Welcome to the personal section of my blog, where I write about things I care about with zero regard for facts or feelings. We’re kicking it off with a series I’ve decided to call Top Chef Reactions. No recaps, no analysis, just a real-time, unfiltered stream of consciousness from the dark recesses of my brain as words and pictures flash in front of my face. We’re starting with the currently airing season 23. There is drama. There is heartbreak. There’s somebody I want to hit over the head with a crudités. Let’s get into it.

Quick Fire

• “I’m not here to play patty cake!” – Well thank god somebody said it. I was starting to think everyone was here to play patty cake. Could you imagine? A season of all patty cakes? Disgusting.
• Has it been too long since I’ve watched Top Chef or does there seem to be an unusually high amount of unearned confidence in this season’s cast? So many people are sure they’re gonna win. Like, relax. You’re all going to fail soon enough.
• “Five star, five diamond [restaurant]” – Okay, hold on, record scratch. Five star five diamond? I don’t think we’re talking about Michelin stars anymore, because I think those only go up to three. Are you just bragging about your restaurant’s particularly good Yelp rating? And don’t piss me off with this “five diamond” bull crap. You’re just making stuff up now.
• Hate the couple already. Annoyance meter is through the roof.
• I just feel like I need to address the elephant in the room: Kristen is a baddie and Gail still makes me question my sexuality. There is no reason these women need to go so hard and yet here we are. Bravo continues to bless us with women who eat (literally) and leave no crumbs (figuratively).
• Some challenges on Top Chef can be quite heavy handed and (dare I say it) a little forced, but I really love the twist for this first Quick Fire. Not having a real clock and having to time your cook based on cars racing around the track is a great way to test the chefs’ ability to stay flexible with timing. I’m not sure if they were given a rough estimate of how much time it would take, but I hope they weren’t and had to speed up and/or slow down based on how much they over/underestimated the speed of the cars. I’ve always preferred these types of “time twist” challenges to come later in the season once the contestants have gotten accustomed to the time crunch, but for the first Quick Fire right out of the gate, this was pretty fun to watch.
• Of course Justin, the dunce of the season, falls immediately as soon as the game begins. Incredibly on brand.
• The YouTube chef is incredibly awkward on camera. Maybe I can give him the benefit of the doubt and assume the producers got one of the worst clips they could find of him, but dang. For someone who’s job it is to be charismatic on camera, he made me cringe so hard I folded in on myself.
• HUSH PUPPY-GATE!!! HUSH PUPPIES ARE TOO SHRIMPY!!! 🚨🚨🚨
• HUSH PUPPY-GATE UPDATE: Flour has saved the hush puppies. We have narrowly avoided our first Top Chef disaster.
• I am deeply confused on why they can’t plate until the final lap. That seems like producer shenanigans to me, trying to force timing drama on the contestants when it doesn’t need to be there.
• KALE-GATE!!! KALE-GATE!!! WE ARE MISSING KALE ON SOME PLATES!!! 🚨🚨🚨
• RAW FISH-GATE!!! RAW FISH-GATE!!! WE HAVE RAW FISH AT THE JUDGE’S TABLE!!! 🚨🚨🚨
• Oh look, Justin is on the losing team. Raise your hand if you’re surprised. Oh look! No hands.

Elimination Challenge

• Ugh, I hate sweet potatoes. Truly THE disappointment of the potato family. Let’s get this over with.
• ONE HOUR?!? That’s….not enough time to do anything! I can’t even get all the ingredients out of my cupboard to prep for dinner in an hour! Is this the fast food season of Top Chef? Make it make sense.
• Also, what’s up with this no-Last-Chance-Kitchen-for-the-first-two-eliminated-chefs business? They need two eliminated chefs to compete, so does that mean no Last Chance Kitchen until episode 4? Why do they suddenly hate Last Chance Kitchen so much? Is Tom Colicchio tired? Get him a co-host! There are solutions to these problems people! WE WANT LAST CHANCE KITCHEN
• Okay so there’s definitely some relationship issues going on with Justin and Jennifer? Justin is saying she “won’t let him put a ring on it” and Jennifer is saying “I’d say yes if he proposed”? This is either some crazy editing or there is major trouble for these “life partners” ahead. I cannot wait for this to explode on live television. Either way, they’re still pissing me off.
• I still think it’s crazy that these chefs are let loose in a public Whole Foods on a time limit with random civilians just trying to buy groceries for their families. Laurence literally body slammed a random lady with his cart. Let the people shop in peace! They didn’t ask to have a reality competition thrust upon them on a random Tuesday afternoon! At least close down the store for an hour or something. It seems extreme.
• My gosh, these people are cutting and chopping potatoes with reckless abandon. PLEASE DON’T CUT YOUR HANDS OFF 😭😭😭
• BLOW TORCH BITCH COMING THROUGH ANYBODY GOT A BLOWTORCH??? 🔥🔥🔥
• YAAAAAS Nana with the 30 minutes dance! More of this please
• THE OVEN WAS NEVER ON-GATE!!! THE OVEN WAS NEVER ON 🚨🚨🚨
• The judges power-walking to the restaurant as a group was one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen. It’s doing to me what The Fast and the Furious franchise probably does for straight men.
• Ice cream? When it’s a thousand degrees out? Bold. Reckless, but bold.
• I finally looked up what ~~herbs de Provence~~ was, only to find out it’s just pretentious Italian seasoning.
• TIME-GATE TIME-GATE TIME-GATE 🚨🚨🚨
• OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
• She didn’t finish on time ☹️
• Babes, relax. It’s just a TV show. Take some deep breaths.
• Okay, look. I’m going to be real with you. One of the main reasons I love reality competition shows is to watch people have complete mental breakdowns on my TV. It’s why I love The Traitors. But I give huge props to Nana for having her freak-out moment, and then pulling herself together and presenting her dish to the judges. The show is designed to make you fail. It’s designed to be a pressure cooker of stress and emotions, with cameras everywhere looking for the cracks to begin to show in your facade. Many a chef has had a major blow-out on Top Chef. It’s part of the game. But Nana really rallied herself, with the support of Kristen and the other chefs, and did her best to present her dish, flaws and all. She didn’t give up and she didn’t shrink away. And that’s what I will eventually remember her for. Not the mistakes, but how she pulled through and came out a better person and chef. It’s made me really like her and want to root for her for the rest of the show.
• Who’s out here inventing new potatoes? We have enough potatoes. Leave the potatoes alone.
• “It was just a crazy-brazy kind of dish” – Automatic elimination.
• BOTH of the twins in the top? Stop torturing me.
• I really hate Justin on a deep, personal level.
• She’s serving under-cooked pork? Couldn’t that literally kill people? Girl microwave it or something, my god.
• PORK-GATE PORK-GATE 🚨🚨🚨
• Medium-rare? Girl, be serious.
• I ❤️ Rhoda
• What the hell is cane vinegar?
• I ❤️ Duyen
• YAY ROHDA ❤️❤️❤️
• Still mad about no Last Chance Kitchen. Budget cuts? There’s like a thousand spin-offs of Top Chef, you can afford two episodes of LCK.
• Sad for Day ☹️ It’s hard to see her go, especially when I don’t think she did particularly awful for a first episode. But when it comes right down to it, none of her components were really successful or even necessarily good, so the decision seems justified.

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