I'm glad Brooke & Kirsten made it as the final two. (Although I would have been happy with Sheldon too.) And yeah, I was confused and thought last night was the finale and that the final cook-off would be with the three of them.
If Kristen brings her A game and Brooke gets rattled in the final and doesn't pull it together, then I think Kristen has it in the bag. But if they are both on top of things, it will be a close one.
I think that Brooke needs the drama of getting rattled and in the weeds to bring out her best. I think that's what I don't like about her, she seems to always say "I'm worried! I'm in so much trouble! I'm going home!" and then *poof* she has the best dish of the evening like last night. I despise false humility.
I don't agree. I think she turns into a rattled stereotypical blonde.
THREE times she tried to make her dishes "made to order" and NOT pre-plate or prepare stuff ahead of time. Even Joise, who I think is only a so-so chef, criticized her on it. I frankly have to wonder how much business the restaurants Brooke works in gets that she can make dishes "made to order" and thinks she can do that at the busy Top Chef challenges??? Unless she's used to cooking fast Chinese stir-frys or Benihana type grilled meals, I don't get how she thinks she can keep cooking "made to order???" The way she gets so rattled, she acts like she usually doesn't work in busy restaurants or knows how to work out doing 3 different courses at a time.
Tom was extremely exasperated with her. He was constantly prompting her to speed things up and giving her TIPS to PRE-plate things. She acted like she didn't know to do that???
According to Tom's blog, Kristen wasn't in any real danger last night. If Sheldon did better, Brook would have gone home. She was a mess last night.
It showed during filming. I'm glad Tom re-iterated it, and that it wasn't just the editing. (He also told the other two to hurry up at times.) Being one of the top chefs in the
world, you can see that precision is very important to Tom. I love when they show him at work in the kitchen. That way, he can really stand by what he says with real integrity. Being a top chef isn't just the taste of the food, it is about having a certain kitchen work ethic & standard in place, and when he gives a critique, it's because he can do it upside down, himself.
Brooke is very creative, but she seems to be too flustered when the pressure is on and there is multi-tasks to be preformed. It seems like a normal routine for her and that she can't function. Not that she needs the pressure to perform
better in the end. She would drive me nuts to work with.
I felt really bad for Sheldon. He pulled a Carla. He should have went with what he knows. If he had, I think Kristen would have been out.
I know! I was thinking that too after I turned off my PC. He committed the Top Chef Cardinal Sin of cooking someone else's food. He got to the final 3 on his OWN food, not Kristen's or Brooke's.
I watche4d part of the show again when it re-airred. Sheldon said that during their time off, after he got home from Alaska, that he went to some famous restaurant in HI, to study cooking some more. That chef must have had some ego, stripped Sheldon of his own self-confidence, to where he GAVE UP his own cooking and took on this other Chef's way of cooking.
Even Emeril or Hugh had said something like, "Who got inside Sheldon's head with someone else's thoughts??? That wasn't Sheldon's cooking!"
Ah well, it was a big lesson for Sheldon. I don't think he will forget to keep himself in his cooking from now on. It may ultimately make him a stronger chef.
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