60 (the poaching insert is missing 1 egg cup, so I took a look to see if I can find it to replace sometime).

I paid $11.55, including tax. The Goodwill is a magical place for me sometimes.

Yes, I mean, the punishments are ‘unfair’, when you compare them to the amount of senseless luxury the winners go through. But really, now. Your ‘punishment’ as a chef, is you get the chance to butcher a cow. There are chefs out there who pay for the chance to go to a butcher and spend a day doing that so they can get the experience of really understanding their product.

The lunch the women were served, that was a punishment, but not to the women, per se. They were served sweetbreads and tongue and tripe, and as far as I can tell, NOTHING was done to it, it was just cooked and slapped on a plate. That’s a terrible thing to do; these parts don’t get nearly the respect they deserve - a cow is just as dead if you’re eating its tongue as if you’re eating filet mignon (moreso - you can get a half dozen filet mignons out of a tenderloin, but an animal only has one tongue). I was horrified to see what they were being served not because they were served it, but because there is so much waste of these parts in North America, and they should be treated as well as we can, not cooked badly and given to caterers and cooking school instructors so Americans can get the schadenfreude of watching them gag.

Now, I know. Part of me seriously wanted Stefan to go. Get THAT CLOSE and then smacked in the face. Tonight’s seemed so unfair because it was obvious that Jeff deserved to go on, and may well even have been number two. Jeff made his own sausage, while Stefan took smoke breaks. The plain fact is, if it hadn’t been for the ‘win it or leave’, Stefan should have been kicked to the curb. Which would have made for such satisfying teevee, to be honest (which is part of why I kinda think that the producers don’t actually interfere with the judging; aside from the fact they wouldn’t be able to keep Colicchio, or get guest judges like Eric Ripert, the fact is good television would have been to watch Stefan’s cockiness do him in that close to the end. Blogs would have exploded around the world with joy. But they didn’t).

Carla is fabulous. Hosea is totally cool and I’d probably love to hang with him. And I have wanted to smack Stefan all season. Seriously, I’ve never gotten to the end of the season and cared more about one person losing more than I cared about which of the others won.

Also, how freaking quotable is Fabio? I mean, really? “Everybody there is wearing a mask. Which kind of reminds me of an old porno film…”

It’s an old interview, that was rebroadcast this week, and it’s a really interesting, personable interview. Michael Pollan is a very natural speaker, and I do like to listen to him.

On KUER’s site, with their player

iTunes University KUER page (will start iTunes)

I found this rebroadcast while going through iTunes U. While I like iTunes enough, I’m not terribly devoted to the app; but I *love* iTunes U. Lots of people who I know have never followed that little ‘iTunes Store’ link in it because ‘I’m not going to buy anything, so why even look?’ But seriously, you’re missing a lot. iTunes U has a lot of stuff - there’s an hour and a half show on Asian sauces. There are old Julia Child videos. There is Michael Ruhlman interviewing Anthony Bourdain on how he learned to cook. And it’s all free. There’s about 200 hours of free listening if you go to the iTunes Store, and just search iTunes U for ‘food’ in the subject. Well worth checking out.