Back of the Cereal Box: top chef

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Saturday, July 14, 2012

How You’re Complimenting Large-Eyed, Long-Necked Beauties

The science wonks of the English-speaking world have no shortage of animal words thanks to the “ines” — feline, canine, bovine as well as weird ones like pavonine for peacocks, dasypine for armadillos and even asinine for donkeys. But the “ines” all tend toward a high-minded, labcoast-and-beakers sort of conversation. Do you have anything in a regular sort of suffix?

Yes. Yes we do, and it’s the word of the week.

struthious (STROO-thee-us) — adjective: of or relating to ostriches or similar birds.

Tweeted out not too long ago by the OED, struthius might seem like the kind of word you non-ostrich ranch-owning readers might have little reason to use. And that night be true, but you never know when you might need to recap an episode of Top Chef.

Allow me to demonstrate:

Yes, Carla Hall — the best thing to come out of any reality show ever — has a struthious way about her. And that’s not an insult, exactly. Hall used to model back in the day, and even then exhibited a struthious beauty:

However, I’m happy to have her as we have her today: cooking and looking animatedly struthious.

Indeed.

Previous words of the week after the jump.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Hanging Faces (Positive Sense)

Of all that I saw at the Getty, I was perhaps most surprised and impressed to see Dana Cowin, editor of Food & Wine magazine and occasional Top Chef guest judge.

I think the resemblance is rather striking. Or I think Cowin has aged particularly well. Unsure which.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

The Top Chef Vocabulary Round-Up

In Sunday’s post, I mentioned that I like how shows such as Top Chef and Project Runway introduce vocabulary that novice foodies and the non-apparel-obsessed might not know. It seemed only reasonable, then, to post about food terms on this week’s Top Chef that I either had not heard before or recognized but hadn’t ever looked up.

The big one this week was dropped during the Quickfire Challenge. Angelo used the mystery box ingredients to make what he called a pot-au-feu. The term literally translates from French as “pot on the fire” and refers to a French style of beef stew that, according to Wikipedia, often includes cheap cuts of beef and along with carrots, turnips, leeks, celery and onions. Though Angelo’s take on the pot-au-feu didn’t feature sides, a traditional might offer coarse salt, strong mustard, and pickled gherkins and samphire. That last one is also a new one to me — it can refer to any number of edible plant species, but in this case would most likely be Crithmum maritimum. (The name samphire has no relation to sapphire, which is what I guessed, but is a corruption of the French Saint Pierre, patron of fishermen, because the plant grows near the sea.)

I’ve seen the term tataki on menus before but never knew what it meant. Tataki (literally translated as “pounded” or “hit into pieces”) is a Japanese style of cooking in which meat or fish is briefly seared in fire or in a hot pan, marinated in vinegar, sliced thinly and served with ginger paste. It’s that last bit, the ginger pulverized into goop, that gives the technique its name. (I think I may have previously confused tataki with rumaki. Contrary to what Betty Draper thinks, rumaki isn’t Japanese at all but apparently American, likely having originated at Trader Vic’s. Wikipedia calls this bacon-wrapped poultry concoction “mock Polynesian” and theorizes that the rumaki may come from the name of the Japanese spring roll harumaki.)

Though I feel like I learned the word fricassee from Bugs Bunny cartoons (along with other naturally funny words such as succotash and hasenpfeffer), I never knew what it meant and had certainly never tried it. A fricassee involves poultry or other white meat stewed in gravy, usually along with vegetables. Know we know.

I knew what Kelly meant when she said she’d prepared her dish in a Yucatecan style, but I thought it was worth pointing out that I’d couldn’t recall ever hearing the demonym for the Mexican state of Yucatan.

All that verbal business out of the way, some other thoughts on tonight’s Top Chef:

Whoever devises the Top Chef challenges has come up with some good ones that play nicely off the Washington D.C. setting. I enjoyed this week’s main event in particular — “disguising” traditional American dishes and then serving them to higher-up spooks at the CIA. However, this particular challenge gave me more reason to dislike contestant Amanda, who realized that her gussying-up of French onion soup would not fool anyone and who then verbalized this fact by saying that even Helen Keller would be able to spot the original dish. Not that I didn’t grow up with countless schoolyard Helen Keller jokes, but dude — Helen Keller was deaf and blind, she didn’t lack taste buds. Get your famous disabilities right.
Of all the politicos to guest judge Top Chef challenges so far this season, CIA director Leon Panetta was the first to actually call out lousy dishes. Previously, people like Nancy “Jerri Blank” Pelosi and Rep. Aaron “Turquoise Belt” Schock hemmed and hawed about dishes they did not like, but Panetta — who was appointed to his current position, not elected — spoke with refreshing bluntness. I should also mention that it’s extremely weird to me that Panetta — the former representative for California’s seventeenth district, where I once lived — is now the CIA head and therefore guy who, as Top Chefer Kelly noted, knows where all the extraterrestrials are.
Could Tiffany actually win this thing? I would not have guessed it at this season’s outset, but she certainly seems to be headed for a showdown with Angelo once he remembers how to cook. Tiffany’s culinary feats have not yet wowed me, but I will say she has one of the sunnier, more likeable personalities of any Top Chefer in recent memory. Plus she has the good taste to like La Femme Nikita, though I’m guessing she probably was referring to the Peta Wilson version.
Kevin — the one contestant neither in the top nor the bottom of this week’s episode — looks like a grown-up version of Manny from Modern Family

Thoughts?

Thursday, August 5, 2010

That Time Padma Lakshmi Sang

Though the clip has made the rounds on the blogs of the Top Chef crowd, I realized that I’d never posted it here. So, now, I’m doing my part to pass along a pop cultural gem to you all: Padma Lakshmi singing — in Mariah Carey’s Glitter, no less.

Now, I enjoy Padma Lakshmi, and I liken her presence in this film to a showy wildflower blooming in an abandoned lot. But I still find humor in her deathwarbling. It should be noted that Padma’s character is supposed to sound awful, so the atonal squawking you hear did not result from Padma’s misguided beliefs that she has musical chops. Also, the scene takes place in the 80s, which accounts to an extent why she’s dressed like a henchwoman for The Penguin, Adam West-era. Even better: Her character goes by the stage name Sylk — as in a fancy fabric that the wealthy would drape on themselves to demonstrate what their money can buy. Just. Too. Much.

While we’re on the subject: Hey, Wikipedia, is this really the best photo of Padma Lakshmi you could find? The one where her face is all shiny and her eyes look asymmetrical and she overall looks a little drunk? Because if so, then that’s awesome.

Oh, Padma. Indeed, you and only you can do the freaky things you do.

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