Wedding Wars

13 moments from this week’s Top Chef: Chicago,
with 8 contestants (4 men, 4 women) remaining.

1. Quickfire Challenge: After Padma tells the contestants that the QF Challenge winners no longer have immunity, Tom presides over a relay challenge. The contestants are separated into two teams, Nikki-Dale-Lisa-Spike, and Richard-Stephanie-Antonia-Andrew.
2. For the relay, it’s Lisa versus Antonia to peel and supreme 5 oranges, and Lisa kicks citrus ass. Then it’s Spike versus Andrew in an artichoke peel-off. Spike messes up his choke, but for some reason Tom passes it; Andrew’s artichokes are clearly superior. Then Dale goes head to head over a really hideous monkfish against Richard, who displays a skilled hand with the fish – but they finish in a dead heat. Finally, it’s Nikki versus Stephanie for a quart of home-made mayonnaise – after Nikki states she can’t make mayo. Stephanie makes a lovely quart of mayo, and Dale flips out that his team lost the challenge. He drops the F-bomb and punches a locker, and Antonia says, “Then he had to have his diaper changed.” My first laugh-out loud moment of the evening!
3. The winning team in the QF challenge gets to select their choice in the Elimination Challenge, which is Wedding Wars. The winning team chooses the bride to please, and the Dale-Nikki-Lisa-Spike-cluster-fuck gets the groom. Nikki and the groom bond because they’re both Italian, and it seems like the groom team has an advantage, but then we cut directly to a snide Dale in the diary room saying “No one really likes each other on this team.” Yes, there is no Dale in TEAM.
4. Dale’s “team” thinks that he is doing too many things helter-skelter, and so Spike takes over the sea bass. Nikki makes her pasta, and butts heads with Dale over what ingredients go into a ragu. But, Nikki totally drops the ball when it comes to trying to make her peers into a team, and basically says, “whatever.”
5. Tom comes in at 7:33am to tell them they have three and a half hours left of prep time, and to make a snarky comment about Lisa’s butt-ugly groom’s cake. It truly is an unattractive cake.
6. The Top Chef quiz of the week: Which Chef is the most annoying? The choices = Lisa, Dale, or Spike. America votes, and chooses Dale.
7. The gang heads over to the wedding reception hall, where the testy cheftestants are at each other’s throats. Padma introduces this week’s judges: Tom, Gail Simmons from Food & Wine, and Gale Sand, the top pastry chef in Chicago. Stephanie, who’s making the wedding cake, has a tight undies moment when she realizes that Gale Sand will be tasting her cake. Stephanie’s cake is beautiful, garnished with fresh flowers.
8. The appetizers are served, and most get raves. The crostini that Dale made, however, is like a rock.
9. The meal is buffet style, with some of the chefs serving, some as runners to the kitchen, and Dale and Andrew in the kitchen doing the final cooking. Antonia states, “Dale is not allowed to talk to the guests” while Dale is whining in the kitchen that he’s doing everything for every one.
10. “The brisket is delicious,” states Padma of the bride’s team entrée, and Tom gushes about the horseradish sauce. But they don’t like Andrew’s chicken – saying he just made that exact same dish.
11. The groom’s buffet does not garner such praise. Nikki’s squash-filled tortellini is “not very good” and even though Lisa likes her “pretty” cake, everyone else mumbles how ugly it is.
12. Time for the Judges’ Table. The bride’s team is first, because they are the clear winners. Not everything is a hit – the creamed spinach which Andrew slaved over was flavored with star anise, and it was sad to see one of my favorite dishes messed up. Stephanie’s cake impressed guest pastry chef Gale Sand, and since Richard stepped up and took control and made that fantastic brisket, he won the challenge. He immediately says “I’d like to give it to Stephanie.” Once Padma realizes he’s not kidding, she awards new winner Stephanie a $2,000 gift certificate to Crate & Barrel. Stephanie immediately says she’s splitting the certificate with Richard. The groom’s team could have taken a lesson on team work from these people!
13. The losing team is then dragged out to the judges… and when they are asked who was in charge, Nikki pipes up, “Definitely NOT me!” They are slammed for having too many different dishes, and too many dishes that didn’t taste good. Dale is pissy, and gets into a bitch-fest with Spike, whose sea bass was their one good dish. “Everyone should have liked it,” snivels Dale, “It took him three hours.” Tom says that Nikki was “a major disappointment” for not having stepped up and grabbed the bulls by the horn, so in the end it was Nikki and her annoying eye brows that are told to get the hell out!