Howie is eliminated on tonight’s Top Chef
Tonight on Top Chef we were treated to the equivalent of season one’s convenience store quickfire and season two’s vending machine quickfire. The chefs drew knives with numbers on them, the number corresponded to an aisle in the supermarket where they would do their shopping. They could only buy items from that aisle and had ten minutes and ten dollars to shop. The producers kindly gave the chefs limited access to the Top Chef pantry, but I think that was a cop out. I think they should have just had the items in the aisle to use for creating the dish. But then again, this is the same season in which the chefs were given a do-over after restaurant wars.
Howie had very little success in creating a dish from the items he purchased, so he chose not to present anything during the quickfire challenge. I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen anyone intentionally not serve a dish for a challenge. Obviously he lost the quickfire challenge. Brian’s Spam and Eggs dish was the winning dish, and he was given the opportunity to choose the team leader for the elimination challenge. Knowing that he would be on the chopping block if he did not go for it himself he named himself team leader.
The elimination challenge gave the chefs a budget of $350 to cater a party thrown by Pure nightclub for fashion designer Esteban Cortazar. There would be 60 guests for the party. Brian has everyone brainstorm and then come up with the menu. Some of the chefs would only prepare one dish, while four chefs would collaborate on one dish after creating one dish individually. Howie volunteered to do two dishes, his thought process being that he really needed to wow the judges after the poor performance in the quickfire challenge.
The chefs had to use a very small galley on a yacht to cook the food, which didn’t seem to present too much of a problem for them. Brian kind of acted more like a project manager than an executive chef. He was more concerned that everyone stayed within budget and on time for the task. He kept calling out the time remaining to the chefs rather than overseeing their dishes. Brian stated that he wanted to be able to lead the team in a manner that allowed everyone else to shine. In doing so he kind of hurt the team. By trying to give Howie the chance to wow the judges with two dishes, Howie spread his budget way too thin. The judges stated that it might have been a better use of time and talent for each chef to concentrate on only one dish and Brian (as leader of the team) should have made this decision.
Did anyone else notice the potty mouth on the guest judge? That’s the first time I can recall a guest judge had to be bleeped out on several occasions for the use of profanity. Just an observation on my part.
Judges table was a nightmare for the chefs. The judges spent more time criticizing the problems than complementing the chefs who prepared good dishes (being Casey, CJ and Sara – Casey was named the winner).
Near the end of the Q&A Howie decides to fall on the sword and remove himself from the competition. Now why do you think he’s doing this? I’m a cynic so I’m not sure it was out of the goodness of his heart or for the good of the other chefs. I wonder if he had a suspicion that he would be eliminated so he decided to take control of his own destiny and remove himself from competition. Padma tells Howie that it’s all nice and everything that he wants to eliminate himself from competition, but that it was the decision of the judges as to who would be sent packing. So Howie says “make your decision”. I half expected one of the judges to tell him to go and pack his knives right then and there.
In the end Howie was sent home. You could kind of see it coming. While Howie had won some elimination challenges, he was often called in for being one of the weaker performers in a challenge. Howie stated in the exit interview that he realized that he might have made some bad decisions in how he approached his fellow competitors, seeing them as enemies and realized that in order to be successful as a chef you have to be a team player.
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September 7th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Personally, I am glad to see Howie leave. He is a good chef, no doubt, but just not one you’d want to have any persona interaction with - LOL! Now, can we bring back the bes chef Tre?
September 15th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
I had a huge smile on my face when they told him to kick rocks…..I don’t know about anyone else but I was completely and totally grossed out by his constant sweating….I just knew that some soup, salad, piece of pork was going to have a little Essence De La Howie in it.