Chopped (Famous Last Words)

I am in a silly state of mind.

My life is getting weird. A dear friend said it’s coming full circle. Both are correct; without too much detail, some huge chunks of my past have risen up, and while once upon a time that would have scared me, now it feels like good things will happen.

But that aside, as I watch another Chopped (I record them all and watch them multiple times. Somewhere in the back of my head the techniques and foods stay with me and emerge as needed), I amuse myself with some super common mistakes the competitors make. And half of them are like “Oh, I’ve seen every episode!” No, you haven’t. Because if you had, you wouldn’t do things like these.

“I realize I’ve burned my meatball! I can’t serve it like this, but I don’t have time to make another. I’ll hope this sauce covers it.” Right, because the judges, several of whom are either Iron chefs or Michelin Star chefs, have never seen that trick before. Unless your sauce is so cloying that it can hide the bitter taste of burnt whatever, in which case, you have a whole different problem on your hands.
“I’m going to do something totally out of the box. I decide to make a bread pudding.” The number is a shot in the dark here, but I’m going to guess that about 60% of Chopped desserts are some form of bread pudding. Much like most appetizers are some form of salad.
“I see my chicken isn’t cooked, but I have to get it on the plate.” All I can say is, the vast majority of competitors work at restaurants. If you can’t cook chicken, even with the time limitations, I am not going to ever grace your eatery.
No specific quote, but when the biggest braggart gets chopped first, I squeee.
And, sometimes they are legit, but sometimes, don’t you feel like the competitors are barking out sob stories for sympathy, and for that $10k? I watched an Iron Chef competition where Nate Appleman was making up stories for the judges to sound more interesting…he was ADMITTING to the cameras that he was telling them stuff he thought they’d want to hear.

Anyway, that’s all for now, had to get it out of my system. Allez cuisine!