Kindness meter: 8 done, 92 to go, 10 days to reach 100. Contest meter: 4 days until the official “what do these three things have in common” starts.
The original Star Wars in Theatres, Roots on TV, and Annie on Stage all happened in 1977. Christmas, Easter, and Virgin are all islands. Other than being movies what do East of Eden, Rebel Without A Cause, and Giant have in common? What do other than being colors what do Mr. Green, Miss Scarlett, & Colonel Mustard have in common?
Was I the only one that watched Top Chef Masters last night? I actually enjoyed this more than the last two series of Top Chef. Top Chef Masters pits 24 famous chefs against each other with the winning chef winning a hundred grand for their favorite charity. It is going to be done tournament style with 4 chefs each for the next six weeks competing. The winning chef of the four each week then will move into the championship round. Each week there will be two challenges, the quickfire challenge and the elimination challenge. The scoring system is so much better than the regular Top Chef. The scoring system is based on a star system with the diners and the judges having equal votes!
You can see the bios of the hostess, the judges, and the twenty-four chefs here:
http://www.bravotv.com/top-chef-masters/season-1/bios
My life’s lessons from this week’s Top Chef Masters were that you have to be adaptable. Even the pros will make simple mistakes. It isn’t the mistake you make it is how you recover from it and move on.
The four famous chefs for this week were as follows:
Michael Schlow, owner of Radious in Boston as well as other restaurants. Playing for the Cam Neely Cancer Foundation.
Hubert Keller - Owner of Fleur De Lys restaurants in San Francisco and Las Vegas. Was a judge on season one of Top Chef. Playing for Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Christopher Lee - Executive Chef of Aureole Restaurant. Playing for Autism Speaks.
Tim Love - Owner of Lonesome Dove Western Bistro in Texas. Playing for The March of Dimes.
Quickfire Challenge? In sixty minutes make a great desert to be judge by four Junior Girl Scouts. Yup that is right, four Junior Girl Scouts were the judges. Watching these pros react to criticism from these young ladies just made you love these guys. They took the criticism in such fun and good spirits.
The scouts gave Keller’s Chocolate Mousse Swan with a whipped cream mouse five stars, they gave Christopher’s French toast and Tim’s strawberries three ways three and a half stars each. Michael’s milk chocolate cake came in last with two and a half stars.
The elimination challenge was to cook a three course meal for Pomona College Students and three critics. The tricks were is that they had to cook the meal in a dorm room and all they had to cook the meal was a microwave, a hot plate, and toaster oven. Yup, these famous chefs used to using the most sophisticated cooking equipment were reduced to being back in college to compete for twenty stars (fifteen from the judges, five from the diners)
The highlights of the elimination challenge was that Tim confused a freezer with a fridge all his ingredients were frozen. He turned a lemon into lemonade and made a pretty good dish. The other highlight wass Hubert using the shower to first cool the pasta with cold water and then heat with hot water.
Michael’s salmon crude, cabbage soup, and pork a’la apicious garnered three and half stars from the college students, seven and a half stars from the judge, and added to the quickfire’s two and a half stars gave him the low score for the night. 13 ½ stars.
Tim’s scallop cappaccio, squash pozole and strip steak earned three stars from the students, eight stars from the judges, added to three and a half quickfire stars gave him the second lowest score. 14 ½ stars.
Christopher’s red snapper, creamy risoto, and pan fried pork chope earned him four stars from the students, eleven and a half stars from the judges, added to the quickfire’s three and a half stars gave him the second highest score for the night. 19 stars.
My man Hubert’s Scottish salmon, macaroni and cheese, and carrot pea soup earned him four stars from the students, eleven and a half stars from the judges, added to the quickfire’s five stars gave him the highest score of the night. His 20 ½ stars earned him ten grand for his charity and a place in the championship round.
Questions for today. Are you adaptable? Do you recover easily from mistakes? . Other than being movies what do East of Eden, Rebel Without A Cause, and Giant have in common? What do other than being colors what do Mr. Green, Miss Scarlett, & Colonel Mustard have in common
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6 comments:
My answers in email.
I saw Top Chef Masters and enjoyed it a lot. As always, I wish they'd show us a little more of the food, so if we wanted to try it, we'd have more of a clue. But otherwise, I very much liked the chefs' attitudes. They were happy, friendly, helpful to each other, and all around good sports, which was refreshing after a lot of the other "reality" competition shows. And they were certainly adaptable!
Me? I'm fairly flexible about things. I had to be in my work, where everything changed all the time. I can adapt to change pretty well, though I often don't like it much.
As to mistakes, I can sometimes recover easily, but some mistakes haunt me forever. Not huge, life-changing ones, but little ones where my tongue ran ahead of my brain, mostly. For some reason, those crop up in my head at the oddest times, and where everyone else has probably long forgotten that I was a momentary idiot, I remember it forever.
Hi Pat
And of course you got the answers right.
Sometimes I wish they would show us a little more of the food but then I wonder if that would take away from showing us their personalities.
The chef's attitudes were extremely refreshing. The all looked like they were having fun.
I sometimes am flexible and sometimes not, it depends on my mood.
And we are twins where the mistakes are!
Bill
Will send answers in email.
I've learned/am learning to be adaptable. The extent of my ability seems to often depend on the situation (wry s). Mistakes... some, I chalk up to experience. OTOH, I'm like Pat, in that small mistakes, particularly if people were maybe hurt, or I fear they might have been, or where stupidity played a large part, spring up and haunt me on occasion.
Don't know if you're counting "reverse" acts of kindness, but a lady was so nice at the Walmart grocery today. I was getting 12 packs of Coke, on sale for $3.98, when she said "You know, CVS has them at 4 for a dollar." I smiled and admitted I hated to make another stop. "Oh, no," she said, "tell the checker of the CVS ad and she should have the ad at her station and will match the price." Sure enough, they did.
Hi DR
I am counting reverse acts of kindness. Especially the type you just reported on! Not big but very thoughtful.
I thinking being adaptable is a lifetime learning project!
My mistakes often haunt me too.
Bill
Sending my answers too!
I also watched Top Chef and thought it was good. A lot different so far than the usual so I hope we get that each week!
Flexible? I think I am very flexible, I think you have to be most in life and where you aren't you can have problems...SO I think we here must all be flexible or we wouldn't be caregivers. :)
Mistakes are hard to recover from...I think for myself I do pretty well on the out side but on the in side I feel like Pat and they haunt me forever. When I least expect it one will come up in my mind and I can dwell on it for days! Its almost like the forgive and forget thing...its so hard for me to forget things such as that. But I keep trying!
Hi Dona
I do think we will get this every week on Top Chef, because these are master chefs with really nothing to prove and are only doing it for charity.
I think when you are married and/or caring for an elderly parent you have to be flexible!
And it looks like all of us Pat, Dr, You, and I will sometimes hold on to mistakes. We probably remember them longer than the people that were there when we made the mistakes!
Bill
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