Top Chef Goodness: “Foiled Again” [VIDEO] 

[Heads up for Top Chef fans: at the end of this blog, we give you the opportunity to  win a 12-month subscription to Food & Wine Magazine!]

Top Chef season 4 winner Stephanie Izard is present and accounted for in this latest edition of the hit series. She’s probably my favorite cheftestant to snag the top spot. Well, her and season 1 champ Harold Dieterle. Stephanie looks amazing. And she gets to try life out as a judge. Good for her.

“Foiled Again” is a highly entertaining episode. I actually loved both challenges. There was a serious amount of smack talk between John and Stefan. I didn’t mind that at all. What was odd was that Stefan/Josie argument that broke out at the very end of the hour. And it looks like it’s going to rear its ugly head in the future as well. Josie was all laughs and showmanship much of the time but things took a nasty turn in the last minute and got real uncomfortable real quick. Wow.

Some Random Thoughts about “Foiled Again”

Most Badass Award: Kristen

• She won immunity in the Quickfire by making an almond and chocolate sponge cake using aluminum foil as the cooking vessel. I repeat: sponge cake. What? Who does that? Kristen does.

• Even though she’s assured a spot in the next episode, she also cleans up in the elimination challenge and gets $10,000 for her effort. The woman could do no wrong in “Foiled Again.”

• We learned some of Kristen’s backstory. This was welcome considering she wasn’t in danger of being eliminated. I hate when reality shows feature someone’s backstory and they get sent packing in the same episode.

Quickfire Challenge

• Chefs cook whatever they want. Every ingredient is wrapped in aluminum foil. Whatever you open, you use.

• This looks like a very difficult challenge. But the chefs make it look fairly simple. They are able to adapt so well. And it boggles my mind to think about how they come up with such different dishes.

• So happy Josh didn’t accidentally choose pork as his protein. That would never have ended well. Although, come to think of it, his chicken dish landed him in the bottom. Thankfully, he redeemed himself in the elimination challenge.

• Bart has a lot of fun with this quickfire. He’s finally growing on me.

Elimination Challenge

• Chefs go head to head at a Berry Festival. They must incorporate a type of berry into their dishes. The festival goers choose who wins.

• Confession: I recently had a grilled chicken dish served with a porcini mushroom and blueberry sauce. It was heavenly. So I’m a big fan of this berry challenge.

• Head-to-head pairings: Danyele vs. Josh; Sheldon vs. Micah; Bart vs. Brooke; Josie vs. Lizzie; Stefan vs. John; Kristen is by herself because she has immunity.

• I really like that Danyele vs. Josh boiled down to a Texas/Oklahoma college football rivalry.

• Stefan and John serve a side of trash talk to go with their main dishes. For Stefan, he keeps talking about how old John is. And John can’t keep a lid on the fact that his opponent used frozen tuna in his dish. They both sort of sell each other out to Tom.

• I’m waiting for Micah to step up. He’s not done much to wow the judges or me yet. He didn’t do a good job of incorporating his assigned fruit so he landed in the bottom. He was actually the anti-Kristen. He was in the bottom of both challenges.

• I was looking for the Pepto-Bismol product placement after this Tom and Padma conversation about Josie’s dish that came complete with a raspberry sauce:

Tom: “It could have been Pepto-Bismol.” Padma: “It looked like Pepto-Bismol.” Tom: In fact, after having that salmon, I kind of needed Pepto-Bismol.”

• My opinion of who was going home kept switching. I started out thinking Josie was going to be the one. Then I switched to John, Micah and finally Danyele.

• While Kristen won the elimination challenge, it was Danyele that was told to pack her knives and go. So she became the next competitor on Lance Chance Kitchen.

Lance Chance Kitchen [spoilers for the web series]

• This one was a no brainer as soon as we saw that Danyele was headed to LCK. There was no way she was beating CJ. The task was to make an amazing sandwich with already prepared lunch meat. Danyele was fixated on making the turkey sandwich she practically eats every day. It was too simple. CJ’s offering had flaws but was ultimately more tasty and creative. I actually liked him in this episode.

I’m still voting for Kuniko for Save a Chef, however. Who are you guys voting for? For details on Save a Chef go to Bravotv.com.

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• All you need to do is hit the comments and either tell us your favorite holiday recipe or your favorite moment/challenge from this season so far (and why).

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Top Chef: Seattle airs Wednesdays at 10/9c on Bravo.

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