Sweet and Sour in Boston

Top Chef Finale Thoughts

•What a disappointing end to a disappointing season. I had only a 1 in three chance of being bummed by who the winner would be and sure enough, effing Hosea wins. What is really sad is that I was on the Hosea bandwagon in the beginning of this season. I thought he had some good skills, and could be a true contender. As the season rolled on though, I really took a disliking to him. He sucked it up with seafood time and time again, even though he is a seafood chef. The whole cheating on his significant other for the unappetizing Leah aside, Hosea’s personality kept getting worse and worse in my eyes. The whole hating on the Euros made him out to be more of a prick than Stefan. I dunno, this whole season basically blew for me.

•That being said, I thought this season had some really great challenges. Shame they were wasted on this bunch, though Carla really stepped up to the plate at times and surprised the hell out of me. Stefan clearly was the best chef of this group, he just became too consistent without wowing. I think that hurt him in the end. His stuff was good from the beginning and stayed good throughout. He just didn’t have that extra gear towards the end for the judges. Imagine if they didn’t expect anything good to great from him. He probably would have won. Tom seemed to have voted on him harshly because he knew Stefan can cook well and wanted more.

•The return of the 3 past losers was not very interesting. If I had to choose one of them for my sous chef, it would be Casey. I was saying that as they were drawing knives, and poor Carla got her. I couldn’t believe Carla and her spirits allowed Casey to influence so much of her final dishes. (Maybe Carla’s food spirits have mental blocks around big fake boobs…) Casey shown she had the ability to do as she is told and be a great teammate and while her ideas would have been nice suggestions, you do not try things that are new at this stage in the game. Not sure I would have wanted to work with Richard or Marcel, and to be honest, outside of Casey’s bad ideas, none of the sous chefs seemed to really contribute too much.

•So little input from the guest judges, why even have them there? I mean, you have some big names from New Orleans and also Rocco and Hubert Keller, use them! Tom’s reaction to some of their compliments to Stefan’s dishes was down right rude at times. And the way he only half-heartedly complimented those dishes were just as bad. “It tasted fine.” “Yeah, the flavors are good…hm..” I dunno, I guess Tom’s judging this year seemed really off in my opinion. He really picked favorites (Jamie for one) and seemed to encourage them more.

•The voodoo fortune teller bit was funny but stupid. I liked that Stefan asked about Jamie.

•Of all the cheftestants, only Jeff and Carla make me want to try their food. I wouldn’t reject a meal by Fabio or Stefan at all, but if I was in Miami or DC I’d try to take some time to find Jeff and Carla’s places.

•Jeff’s place will always be known as Dildo.

•All in all…I feel like I wasted a lot of time where I could be sleeping by watching this season. Jersey and Leah might be two of the worst cheftestants ever in terms of cooking and overall personality. One big load of meh.