Once again Alex has brought home some nasty cold from school and I caught it. I haven't been able to taste anything all week and it's making me miserable. I made a huge pot of chicken soup today and loaded it with garlic. I hope the fact that I could smell the garlic slightly on my hands this evening is a good sign.I only just got around to watching this week's episode of Top Chef. While there wasn't a lot of interesting dishes it was a decent episode. I was surprised at how many of the contestants didn't bother listening to the quickfire directions. Erik once again had a plate that looked like a disaster. His souffle plate, from the season opener, was a mess but this "fine dining" taco was even worse! He couldn't possibly have thought that plate looked professional. The Kraft product placement was tedious and annoying during their ingredient hunt. Don't forget the spicy ranch dressing and KC Masterpiece! By all means they would be lost without those valuable ingredients. I was truly glad that Stephanie won this week for her fruit crumble. Keeping the cinnamon dusted fried won tons separate was good planning and the whole dish sounds wonderful. I do think it was fair to let Erik go for not thinking ahead and changing his plan to make corn dogs. There had to have been something else they could have done with those hot dogs that would have held up against their transport time. They could have just dressed the plain dogs with some awesome toppings and wowed the judges that way. It was a bad call on his part. Next week looks interesting. There's a film theme and I hope it will be matching dishes to movies. In the meantime here's Stephanie's winning dish:
MIXED FRUIT WITH OATMEAL-PINE NUT CRUMBLE
