Salon.com > Top Chef Masters

Who won “Top Chef Masters”?

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:18:00 +0000

Unrealistically ambitious plans. Uncooked proteins lying about, glistening menacingly. Quirky ovens. Clocks ticking down. Stressed out human beings, running around in little circles, wailing in agony, knocking into each other, dropping stuff on the floor, sweating, cursing, slicing their fingers off with sharp knives. "Top Chef Masters" has more than a little in common with the nightly routine in my house.

Luckily, my judging panel doesn't mind a sloppy presentation or overbearing acidic notes as long as the dish in question is covered in melted cheese and/or it just feels right when you rub it into your scalp. (That's my smallest judge's way of communicating that classic Gail Simmons style of high praise, aka "I could bathe in this" or "I want to stick my entire head into a vat of this" or "I could eat this until I quite literally explode.")

In contrast, the celebrity chefs on the "Top Chef Masters" finale Wednesday night were held to such a ridiculously high standard that it was almost too much to bear. Super chefs Rick Moonen, Marcus Samuelson and Susur Lee all prepared dishes that made the judges and guest judges gasp and gush and sigh deeply over their marvelous textures and flavors.

What reality TV can teach you about your boss

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 13:30:00 +0000

The bossman cometh! Reality TV now offers a glimpse at the professional ego heretofore unseen by the masses. Of course we already know, from our own workplace experiences, how the elite professional keeps up a winning streak indefinitely: By being an insufferable control freak, by demanding too much from underlings, by embracing the life of the workaholic, by staying busy at all costs, always assuming that busy-ness can offset any down-tick in importance, fame and/or fortune.

These grating professional pathologies aren't so fun at close range, as we scamper around in bad shoes, Xeroxing invoices or updating Excel charts or fetching no-foam triple nonfat lattes for those smug, eternally bloviating sons of bitches. But when we can take them in from a distance, armed with a good beer and flanked by a few friends who distrust money and power as much as we do (even as we hunger for it like the simpering dogs that we are), these strange tics translate into sheer entertainment. Who knew that, on our television screens, the dysfunctional affectations of the professional class would delight us quite so much?

I Like to Watch

Sun, 31 May 2009 10:30:00 +0000

Modern life has a frustrating way of setting us up to fail seconds after we wake up. I didn't exercise this morning, and neither did my dogs, who sulked instead. I drank caffeine, which is bad for me, and wrote for a few hours instead of vacuuming the living room floor. I didn't shower. I drove my daughter to daycare and she didn't cry when I left, but I didn't spend the day with her. I walked the dogs but didn't run because I still have a cough, which must mean I'm doing something wrong. I paid some bills but didn't clean off my desk. I watched a screener of "Nurse Jackie" but didn't figure out what its central premise is. I made dinner but my daughter only ate bread. The baby nursed for an hour (good) then spent an hour sleeping in her automatic swing while I ate chocolate and watched "Make Me a Supermodel" (bad). I took my vitamins but didn't floss. I wrote this paragraph, but I'm pretty sure most of you won't like it, since it means waiting longer to find out what time "Jon & Kate Plus 8" is on (9 p.m. Mondays on TLC).