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****OFFICIAL**** TOP CHEF THREAD (1 Viewer)

cajun and creole food is my favorite, so I was DYING last night looking at all of the food. I wanted to be there so bad. I usually delete the episode from my DVR after I watch it, but I saved it this time just so I can go back and look at the food again later. :goodposting:

 
Steve Tasker for Prez said:
Carla with an epic collapse in the final? :lmao:
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It was just a perfect storm of what I feared might happen with Carla. Female contestants always seem to lack a bit self-confidence, and I think the fact that Carla is a caterer and not a restaurant chef just exacerbated the problem. I thought Stefan has been a little overpraised this season, but his self-confidence would have served Carla well.
 
On the plus side, Carla can write her own ticket in DC now. She's very likable, and frikkin Spike has turned his Top Chef run into a following in DC, despite Good Stuff Eatery sucking royally.

 
scoobygang said:
Steve Tasker for Prez said:
Carla with an epic collapse in the final? :shrug:
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It was just a perfect storm of what I feared might happen with Carla. Female contestants always seem to lack a bit self-confidence, and I think the fact that Carla is a caterer and not a restaurant chef just exacerbated the problem. I thought Stefan has been a little overpraised this season, but his self-confidence would have served Carla well.
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Actually Carla was second worst 4-5 times and could have been gone a long time ago. That being said she made up for it later on.What I hate about the finals is that they have to have help. I would like to see them do everything on their own like they have all along.C
 
Da Guru said:
scoobygang said:
Steve Tasker for Prez said:
Carla with an epic collapse in the final? ;)
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It was just a perfect storm of what I feared might happen with Carla. Female contestants always seem to lack a bit self-confidence, and I think the fact that Carla is a caterer and not a restaurant chef just exacerbated the problem. I thought Stefan has been a little overpraised this season, but his self-confidence would have served Carla well.
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Actually Carla was second worst 4-5 times and could have been gone a long time ago. That being said she made up for it later on.What I hate about the finals is that they have to have help. I would like to see them do everything on their own like they have all along.C
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Yeah, she was. But the thing is that so many "challenges" force a contestant to cook something other than his or her food. Which is fine. Top Chef has to be an entertaining TV show. But I've always felt that I would be very comfortable eating at a restaurant where Carla had spent a few months developing her menu on her own terms. Probably more so than I would be doing the same for Stefan (and I've felt that since about half way through the season). I've always felt Stefan was an excellent cook, but not necessarily what I'd consider a great chef. Rarely did Stefan put something together that really surprised me. He seemed to know a lot of recipes that he could make well, but I never found his choices particularly strongly thought out. I suppose I'd definitely enjoy a restaurant where Stefan did the Scandinavian and German inspired stuff. I love German food, and those were the dishes Stefan seemed to connect with best.
 
All season I've been telling people to not sleep on hosea. He had cooking competition experience which can mean a lot.

Carla for what she was was never a threat. She excelled on single dishes, not multi-courses. Nothing she showed all season would represent that she could have beaten hosea's 4 courses tonight. Her lack of focus just compounded the issue.

You know who killed stefan. Radika. Go back to RW and he wins that challenge because Rhadika's team was such a failure on his desserts, and he starts making them more often and then you get the 1980s steakhouse thing he put out there.

Clearly he should have seen Hosea going savory and attacked that with one of his tried and true recipes. It was a strategic loss. Hosea cooked safe all season and Stefan steps out with the LN2 halibut and loses on that alone. I doubt any dessert could have made up the gap.

Richard also played a huge role in this.

He gets the best ingredient for aps and best sous. Blais is easily the best thing TC has ever had and probably will ever have on it. What his influence in this was we may never know.

I don't see this as nearly the injustice as some might. You have to get there to win it and stefan thought his competition was carla and it was really the other guy. Strategery folks strategery.

 
Finless said:
Stefan was robbed. He kicked ### all season and was clearly miles ahead of the pack.
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In past seasons of TC, Stefan's performance during the course of the season might have put him over the top. Not sure why it didn't here, when he and Hosea where pretty close in the final challenge, but Hosea's regular season performance was so much worse.Maybe they didn't want the doosh to win?
 
Finless said:
Stefan was robbed. He kicked ### all season and was clearly miles ahead of the pack.
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This is actually pretty accurate. Carla fell victim to the Casey fallacy. Casey made it to the end, so she must be good, right? No, she only won a few challenges towards the end of the season, and the judges hated everything she did in the finale. (Except for the thing Howie did for her, which was good.)Stefan fell victim to the dessert syndrome. The only time you can make dessert in the finale is if you're so dominant it doesn't even matter (Hung). This really should have been the case with Stefan as well, but his frozen fish thing didn't even look appetizing, and apparently wasn't. Hosea won because he didn't screw up as much at the end. Pretty weak season, IMO. I also kind of feel like they gave it to Hosea because he needed it more than the other two.
 
Worst season ever. So if Stefan doesn't freeze his fish he wins? Hosea was the worst of the 3 chefs left, just didn't blow it. So, solid but not spectacular beats spectacular but slightly off? Whatever.

Hosea may be the luckiest reality show contestant ever. Makes out with the big gunned hottie chef and wins 100K for simply not making a massive mistake. Stefan slapped him around all season, even knocks the croc screw job back into Hosea's buckteeth. (By the way, how lame was that? "Hey pick a piece of cake and there's a figurine in yours you get to screw whoever you want by making them cook Flintsone critter meat while you can cook crab or fish." This is supposed to be Top Chef, not Top person who can guess which section of cake has a monopoly piece in it. C'mon now.) Long haired wacky Hubert loved the frozen sliced fish dish. Could it have been that bad? Bald nerd Elton John judge enjoyed his dessert from Stefan. Could it have been that bad? Stefan got jobbed for being cocky. There was no doubt he was the best of the group by a mile.

 
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I guess I don't understand why freezing the fish was that huge of a deal.

I mean, if you have a fish caught like 10 minutes ago and you're about to serve it, maybe you want to avoid freezing it. But so many high end sushi bars serve fish that was caught and then frozen immediately on the boat before being transported 1000s of miles to the diner's plate. And it still tastes damn good, better than if it was merely kept "on ice" or something.

 
sjacksonfan said:
Worst season ever. So if Stefan doesn't freeze his fish he wins? Hosea was the worst of the 3 chefs left, just didn't blow it. So, solid but not spectacular beats spectacular but slightly off? Whatever. Hosea may be the luckiest reality show contestant ever. Makes out with the big gunned hottie chef and wins 100K for simply not making a massive mistake. Stefan slapped him around all season, even knocks the croc screw job back into Hosea's buckteeth. (By the way, how lame was that? "Hey pick a piece of cake and there's a figurine in yours you get to screw whoever you want by making them cook Flintsone critter meat while you can cook crab or fish." This is supposed to be Top Chef, not Top person who can guess which section of cake has a monopoly piece in it. C'mon now.) Long haired wacky Hubert loved the frozen sliced fish dish. Could it have been that bad? Bald nerd Elton John judge enjoyed his dessert from Stefan. Could it have been that bad? Stefan got jobbed for being cocky. There was no doubt he was the best of the group by a mile.
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:thumbup: Plus he was French
 
Hosea was kind of a tool, although he was under the radar because everyone focused on the Europeans.

His "At least I cooked my own food" comment to Carla was pretty lame. Plus his gloating over beating Stefan was unwarrented, since Stefan is still a better chef than Hosea.

This season was really weak.

Harold >>>>>> Hosea

Ilan =< Hosea (I hated Ilan and thought he sucked.)

Stephanie >>>>>> Hosea

Hung>>>>>>>>>>Hosea

Stefan>>>>Hosea

 
sjacksonfan said:
Worst season ever. So if Stefan doesn't freeze his fish he wins? Hosea was the worst of the 3 chefs left, just didn't blow it. So, solid but not spectacular beats spectacular but slightly off? Whatever. Hosea may be the luckiest reality show contestant ever. Makes out with the big gunned hottie chef and wins 100K for simply not making a massive mistake. Stefan slapped him around all season, even knocks the croc screw job back into Hosea's buckteeth. (By the way, how lame was that? "Hey pick a piece of cake and there's a figurine in yours you get to screw whoever you want by making them cook Flintsone critter meat while you can cook crab or fish." This is supposed to be Top Chef, not Top person who can guess which section of cake has a monopoly piece in it. C'mon now.) Long haired wacky Hubert loved the frozen sliced fish dish. Could it have been that bad? Bald nerd Elton John judge enjoyed his dessert from Stefan. Could it have been that bad? Stefan got jobbed for being cocky. There was no doubt he was the best of the group by a mile.
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I agree. When is Hell's Kitchen on?
 
I think people really didn't like Stefan, who really didn't do well the last few weeks if you think about it, but they were willing to overlook it because he did do such a dominant job for much of the season. It's like I hate T.O., but I don't deny that he's a dominant force when he wants to be. What kind of shocked me from my wife and some people I work with is how much people don't seem to like Hosea either. Couple that with the fact that Hosea never really dominated anything or got the type of effusive praise that Stefan got, and Carla got the last few weeks, and it seems like a cheap win.

I disagree. I think he did what he needed to do to win the competition and cooked good food doing it. The judges didn't lose their mind over much of it, but in the end, it got the win.

That being said, I also was really unhappy with what happened to Carla and I think you could sense that everyone on the show was as well. As happy as I was to "see" Casey again, she just completely destroyed Carla. Maybe she shouldn't have listened to her, but both changes she ended up going with were disastrous in the end. That sucked and ruined my usually festive Top Chef finale vibe. Still the best cooking show on TV hands down.

 
I don't think Hosea winning was an injustice, but I still think Stefan was clearly the best chef on the show.

I also get the strong impression that Colicchio does not care for Stefan at all.

 
sjacksonfan said:
Worst season ever. So if Stefan doesn't freeze his fish he wins? Hosea was the worst of the 3 chefs left, just didn't blow it. So, solid but not spectacular beats spectacular but slightly off? Whatever. Hosea may be the luckiest reality show contestant ever. Makes out with the big gunned hottie chef and wins 100K for simply not making a massive mistake. Stefan slapped him around all season, even knocks the croc screw job back into Hosea's buckteeth. (By the way, how lame was that? "Hey pick a piece of cake and there's a figurine in yours you get to screw whoever you want by making them cook Flintsone critter meat while you can cook crab or fish." This is supposed to be Top Chef, not Top person who can guess which section of cake has a monopoly piece in it. C'mon now.) Long haired wacky Hubert loved the frozen sliced fish dish. Could it have been that bad? Bald nerd Elton John judge enjoyed his dessert from Stefan. Could it have been that bad? Stefan got jobbed for being cocky. There was no doubt he was the best of the group by a mile.
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1.They choose the winner by that night's meal, not the whole season.2. Stefan didn't get hosed by the gator, in fact that was his second best dish.3. Freezing fresh fish is a major mistake, but wasn't the reason Stefan lost.4. If you are going by what Toby Young said over the other judges then something is wrong. 5. The dessert was what lost Stefan the competition for being unimaginative.6. You do not win TC with having 2 of 4 dishes being sub par. Stefan choked.
 
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Toby Young is so irritating. I hate it when he kind of bows his head and talks in a deeper voice when he thinks he's saying something interesting.

 
PizzaDeliveryGuy said:
sjacksonfan said:
Worst season ever. So if Stefan doesn't freeze his fish he wins? Hosea was the worst of the 3 chefs left, just didn't blow it. So, solid but not spectacular beats spectacular but slightly off? Whatever.

Hosea may be the luckiest reality show contestant ever. Makes out with the big gunned hottie chef and wins 100K for simply not making a massive mistake. Stefan slapped him around all season, even knocks the croc screw job back into Hosea's buckteeth. (By the way, how lame was that? "Hey pick a piece of cake and there's a figurine in yours you get to screw whoever you want by making them cook Flintsone critter meat while you can cook crab or fish." This is supposed to be Top Chef, not Top person who can guess which section of cake has a monopoly piece in it. C'mon now.) Long haired wacky Hubert loved the frozen sliced fish dish. Could it have been that bad? Bald nerd Elton John judge enjoyed his dessert from Stefan. Could it have been that bad? Stefan got jobbed for being cocky. There was no doubt he was the best of the group by a mile.
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1.They choose the winner by that night's meal, not the whole season. - Stefan had arguably the 2 most popular dishes. The frozen fish and dessert hate seemed nitpicky. Also, to say that the only thing the judges/producers take note of is that final meal isn't being realistic.2. Stefan didn't get hosed by the gator, in fact that was his second best dish. - Right. He shoved it right back into Hosea's face.

3. Freezing fresh fish is a major mistake, but wasn't the reason Stefan lost. - Seems like it to everyone else.

4. If you are going by what Toby Young said over the other judges then something is wrong. - I wasn't but his point is well taken. Hosea skipped making a dessert because he couldn't.

5. The dessert was what lost Stefan the competition for being unimaginative. - Chef Tom didn't seem to be impressed but that wasn't the only reason...obviously. "Hey Stefan, you wiped the floor with everyone this season but your last dessert was just so-so, so we're going to pick someone else to win." C'mon.

6. You do not win TC with having 2 of 4 dishes being sub par. Stefan choked. - Again, they were being a bit nit-picky and playing up Marcel's line when he knocked stefan freezing the fish. It seemed they just didn't want him to win and I believe even if he didn't freeze the fish and made some kind of stellar dessert that they were going to have a hard time giving him the hardware. It's always going to be about good vs. evil with these shows and people are made to look a certain way as to sway the audience. Clearly Stefan was better than everyone there.
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I thought Hosea was a doosh who totally let Stefan get in his head, to the point that they had to try to make Stefan look like a bad guy, just so their eventual champ didn't come across as hatefully fixated on another competitor. Who was stealing the foie gras and caviar? Who was flipping the bird on camera? Who was gloating after sticking a competitor with alligator meat?

Meanwhile, who was consoling Carla after she crapped the bed? And yet Stefan is the bad guy? I thought he was hilarious.

I hated Carla for the first month and kept waiting for her to lose, and then she ended up being my favorite -- although her explanation about "cooking with love" after one disastrous dish was the single most painful moment of the season. As mentioned above, even though she lost, she will now be hugely successful in DC with her catering business. DC is so starved for show biz celebrities that "second runner-up on Top Chef" qualifies as a big star. Good for her.

 
Fabio got screwed big time. Only reason he lost is because they took Top Chef NEW YORK to New Orleans for one lame episode, and he didnt have a cajun/creole spin on his dishes.

Bull####!

 
After watching the finale again, man does Hosea come off like a D-bag. First off all, the guy lucks out not once but twice by picking the #1 knife thus getting richard (by the way they didn't show a lot of Richard in that episode, gotta think he was a HUGE help to Hosea for that meal) and then he gets the figurine in his cake and gets to choose fish (guy works in a fish restaurant) and not get stuck with the croc. As far as being a doosh how about his painfully annoying "this is a competition, like I got it first" line after he takes all of the foie gras? The guy's a massive nerd with a chip on his shoulder and somehow the clearly superior and easy-going Stefan is the bad guy for his ability to brush things off easily. Also good call by a previous poster who notes Stefan consoling Carla while Hosea-nerd stews in the corner, thinking about himself. You suck, Hosea.

 
I don't know if any of you ever go out to the Bravo website to read the blogs but they had Q and A's with both Stefan and Hosea and both of them said that 90% of their time together ended up on the cutting room floor to make it look as it they really hated each other more than they did. Stefan says something to the effect of he's going out to Colorado in March to see Hosea.

 
sjacksonfan said:
Worst season ever. So if Stefan doesn't freeze his fish he wins? Hosea was the worst of the 3 chefs left, just didn't blow it. So, solid but not spectacular beats spectacular but slightly off? Whatever. Hosea may be the luckiest reality show contestant ever. Makes out with the big gunned hottie chef and wins 100K for simply not making a massive mistake. Stefan slapped him around all season, even knocks the croc screw job back into Hosea's buckteeth. (By the way, how lame was that? "Hey pick a piece of cake and there's a figurine in yours you get to screw whoever you want by making them cook Flintsone critter meat while you can cook crab or fish." This is supposed to be Top Chef, not Top person who can guess which section of cake has a monopoly piece in it. C'mon now.) Long haired wacky Hubert loved the frozen sliced fish dish. Could it have been that bad? Bald nerd Elton John judge enjoyed his dessert from Stefan. Could it have been that bad? Stefan got jobbed for being cocky. There was no doubt he was the best of the group by a mile.
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:headbang: Even frozen it still looked better than hosea's fish appettizer with the mango crap on it.
 
bigfun54 said:
I don't know if any of you ever go out to the Bravo website to read the blogs but they had Q and A's with both Stefan and Hosea and both of them said that 90% of their time together ended up on the cutting room floor to make it look as it they really hated each other more than they did. Stefan says something to the effect of he's going out to Colorado in March to see Hosea.
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I think Nipsey said several pages back that this was probably what was going on.
 
SofaKings said:
bigfun54 said:
I don't know if any of you ever go out to the Bravo website to read the blogs but they had Q and A's with both Stefan and Hosea and both of them said that 90% of their time together ended up on the cutting room floor to make it look as it they really hated each other more than they did. Stefan says something to the effect of he's going out to Colorado in March to see Hosea.
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I think Nipsey said several pages back that this was probably what was going on.
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Hard not to like Stefan.Not quite the same guy we were presented . . . at least not the full picture. Seems like a really cool guy.

 
sjacksonfan said:
. As far as being a doosh how about his painfully annoying "this is a competition, like I got it first" line after he takes all of the foie gras?
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Lets call a :goodposting: a :blackdot: on the froie gras , Stefan wanted to take the froie gras from Josea. Josoea got the FG 1st & then offered to split the FG with the petulant euro but stefan couldn't get his way and didn't want to split it.
 
Good interview with Carla about the show here. Its a shame the wheels came of the wagon at the end , I really grew to like her.

link



Top Chef Exit Interview: Carla Is Cut, Takes Full Responsibility, Doesn’t Want People To Blame Casey

After getting off to a slow start - which she attributes to not being completely comfortable in her own skin (see below) - Carla Hall started to pick up major momentum this season on Top Chef. Once the group of 17 started boiling down to fewer and fewer cheftestants, the Carla express train seemed bound for “Hootie Hoo-ville” (no, that’s not an actual place) station.

Sadly, the Carla train stopped short last night when she failed to trust her gut on two major dishes, winding up with a sunken soufflé and a blown sous vide steak. In an interview this morning, the DC-local discussed her progression over the season, why she’s cool with Hosea’s win, and how she’s actually “much weirder” in real life than what we saw on TV.

So what happened with Casey last night?

When I was there, and afterwards, I really enjoyed working with Casey. I actually really wanted Casey. I thought that we would connect, personality-wise, which is really important. Richard Blais is really nice too. I did not consider that it was Casey’s fault. The way I guess I have to explain it is that doing the competition you give so much that it’s just emotionally exhausting trying to think of things.

Going into the finale you’re exhausted, and then all of the sudden you have help. You have help from people who have already been through it. So I think I just wanted to exhale and say thank God I don’t have to bear it all on my own. I don’t have to do it all. But I probably gave too much power away. She didn’t take it, I gave it. I am prepared to take full responsibility for that.

In hindsight yes I would have done something differently. When you’re exhausted and tired you make totally different decisions. She was standing by me. I think I hadn’t sold myself on the soufflé dish, and I hadn’t completely changed my idea of the tart. I never really did a proper soufflé and then I didn’t turn the oven down. It wouldn’t have worked anyway, because I was still in my head creating it, while I was trying to get my dishes out.

I wasn’t even present doing my meat dish. If we had done something else, had a better cut of meat, and seared it, using the sauce that I’d prepared - which was really delicious - I think I would have been in the game. Not presenting something on the last plate definitely tripped me up.

I would not blame Casey at all. I hope people understand that and they don’t give her a hard time. I know the blogs are blowing up saying she did me in. No she did not.

Have you had a conversation with her since the finale?

I haven’t spoken to her. I would love to give her a call. I don’t have her number. I want to see how she’s taking all of this because I would really hate for her to get the brunt of it. If I could get on the loud speaker and say to whoever watches the show: please do not blame Casey. I take full responsibility for it. I just hope she’s not getting beat up by it.

Everyone knows you’d been building up momentum all season, you even said so yourself last night. What was that progression like for you, starting off less strong and then building each week?

The progression wasn’t necessarily in my technique. Whatever technique I had going in, that’s what I had. I think the progression was to become comfortable in my own skin, and comfortable with myself in that environment. You saw that sort of fall apart in the finale last night.

Every day when I got centered, my whole thing was to just step in and not be so tense and afraid of messing up that I couldn’t do what I knew I was able to do. The turning point for me was Restaurant Wars, where you think you’re going to go home, and that’s your biggest fear. So then I thought OK that’s out of the way, so now I can cook. Then when I was in the moment things worked out. I was exactly where I needed to be. I needed to not be afraid of not doing a good job, which stifled any disappointment. So I continued.

The disservice that I allowed for the finale was to not be in that flow, and I used Casey as a crutch. So that’s what happened.

Can you talk about cooking with love?

I am sure that everybody on that show who loves what they do - they may not describe it the way I describe it - cooks with love. It’s just the way I am. I think in any discipline, if you love what you do, you do it with love, because you care about it. When you care about something it comes through, and the people who you are delivering it to know it, and they respond to it. They may not know what the thing is, but what we’re responding to is the fact that you care about it.

There was one episode where Tom seemed to not understand that concept. Did he eventually get it? Did the other judges get it?

I think they did. If they didn’t get it, they respected that it was my perspective. I know that Gail definitely got it, and you know Toby mentioned it. Honestly that was a piece of winning for me, too. Just to show people we’re not here just to pull out a dish that’s technically sound and it tastes good; there’s a little piece of us going into every dish that we make. That truly is reality when you go to a restaurant; there are people busting their butt’s trying to get a good meal to you.

Sometimes when you’re doing the challenges and don’t have a lot of time, what ever we put out, whether it succeeds greatly or fails like I did last night, there is a piece of me in that dish. I just hope that comes across to the judges. It doesn’t mean that I’m a failure as a person. I mean, shoot, we all have a bad day. Sometimes are bad days are small and no one sees them, and sometimes are bad days are in front of millions of people. But that’s life.

What did you think of the way you were portrayed on the show?

I think I’m weirder than they made me seem, so they did a great job! My friends went oh my God, you’re just like that! Are you sure you want to show people that side of yourself? So I’m going to be me. Sometimes I’m really quirky, sometimes I’m introspective, sometimes I’m probably on a soap box somewhere. I think they pretty much captured it all.

Last night the moment when Stefan comforted you at judges table was really touching, can you talk about what was going on there?

I think it was really sweet. We’d been standing in front of those judges for hours! Obviously you don’t see that. It wasn’t until the end, after three hours or so of being badgered like what the Hell, Carla? that I was trying to hold it in, but then my voice started to quiver. Then Stefan walked over and I was really touched. I think both of them were just feeling it.

Because you’re so into what you’re doing…they didn’t realize that I was falling apart when I was putting out my dishes; they were so focused on their own. So they too, were learning about this as we were standing in front of the judges.

I really like Stefan. I know he’s been portrayed as the villain, but he is playing the game. He is sussing out his competition and playing the game. He’s not a bad person. He doesn’t want to win by choking someone up. He wants to win by doing a good job and being a good competitor. I applaud his technique and his abilities as a chef. I think he was awesome with the alligator. Granted, I snickered when Hosea gave him that alligator, but he pulled it out. He was like look you cannot trip me up!

Where did you watch the finale?

I went out with 90 other people: family, friends, students from my cooking class. I am teaching a class at Culinary, which is a recreational cooking school in downtown DC. So, the students that are in my class watched, I had clients there, and lots of family and friends. We all were there together and they were all rooting me on. So then I was like I hope none of you all are crying out there, alright? People get so choked up!

People always seem to stray away from doing dessert, which was your strong suit this. What did you think about Hosea’s decision not to do one last night?

I think that a chef’s decision has to be based on their strengths. We’re there to show our strengths. Interestingly enough, I like doing desserts, and I did desserts in the beginning, but I kind of got pigeon holed because I wasn’t afraid to do them. Doing desserts in my regular day-to-day is something that’s a treat for me, so I can relax. So I started doing them just to relax. Then it took on a whole different meaning when I found myself doing them until Restaurant Wars, and you know how that ended. But I think that I didn’t want to do a dessert because I was kind of gun shy after restaurant wars, and I didn’t want to be pegged as a dessert chef, which I’m not. So I did a spin on a cheese course with a really good crust.

As for Hosea, I think he made a good decision. If he doesn’t do desserts well, then why set himself up like I did? I don’t do sous vide and then I did sous vide, and that wasn’t a very good decision. He was smart. Me, not so much, right?

Do you think Hosea deserved it?

I think he made the best meal. I’m so happy for him and think he deserved it. He’s a package. I wasn’t reading the blogs about Hosea, well, my husband would read them to me, but he’s a really good guy and he’s gotten kind of a bum rep.

Anyone who would have gotten it deserved it. We worked really hard. I think sometimes people don’t think about how hard it is. Stefan has done a beautiful job throughout the competition, and people have asked me whether it should have been cumulative. I’m going to say no to that. If it was cumulative, then Hosea wouldn’t have been there; he wouldn’t have gotten that shot. He ended up winning by cooking the best meal that night.

So everybody gets another chance. You can mess up, and if you’re still there, the next day you get up and do it all over again and win, and have a fresh start, which is great. I think that’s a really good message in life. You messed up today? Don’t worry about it. Brush yourself off and get up and do it over again tomorrow.

Did your husband and stepson enjoy the Super Bowl?

They were so excited! They didn’t find out until we watched the show. My husband couldn’t understand that I was sitting there with these two fabricated tickets, saying ‘you’re going to the Super Bowl!’ He was looking at me like what? They had a wonderful time. Hearing the story about it made me really excited. My treat was that then I didn’t have to actually watch the Super Bowl!

Did you also have to keep the car a secret from everyone?

Yeah, no one knew about that either. My sweet, sweet husband, true to form, cried when I won. He was so happy because I actually won, and then the fact that I won the car, he was over the moon. So he was a little teary!

You mentioned on the show that you used to be a model. How long were you doing that for, and at what point did you decide to consider the idea of cooking professionally?

I modeled only for three years. I mostly did runway modeling. At 30 I went to culinary school after falling into a lunch delivery service. So I was doing that for five years. I really cut my teeth, so to speak, doing that, the day-to-day grind. After that I still wanted to do it, so I said OK I’m ready to invest in myself. I’d had the experience, so I went to culinary school to get the theory. After putting the theory and the experience together, I loved it. I found a passion about it that was exciting to me. My biggest thing was being 40 and hating my job, so I was willing to do anything to figure it out. I think a lot of what you all saw was my passion about stuff. I hope everyone gets to experience that; if you have a passion for taking out the trash, then you do a really good job.

Are you still in touch with everyone from the show?

I talk to Ariane a lot. She came down here to DC to help me with an inaugural event, and I went up to her restaurant, which is really good. So I talk to her a lot. I talk to Jamie, and I talk to Stefan quite a bit.

Interestingly enough, it’s so funny, when we were going through the competition he’s like I’m not here to be friends, I’m not going to talk to these people! Then he calls all of us. He is like the paternal grandfather keeping all of us together and calling. It’s great.

What’s next for you?

I will continue to cater. I don’t know what’s coming down the pike. I really want to start a sweet and savory boutique. I’m opening up a place hopefully in downtown DC where I can do catering, and also have a chefs table where people like yourself can actually taste my food without having to cater. But it will be pretty small so I’ll probably wind up pissing more people off than making them happy. Maybe a couple of classes in that space.

 
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