13 posts tagged “television”

Things have taken an odd turn around the GinBaby household the past few days.  I found a news-analysis show (a straight one, not a Comedy Central one) that I actually like.  I have found peace on a major news network.

And, actually, I owe it to Jon Stewart.

Campbell Brown was on The Daily Show the other day, and she was talking about her CNN show:  Campbell Brown:  No Bias, No Bull.  She sounded serious about this nonpartisanship thing, sounded serious about trying to make a center between MSNBC and Fox.  So, I thought I'd give it a whirl.  And I think it's good.

The thing I like most about it so far is her "No Bull Final Exam," in which some guy who is clearly subordinate to Campbell Brown herself and has bad hair, goes over what the candidates have been saying and gives a fact check.  None of the candidates do very well.  This is remarkable because nearly every other news source I watch/read usually fails to criticize anything Obama says.  I'm sure if you're a Fox viewer, this would be remarkable because Fox probably doesn't criticize McCain a lot.  I don't know.  I don't watch Fox. 

Last night's Final Exam was about health care, or, rather, what the candidates have been saying about their health-care platforms.  McCain did get one "True, but incomplete," along with some "Misleading" and one "False."  Obama's were solidly "Misleading." 

Um, Stewart, I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but this is why some people are still undecided.

The Idaho Falls newspaper has actually been running a series of sidebars with occasional longer columns after the debates that are also just for fact checking.  Again, you find both candidates mislead a lot, sometimes outright lie, and very rarely tell the whole truth (McCain did win big truth points for admitting he knew nothing about the economy--ah, those were the days).

This thing Obama just did, buying infomercial time on most of the major networks (this in addition to his dedicated Obama TV satellite channel, as if that shit weren't enough) really irritates me.  You have to wonder how this would have all played out if he'd stuck to his promise to use federal funds for the campaign (a promise McCain, incidentally, stuck to).  This is just money politics as usual, no?  The guy with the most money always seem to win in America, something McCain and others have been trying to fight for years.

I don't know.  As I've said, I'm sick of the whole thing, and I do not understand the Obama cult at all.  I am so glad to have finally found a show that has not drunk the Kool-Aid. 

I will admit, though, that I do consider First Ladies when I vote (a major reason I did not vote for Al Gore--Tipper is one censor-happy bitch), and I far prefer Michelle to Cindy.  Cindy kind of freaks me out.  It's nothing I can put my finger on, just some eerie robotic quality.  Remember when Steve Forbes was running, and people were freaked out because he doesn't blink?  I think it's something like that. 

Anyway, Campbell Brown:  No Bias, No Bull:  So far, so good.

Lately, I've had trouble sleeping at night, and so on occasion I've found myself watching TV late at night, which usually means watching things I would never otherwise watch.  For example, the other night I wasted two hours of my life watching first an episode of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" and then "The Rachel Zoe Project."  Who the fuck are these people?  There is nothing at all real about any of them.  I did like how all the African-American housewives took care to note that there are just a lot more opportunities for African-Americans in Atlanta; I find that amusing since non-Southerners tend to associate the South with intractable racism.  And I've known some women vaguely like some of them, but really, if the focus of your day is how you look, you are not busy, you are not stressed, and you are very shallow and irritating to those of us who have things to do that do not involve makeup.  I don't mean disrespect to women who wear makeup, but seriously?  If that's your entire day?  You need to figure out something productive to do for society or else you need to stop wasting all that oxygen you insist on breathing.  I have to assume for the sake of my sanity that these are "reality" shows in name only and that nobody is actually like that...otherwise, my head will burst into flame.  Spontaneous combustion is so cool.

Anyway, then I also watched the final hour (thus, the final Top 20) of the Top 100 Hip Hop Songs of all time.  I think this was on VH1, which devotes large portions of its programming to such countdowns, apparently.  It was interesting viewing.  Several interesting things came to my attention during this hour:  1.  Whatever you might say or think about Kanye West and however much you might regret this, you can't really help but have a crush on him.  Or, I can't.  It isn't just the argyle, either, though I am a sucker for argyle.  2.  Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" was #1, as I think it should have been, but I thought this was interesting because I have been repeatedly told that liking Public Enemy is, like, so white.  OK, so I'm white, and I like Public Enemy because they're literate, articulate, and ferocious (I'm not trying to perpetuate the black-man-as-aggressive stereotype, but Public Enemy wrote some angry damn music, and with good reason).  I don't really get how that makes it "white" to like them.  Anyway, I was glad to see it at #1.

And the third thing, and I'm not entirely sure what to say about this, is that one of the songs (I think it was one by, um, Notorious BIG?  Maybe?  I was drowsy, and I wasn't familiar with the song, so I didn't pay it proper attention, I guess) led the commentators to make grandiose comments about how this rapper had worked his way into the national consciousness and how the song had, too.  Uhhhhhh...

It take a lot for something to work its way into the national consciousness.  I mean, you're talking about a pretty big, pretty diverse country here, in a lot of ways.  What does it even mean to say that a song or a performer is in our national consciousness?  I mean, there are clearly artists you can make that argument about, but Notorious BIG is probably not one of them.  Public Enemy, probably--there'd be a good argument for that.  Run-DMC, maybe.  Snoop and Dre, quite possibly; I know there were years there where they were at the very least entirely unavoidable.  Ice-T has in some way because of "Cop Killer" and the controversy that went with it. 

And I think to me, that's the point.  If something is truly a part of our national consciousness, then that thing is unavoidable in some way.  Familiarity with it (not to say enjoyment of it, which is a separate thing) crosses subcultural lines, crosses generational lines, and it sticks around.  I mean, "Gin and Juice" is still, all these years later, as present as it ever was (I don't like Snoop Dogg at all, but I find that song utterly infectious and impossible to ever really be free of--I'd even go so far as to say I like that song, but that would violate all my principles as an anti-Snoop).  None of Public Enemy's songs were really quite that catchy, but "Fight the Power" still carries a relevant message delivered in a powerful way; it hasn't diminshed over the years.  Ditto "Straight Outta Compton."  These are songs and performers that have in some way worked themselves into the national consciousness.

But, frankly, I only ever heard of Notorious BIG, just like I've only ever heard of this Fifty Cent character.  I find their music not only forgettable but avoidable.  Perhaps it would be less avoidable if I lived in an urban area, but out here in the boonies, man, it hasn't entered our consciousness at all.  I only listen to Kanye because I saw him in argyle once and was intrigued.  I lived in the boonies when some of the other Top 20 hip hop songs came out, though, and I can attest that when a song is really unavoidable, it's unavoidable out here, too.  There was no escaping "Push it Real Good" or "Baby Got Back" or Run-DMC's classics, especially "Walk this Way" of course.  There was no escaping "Parents Just Don't Understand" either, but, sadly, that didn't make the Top 20, even though Will Smith's career has far surpassed Flavor Flav's at this point (I feel so bad for Flav every time I see "Flavor of Love" is on...please, someone, find the man some love and get him off that shitty show...he's Flavor Flav, for fuck's sake, shouldn't he have some dignity???)

In fact, I would go so far as to say that MC Hammer is more a part of our national consciousness than Notorious BIG ever was or will be. 

Anyway, I was reading an online music review site a while ago, too, that suggested the same thing about Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl."  That it was a part of the national consciousness.  I'm not sure how that could possibly be true, since I don't think I've ever even heard it, and I'm quite certain most of the people I talk to on a daily basis don't know that song, either.

This is all just to say that I think some people get overly inflated ideas about the importance and relevance of the music (and movies...and books) that they like.  Country music is still the biggest selling genre overall in America, and there are still more country music radio stations than any other genre.  You may not like that, but that's a fact.  I suppose that's why everybody is making "country" albums these days--Jessica Simpson, Kid Rock, even Snoop Dogg himself, that bastard.  Yet you don't see most country stars on the covers of People and Us, even though arguably more people know and listen to Kenny Chesney than to almost any other working American musical artist.  We who listen to country music don't sit around pontificating about how Kenny Chesney has worked himself into the national consciousness, although judging by sheer numbers, he has.  Garth Brooks certainly did; so did Johnny Cash, though most people only jumped on the bandwagon once Rick Rubin entered the picture.  There are others, of course:  Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn (at least at one point--she was on The Muppet Show once, for example...oh, and then she did do a mindblowingly great album with that fella from The White Stripes), Willie Nelson, The Dixie Chicks though unfortunately more for their politics than for their music...yet country music is really the one kind of music that the kind of people who make pronouncements about our culture don't seem to feel a need to take seriously, certainly not to the point where they would suggest country artists who have entered the national consciousness. 

Meh, anyway, fight the power, people.  Also, don't watch after-midnight television because it will bruise and batter your soul.  For the record, I'm not a big Kenny Chesney fan.  I like some of his songs, though, like the newish one he has out with The Wailers.

Sometimes, you love something, and you really don't know why.  You can't explain it to anyone.  People ridicule you, and still you love it. 

I'm like this with The Monkees.  Yeah, I love them.  I can regale you with all sorts of obscure facts about them, such is my fandom, if you want me to (e.g., The Monkees spotted a virtual unknown playing at the Monterey Pop Festival and invited him to open for them on their upcoming tour, and that virtual unknown was Jimi Hendrix.  And, no, your typical Monkees fan who was at the concert did not enjoy the sonic stylings of the Hendrix.  I believe there was much booing and chanting, which makes one want to find those girls, and you know they were girls, who booed Jimi Hendrix in favor of the Monkees and shake the daylights out of them.  Anyway.)

And now, there are a couple of commercials that I just totally love and can't stop myself from loving, despite the ridicule I must suffer from friends and family.   Behold:

 

What is that gesture that the mustache man near the end is doing to "cheddarwurst?"  And while we're on the subject, and because over on the Book of the Face I've been involved recently in a very long discussion about "Americanisms" that are sniper-attacking the lovely and completely correct forms of English spoken in other nations--is "cheddarwurst" a real word? 

Also, these commercials bewitch and entrance me:

 

I don't know why I love this goofy band of guys who really need to get a handle on their credit histories, but I do.  If they're a real band, I'd totally buy their album.  Album?  Nobody buys albums anymore.  Whatever.

 

And in the next one, there are specifically two things I love (beyond the fact that he would "be a happy bachelor with a dog and a yard"):  1. If you look close at the beginning, you can totally see the pirate hat!!!  I wish they had the junky car from the other commercial, too.  2.  I love it when the drummer has to open the door after cranky Dream Girl shuts it on him.  Oh, I'm not blaming Dream Girl for being cranky.  I mean--she has a husband who works as a pirate at a restaurant and always has his friends over hanging out and drinking all the beer while she stomps around picking up laundry that is apparently scattered everywhere.  Then he's ready to ditch her just because she has bad credit.  Seems kinda harsh.  Anyway:

 

Heh.  Well, the Intarwebz have demonstrated to me that the cutie lead singer is one Eric Violette who apparently only speaks English during Free Credit Report.com commercials.  I guess he's Quebecois, which is good to know because I thought my French was just getting really, really bad--it's not me, it's him!  Or, rather, it's that the French that I learned isn't the French he speaks.  Whatever.  I officially love him now.  I wonder if he will bring me some poutine.  Or...something.

 

I don't think the other commercials I love are quite so embarrassing:

And, finally, our favorite commercial of all time.  While it is cute and huggable when my toddler shouts, "Go Meat!" at the dinner table, this is the commercial that has stolen the hearts of everyone in our family (it has also taught my son the two crucial words 'arachnid' and 'magma' thus launching a recurring debate about what is really at the center of the earth and how it might have got there--he does not believe this 'magma' business for one minute).  I could listen to either Bear Grylls or my son declaim his love of arachnids all day long. 

(Admittedly, my son has also developed a habit of attempting to trap and eat animals that are not normally considered food here in the US, and when we question his behavior, he shouts, "It's survival!  That's what Bear Grylls does!"  I think it's maybe a good thing we're going to homeschool him.)

So, I'm really hooked on Top Chef.  I should never have got satellite TV.  I used to watch Top Chef in season 2, then I didn't have TV for a while and almost forgot about it, but now it's taken over my life again. 

I have some pet peeves about this show, though.  For one thing, could we stop using "housewife food" as a dis?  I mean, I get the idea, but let me tell you something:  Those chefs would be hard pressed to do what your average housewife does, which is put 2-3 homecooked meals on the table, different every day, on a limited budget, with a kid hanging on her leg and, most likely, slightly crappy tools to work with.  I mean, sure, we're talking about a different skill set here.  The cheftestants do not have to answer the phone, placate a child, look at a somewhat forlorn piece of salmon you had totally forgotten was in the freezer and has been there for, god, months! and decide what could make this poor thing palatable.  Cheftestants do not have to care if the dishes they serve provide balanced nutrition, day in and day out.  They do not have to care about the leftovers.  Yeah, housewives--we may not cook 100 sauces to go on every dish just to make it look pretty, but that's mainly because we have to do our own dishes.  Feh.

Second, what's with the condescension toward kids?  It seems like, in every season, there is some challenge involving the feeding of kids, and then we get cheftestants complaining about the unsophisticated palates of kids and just about the horrors of having to deal with children at all.  For one thing, I hate to tell them this, but even if you only do fine dining, you're going to have to please your customers, and sometimes your customers are going to have decidedly unsophisticated palates, no matter what their ages.  I liked when Tiffani (season 1) asked Colicchio how he would feel if someone came in to CraftSteak and asked him to deep fry their steak, and he's all, "It happens."  That's the reason he is a successful chef.  Your unsophisticated customer wants shit on a shingle--you give it to them.  They come back and throw more money at you.  You get to go on TV and cavort with Padma Lakshmi.  It's pretty simple, really.  Also, if you want the kids of today to have sophisticated palates as adults, it's a good idea to start with them when they're young.  Instead of sneering at them for the unfortunate fact of their age, make them some great food.  Not all food that gets served to kids needs to patronize them, but at the same time, they are going to be less impressed with your clever ideas than with the way the food actually tastes. 

Third, what's with the molecular gastronomy?  Now, I've really only *read* about wd-50 and Ferran Adria and all that, and I totally get that what they're doing and what Marcel and Richard (cheftestants from different seasons) are doing is not the same thing.  I think, from what I've read and the few recipes I've sussed out, Wylie Dufresne and Adria and those guys are doing some pretty amazing things with food.  But, maybe I'm some kind of bumpkin, but...uh...gelees are just Jell-O, you know?  I mean, I didn't really realize that gelees were considered molecular gastronomy until I encountered the unfortunately-coiffed Marcel in season 2.  And this whole "we can make food taste better through science" is really what Con-Agra and Kraft have been asserting for years.  How is it different for some anonymous food scientist at some Con-Agra plant somewhere to use bizarre chemicals in food from a chef using them?  I really don't want to eat chemicals and nonfoods, although I tolerate green food dye in my beer at St. Patty's day.  I want to eat food.  I am supposing that this makes me inexcusably out of touch, but I don't give a fig, or even a fig foam.  I just don't see what all the hype is about.  Admittedly, though, having the mere scent of smoked ras al hanout waft over my crab cake is intriguing and good sounding.  But I'm OK without isomalt or any other food additive.  Food tastes good, you know.  I heard a while back that at a conference Ferran Adria decided he had found the perfect gelee in the natural substance that occurs around tomato seeds.  So, um, maybe we should take that as a clue, guys.  Perfect ingredients don't need your tools and scientific ingredients, although ras al hanout is usually not a bad thing. 

Anyway, this season, this Dale guy--damn I want to have a beer with him.  He seems so...bitter.  Hot.

And finally, I'm getting a bit of a crush on Padma.  At first, I thought she was, you know, a bit spokesmodelly.  Like, all style (and clearly a LOT of style), no substance.  Then I found out she was married to Salman Rushdie, and I had to rethink my entire opinion of her.  I mean...really?  Rushdie?  Damn.  She must have something under the hood, no?  Then she published some great chutney recipes and was all, "oh, these old things?" about it.  Then I heard she curses a lot off camera.  Then she was hanging out in a tight shirt-dress playing pool, and I'm kinda in love.  Yeah, that's all it takes.

Oh, and one last thing:  Why do they keep complaining about not being pastry chefs?  Yeah, yeah, baking is a particular science, but fekkin-A, you know you're going on Top Chef, learn some basic desserts.  And if you ever serve me cake mix for my wedding, I will cut you.  Not that I'm ever going to have a wedding, let alone one that is catered, let alone one that is catered by awesomely prickish cheftestants on the greatest competition-reality show of all time (after Project Runway, that is). 

I suck because I totally caved since I have paid employment, more or less, and got satellite TV.  Seriously.  Out here if you don't have satellite, you have pretty much nothing (ABC is all). 

We got the 200-channel package.  Had to, to get Bravo so I could get back in on the Project Runway/Top Chef thing.  Tim Gunn is really necessary.

I didn't realize just how much I missed The Daily Show and Colbert, either.  I am still in awe that Hodgman compared the business model of al Qaeda to that of Quiznos. 

So, yeah, we're back on the TV.  Feh.

Anyway.  I'm down here shopping for seeds.  I've been studying--and I do mean studying--seed catalogs and gardening books for months now, and I have a game plan.  We're going to grow everything.  Possibly I have gone insane. 

Because, see, I live in Idaho.  Idaho is fairly far north.  The entire month of January this year, it did not once get above freezing.  Yet I just ordered a collection of seeds for a "tropical garden."  Just who do I think I'm kidding?

I think I can make it work.  It gets quite hot here in the summers.  The issues will be a) keeping tropical plants moist enough and b) getting them a long enough hot season.  The moisture issue can be controlled in large part with generous mulching.  Getting them extra hot days is going to take various types of plastic coverings.  Keep your fingers crossed for me, people, because we are also growing sesame, sweet potatoes, and peanuts.  I'm fascinated by the growth habit of peanuts, and I had to try to grow some.  But none of these things are even close to being adapted to this area. 

We're also growing a vast assortment of crazy Japanese veggies this year.  T grew up on a farm north of Tokyo, though, and he's grown all these things before (including sesame) and he thinks, with the exception of the peanuts, that we can get it all to work here.  He thinks the peanuts are just madness. 

He also, if he lets himself think about it too much, thinks the quantity of tomato plants we are planning to install is madness.  We might oughtn't go into numbers here--but let's say it's north of 50, south of 100, and they're going in at different times so we have staggered production.  So that makes it all OK.

Anyway, the goals this year are three.  The first is to improve the quality of the soil.  This "soil" we have here is terrible.  It had nothing but grass for who knows how long, and it's near worthless.  We have been adding organic matter to it--llama poo, hay, veggie waste, etc.--but it needs more.  In a few places we need hardpan broken up.  So, I have concocted a scheme to alternate crops and cover crops (the cover crops will serve multiple purposes including breaking up the packed dirt, adding nitrogen and phosphorus, and providing us and the chickens with some greens (mostly the chickens). 

The second big goal is moving to as close to year-round gardening as it will be possible to get here without a heated greenhouse.  We have been debating building a heated greenhouse, but since we're not staying in this house permanently, it seems like a big thing.  Anyway, if the weather cooperates, our first things will start going in the ground just after St. Patty's Day.  The last things will be planted in September--of those, some will be harvested in late October or even early-to-mid November, some will get mulched and stored in-ground (carrots, parsnips, leeks, etc.), and some will overwinter to produce the next year (garlic, shallots, etc.)  That only leaves us with 3 months in which we have nothing growing out there and even less time with no fresh veg at all.  To hell with the supermarket.

And the third goal is DAMN we need windbreaks and shade.  I mean, DAMN.  These hot, dry winds of Hades rip across our garden from the south and EAT OUR SHIT UP.  The tomatoes, which I put along the south fence not knowing about the hell-winds, did not like it one bit last year.  My poor, beloved Brandywines.  I shall treat you better this year, my pretties.  Anyway, a windbreak of mixed shrubbery is going in there--some rosa rugosa, some nanking cherries, some chokecherries.  It should be quite fetching and protect my beautiful little tomatoes from Satan himself.  Another group of shrubs will go along the back of the house to absorb some of the afternoon heat that beats down right into my kitchen, the kitchen that is already hot from all the canning and has a window that DOES NOT OPEN.  Last summer was unbearable.  We are also planting a couple of trees back there and a big forest of tall sunflowers to provide some relief from it all (not to mention tasty seeds for snackin'). 

*sigh*  So much to do!  I want to get out there right now, but the foot and a half or so of snow left on the ground suggests it is not quite the time.

But I do have the seed catalogs, both online and off.  I wonder at the variety of seeds available.  We're trying to go mostly with open pollinated seeds so we can save them and even then, there are thousands of kinds.  Hell, there are probably thousands of kinds just of tomatoes.  I want to try them all, too.  Fortunately, I think we're going to sell some of it at the farmer's market this year, so I can justify all that zucchini (the catalog need only say "Italian heirloom variety" and I'm ready with the order form).

I'm browsing the catalog of the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange right now, and I have just suddenly become convinced that I must grow chervil.  And horehound.  And...

Why didn't anyone tell me about this show?

I don't know who would have or why it's someone's responsibility to tell me when there is a TV show on that I need to watch, but still.  I feel miffed that I've missed so much of it.

How did they manage to get this cast?  Captain Kirk!  Dan from Night Court!  Murphy Brown!  If they just got Mr. T on there it would be all the TV shows of my youth represented in one convenient location.

And dreamy, dreamy James Spader, the most dreamy sociopath ever.  Oh, I know, he's probably not a sociopath in real life, and his Boston Legal character certainly isn't one, but that's how I always think of him. 

It's really just a fluke that I ever found it, rocking my son to sleep a couple weeks ago.  But I'm hooked.  Man, I'm hooked. 

God, I so would have screamed if I wasn't Cristina Yang, because she is my HERO. 

  Look at her.  Isn't she all that a woman should be?

Sorry, Glamour Mama, from whom I got the link--I know that you came out Meredith, and it's OK.  Cristina and Meredith are friends!

But ROCK ON!  I totally wanted to be Cristina Yang and NOW I AM!!

"You are Christina Yang. You are incredibly determined and very blunt... yet somehow very likable"

Sadly, I am not Korean.  But, Cristina/Sandra, if it means I can be more like you, I am ready and willing to become Korean.

How many TVs do you have in your house?

DROP OUT?

Are they seriously (mis)quoting Timothy motherfucking Leary in the title?  Dude.

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure how many TVs there are now.  People keep giving them to us, and I think there are three.  Assuming that is an accurate count, two of them have never been plugged in or used by us in any way.  They just sit, one in the basement and one in the garage.  The other TV, the big one (although not as big as the one I had in Japan, a TV called the "Bazooka" and sized appropriately, that I got for a mere 7000 yen at a used shop near my house) is in the living room.  It is plugged in, and we do use it.  There is no cable out here, and we do not get satellite.  This means we get two channels--I think they're PBS and whatever channel Grey's Anatomy comes on.  We don't watch either channel (I would watch Grey's, except it comes on at the kid's bath/bedtime, so I never get to see more than snippets anyway). 

We do use the TV to watch DVDs, though.  Lately, this almost always means watching Chicken Run, as my son apparently can no longer tolerate any other movie.  When we suggest to him that we try a different movie--even an entirely kid-friendly DVD like Bob the Builder--he yells, "No!!  Only watch Chicken Run!!" in the most distressed way.  So, we have recently gained an intimate familiarity with Ginger and Rocky and their cohort.

We have also recently watched:  Rear Window, Royal Space Force:  The Wings of Honneamise (twice--thanks Zack), The Grave of the Fireflies (aka, the most unrelentingly sad animated film ever made), and The Man who Knew Too Much.  Sin City is sitting there waiting to be watched as well. 

Video: Show us your TV crush.
Submitted by quornflour.

  Grant Imahara.  HOTTTTT.  This dude can, ah, rewire my circuits anytime.  Anytime Grant, baby.  Remote control, even.  Animatronic?  Ooh, you tease.  

    Yummy.

Special note to Lokii:  And, look!  He's among the few, the proud, the operators of R2-D2. 

Notable runner up:  Alton Brown.  I love me some geeks.

I have to say that, if it was going to come down to Ilan or Marcel, I'm really glad Ilan won. 

I think that if the Top Chef title is supposed to really mean something, it should mean that this person is ready to run a restaurant, run a kitchen.  That means managing a staff, creating a menu that a lot of people actually want to eat, achieving consistency in the execution of that menu so that every night people can come to the restaurant and know that what they are ordering will be of a reliably high standard.  I don' t think Ilan or Marcel ever demonstrated that they had those abilities, but of the two Ilan did win more often than Marcel did and thus demonstrated more ability to produce consistently good food.  I don't think Ilan's was always the most creative dish on the set, but I would have more often paid to eat what he made than what Marcel made.  Some of Marcel's dishes were creative and really pushed the limits of the challenge, but often the execution of them was subpar--undercooked chicken?  overcooked turkey?  Who wants to eat at that restaurant?  Dude, it doesn't matter if the turkey is cooked sous vide if it's dry as a bone.  We're not impressed.

Interestingly, at least three of the contestants were already executive chefs and/or owners of successful restaurants.  Betty, of course, co-owns and cooks for a successful restaurant and catering outfit in LA.  Sam and Cliff were both executive chefs.  Oh, right, and Mia had her own catering business or restaurant or something, too, but I didn't like her.  I didn't especially care for Betty either, because she is very shrill, but at least we know she can consistently cook tasty food and manage a staff.  Apparently, all four of those contestants can and do.  I don't think the food I saw from Mia and Betty was worthy of the win, but Cliff and Sam put out interesting and allegedly delicious food fairly regularly throughout the competition. 

And now, looking at Sam, he chose to work with Marcel in the final to learn something, despite his general dislike of Marcel.  He was mature enough to recognize that he still has things to learn and to be a sous chef for Marcel in order to learn some of them.  After the series ended, he has been trying to learn pastry chefing to add to his culinary repertoire.  That's a top chef--he is confident but also humble enough to know when he needs to learn something. 

In contrast, Marcel doesn't seem to think he has anything to learn.  He just keeps beating the "I'm a molecular gastronomist" drum, no matter how inappropriate in the context.  And he can't cook turkey without a thermal circulator.  Which means that in a normal, real world setting, he can't cook.  Shit...shouldn't chefs be able to cook?  Right, well, Marcel didn't realize that cranberries would float, either.  Yeah, top chef, my ass.

Marcel may have some talent, but it needs a good deal of development, and he needs to stop flagrantly ripping off Ferran Adria's (and Cantu's, etc.) ideas wholesale.  Yeah, the foams?  Seen 'em.  The gelees?  It's just gelled, man, like Jell-O, big deal.  The vinaigrette encapsulated in sugar?  Hmmm...Minibar, right?  I think you got that from Minibar. 

Ilan does perhaps overdo the Spanish, and Marcel was bitter to have lost to "paprika and saffron."  Imagine how bitter Ilan would have been to have lost to raw chicken.  Besides, Ilan deep fried fresh bay leaves, which I think may be the coolest thing I've ever seen.  No, it's not, but it's very cool.

So, OK, Sam should have been the top chef.