Top Chef Episode 1: Dissing Housewives

by Laura Torres | More from this Blogger

10 Mar 2006 01:10 AM

Bravo's new reality series Top Chef premiered last night. I was all excited to see what the contestants would dream up and maybe learn a few culinary tips. What I didn't expect was to have steam blowing out my ears for half the show. Indulge me a little indignant rant, if you will, on behalf of housewives everywhere.

When the contestants first entered their living quarters, one of them, Dubliner Ken, took a quick tour of the kitchen and pronounced it a second-rate "housewife's kitchen." He then turned to the oldest female contestant and said, "You should feel right at home." She should have slugged him with the Vodka bottle she was shown using to flatten chicken breasts.

Then, later in the program, chef Keller, guest judge from Fleur de Lys in San Francisco said of the contestants offerings, "This isn't a housewives' cooking competition. These are supposed to be chefs, right?"

Justice does come in one form or another. Ken was the first kicked off the show for his dry, tasteless halibut atop a pretentious soy bean, green onion and parsley puree with a touch of tomato compote and a fig gastrique. What the heck is a fig gastrique? My twelve-year-old son could make a good potty joke out of that one.

As for chef Keller, he'd better hope that there was just some bad editing on the show. In an earlier competition to see who had the right stuff to work the line in the kitchen, he asked Ken to taste a sauce. Ken stuck his pinky in the sauce and then into his mouth. Chef Keller, horrified, kicked him out of the kitchen because "no one in my kitchen touches the sauce." He said he'd have to now throw the sauce away. Later, Ken confronted Chef Keller and asked him if he'd actually thrown away the sauce. There was some hemming, hawing, and an indirect answer before another judge lit into Ken for confronting the chef. So the question remains whether patrons at the Fleur de Lys were served sauce sullied by Ken's pinky.

Besides the dissing of housewives and Ken's pinky in the sauce, the show was a little bland for all the hype. Let's hope next week's episode has some more spice. (And a housewife for a guest judge!)

Learn more about Laura Torres

Laura Torres is the best-selling author of many books for kids and teens, and a party planner. Check out her website at lauratorres.com.

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mcmama (51978) 10 Mar 2006 01:24 PM

Let's hope they have a guest judge who has the job of preparing food on the run for people who don't necessarily want to eat it or appreciate it, who shares a kitchen with people who think frozen pizza is a meal, and who spends at least as much time in the car waiting for sports practice to end as they do in the kitchen dreaming up sauce.

Housewives kitchen indeed.

Carson Hopkins (790) 10 Mar 2006 04:17 PM

Is the term 'housewife' offensive these days?

Laura Torres (3958) 10 Mar 2006 05:50 PM

Not to me, no. I'm a proud housewife. It's a gift to be able to stay home with your kids. They were using the term as an insult. That's why it made me mad! There's nothing wrong with housewife cooking!