As the cheftestants gather in an impromptu meet and greet, up pulls a double decker Top Chef: Just Desserts bus. It looks like a giant slice of red tiramisu. Once all of the chefs are aboard, next stop is picking up our host, Gail Simmons (from Top Chef) and self-diagnosed pastry “bad boy” Johnny Iuzzini. I think he uses dark chocolate ganache to keep that pompadour up.
There is an interesting array of sweet and salty in this bunch, even more so than the original Top Chef. Gays are littered throughout, like a fine dusting of powdered sugar, as are an array of hot guys. Bravo certainly knows their demographic well. Amongst them, Yigit (that name!), who’s 29 but looks 15. He’s apple-cheeked and adorable and I just want to put him in my pocket. Speaking of pocket gays, Zac is clearly this show’s sassy quipster with a handful of ready-to-eat bon mots (“I will cut you with my flavor!”) tossed out like candy condoms from a gay pride float. Malika is going through a divorce and wants to win for her three sons. She looks like the lovechild of Michele Obama and M.I.A. Seth, who admittedly looks like Showtime’s Dexter, was Top Chef season one winner Harold Dieterle’s pastry chef. He also has a confessed crush on Gail Simmons. He looks at her longingly but one wonders if he was to kiss her or dip her in chocolate and put her in the oven at 325 for 20 minutes.
There seems to be a concerted effort among the couple of straight guys in the competition (Seth and Morgan) to assert a manly side of pastry making and that’s it’s not just a bunch of buttercream frosting queens. Let them eat hetero cake, I say. Let’s just hope no one ends up making any genital-inspired concoctions this season. Although I fear that merely mentioning it will have me eyes deep in penis lollipops and edible areola garnishes. Blergh.
Onto the Quickfire Challenge! Gail, in all her niceties, tells the chefs they are to make their signature dish. Pretty straightforward and the usual fare for the first episode of Top Chef. The chefs starting mixing and battering and baking like Keebler elves and then, record scratch, in walk Gail and Elvis…er, Johnny. It’s twist time and now they have to take the dish they’ve been working on and transform it into…..a cupcake. A collective groan waves across the kitchen. It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise though; cupcakes are THE rage right now. I’m not talking just old-fashioned yellow cake with some frosting either. These days they come with jalapenos, wheat berries and car parts. Not your grandma’s recipe, that’s for sure.
The successes go to Seth’s coconut cupcake with a basil buttercream and Heather’s carrot cupcake with a fried shoestring carrot garnish, both of which looked amazing. It’s a dangerous show, this Just Desserts, as I get closer and closer to licking my TV screen. Winding up on the bottom was Zac (I’m sure not a strange position for him) with a lemon curd cupcake topped with crazy glue disguised as marshmallow and Tim’s pistachio semifreddo that looked like an overflowing toilet.
The elimination challenge is next and Gail informs them they are to make the most luxurious chocolate dessert imaginable and they’ll be judged by Jacques Torres aka Mr. Chocolate. I have a feeling I’m going to be typing the world ‘chocolate’ in the coming weeks more than I ever thought I would be. Right off the bat the chefs struggle (really? With chocolate?); poor Tania white chocolate mouse ends up looking like “pastry hummus” and Yigit’s ice cream looks like (and has the texture of) a rubber ball. Zac, desperate for redemption showers his deconstructed brownie with a blown kiss of edible glitter. EDIBLE. GLITTER. Not even Liberace riding in on a rainbow unicorn could have been gayer. Seth concocts chocolate curry palette with shattered raspberries (that look like unappealing shards of bloody glass). Morgan’s chocolate flan separates like a latte and a deep friend chocolate fritter that might be more at home on Paula Deen’s cooking show.
Service is done and the chefs are locked away in their corral (apparently not full of booze like their Top Chef counterparts usually are by now) and Gail comes in for Zac, Seth and Heather. Morgan is confused as he is 100% sure his dessert was better than theirs so it can’t possibly mean they are the top 3. Snap, they are and even though Heather wins (this girl is a force and my early prediction to win, I’ll tell you), Zac, overcome with emotion for being in the top, cries glitter tears of happiness. Not so good news for Tania, Danielle and yep, Morgan. At this point Morgan is fuming mad and his arrogance is almost as off-putting as his dessert. Danielle can’t seem to understand where she went wrong with her deconstructed tart (again with the deconstructed! Can anyone, I don’t know, construct?) but it’s Tania’s hummus blob that sends her home, with the catchphrase “Your dessert just didn’t measure up.” Meh, a letdown really.
I wonder, are they going to turn this into a CSI-like franchise? Can we expect Top Chef: Amuse Your Bouche or Top Chef: Salad Shooters! soon?
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