Top Chef Recap: "BrokeElk Mountain"

Finally we’ve made our way to Aspen, the appeal of which I have to admit is largely lost on me. I’m more on the Eva Gabor end of the Green Acres spectrum, and all the John Denver outdoorsy porn shots in the world – snowcapped mountains, gurgling rivers, and all that fresh air crap – aren’t going to change that.

Bravo kept calling this “the first part of the finale.” I kept calling it the “second to last episode,” because other than the fact it was in a different location and the four remaining cheffersons had had a relaxing month off – as signified by Dale’s reddish-to-blondish ‘hawk shift – it was pretty much more of same challenge-wise.

The Quickfire Challenge was at the “Frying Pan River,” which sounds way too cutesy to be a real place, more like a reference from a lesser-known verse of “Puff the Magic Dragon.” And when I saw the giant balloon that would take them there, I naturally assumed Howie was around, because how else do you explain all that hot air?

The challenge focused on using freshly caught trout and preparing it in just 20 minutes, and frankly, anyone who has to gut and clean a fish deserves an award of some type. On the less disgusting side, the guest judge was “badass” (Hung’s words) fish savant, Eric Ripert of the famed Le Bernadin, who, unlike the smug, insufferable Frenchman of the Daniel variety, was more the handsome, sensuous Frenchman of cologne and hair salon ads.

Riperts’ formidable presence made everybody a bit nervous. Dale said, “Here I am cooking for … one of my idols, and it’s on a stump and I just threw a fish carcass in a bush. Great.” Brian surprisingly had trouble with the basics of fish disembowelment and wound up scrapping the whole sorry mess and having to start over. When declared one of Riperts’ least favorites, he offered the bewildering defense that “chefs don’t consider trout seafood at all.”

Hung finished early and then sat around smugly doing nothing, only to realize after time ran out that he’d left out a key ingredient. It was just the kind of moralistic turn of events you’d fine in a Twilight Zone episode or children’s fable. And then he even tried to slip the omission by the judges, at first claiming his trout included lemon juice and then sort of coughing under his breath, “Ahem, ahem, no lemon juice. Not. No. Ahem.” It didn’t matter, though, because Ripert liked it anyway, but in the end, liked the “soul” of Casey’s dish even more and declared her the winner, continuing her pretty impressive streak.

Her non-reward reward was an advantage in the next challenge, getting to use the $200 worth of “personal ingredients” the chefs had brought from home (which in Dale’s case, made me wonder how much hair gel and boy butter $200 could buy you). She opted not to use any, but I think like Chekhov’s guns destined to go off in the final act, we’ll be seeing her suitcase of Pan-Asian ingredients next week.

The Elimination Challenge involved cooking for 45 “hungry cowboys and cowgirls.” The show naturally took this as an opportunity to pony up with all manner of prairie kitsch – lassoes and horseshoes and gingham tablecloths and a “come and git it” dinner triangle – but maybe went a bit too far by having the cheffersons penned up in a barn (and who wants to eat food that’s been cooked in a stable anyway?).

I was hoping this would be an opportunity to see my many Brokeback Mountain cowboy orgy fantasies realized on TV, but sadly not a Heath or a Jake among the bunch. But based on the cowgirls we saw, I think at least our friends over at AfterEllen.com might have been happy.

The challenge’s key ingredient was elk, which made everything people said about the food instantly hilarious, things like, “I’ve worked a lot with elk,” and “Do you people eat elk often?” Or when Dale said he likes working with elk, it being “extremely lean and extremely strong.” You know, like my men. And Brian offered this brilliant little insight: “Elk is not seafood.” Ah, but is it trout? But my favorite line of the episode was from Padma, who gushed, “What I really loved was Brian’s shank.”

Mid-challenge, Chef Tom arrived to announce an impending three-way. Not anything involving him and Padma and Casey (in your dreams, Colicchio), or him and Dale and Brian (in my dreams, sort of). But meaning that three cheffersons would be going to the finale, so that, as in any old episode, only one would now be eliminated.

Dale looked particularly pissy about this news, saying that to be singled out at this point would be especially harsh. I thought that was pretty prescient on his part, because I was convinced he was going to be that sole, sorry loser. I have to admit that, like the New York Times does with obituaries, I’d had Dale’s RIP notice all ready to run. I thought he got by on the skin of his chicken-duet teeth last week, which was miraculous enough. But just like the kids who cheat death in the Final Destination movies only to find you always have to pay the reaper, Dale’s narrowly avoided elimination would have to catch up to him this week. At least that’s what I thought.

I can’t contain myself any more, so I’m just going to blurt it out now – the Big Gay Chef did it! And that’s why this will go down as my all-time favorite episode, I think, because of its truly surprising turn of events. Dale pulled it off and not only avoided elimination but won his first ever Elimination Challenge and pretty much dazzled the judges. What’s more, the episode found him to be at his funniest, most sincere, most personally revealing, most gracious -- he always had a kind, supportive word for his competitors, unlike Hung who, at one point said he’d tasted Casey’s and found his own dish “more refined” -- and was particularly open about being gay.

In fact, being gay was a vital weapon in his arsenal this week. While everyone else was agonizing over what to do to please the cowboys’ palates (Hung, hilariously griped, “What the hell do cowboys and cowgirls eat? Baked beans, baked beans, and baked beans.”), Dale revealed, “I’ve slept with a few.” So when the others were chastised for not having “a feel” for the cowboys they were cooking for, Dale, you might say, had the advantage of having copped a feel off one or two.

(By the way, did anyone else notice that as soon as Dale said he’d slept with a few cowboys they cut to Brian saying he’d once been a cowboy? What do you think was implied by that little edit? And has Top Chef slash fiction been invented yet?)

What’s more, Dale’s sauce featured huckleberries, which thanks to its connection with the queeniest cartoon character to mince across kids’ TV, is probably the gayest ingredient one can use, except maybe cilantro.

Dale also demonstrated that reality show contestants have the amazing capacity to learn from their mistakes just like you and me. When he started looking for cream cheese for an intended tart, I thought we were right back to the infamous yogurt cheesy poof fiasco from “Chef Overboard.” But when it didn’t go well – “it was nasty sh*t,” he admitted – he quickly chucked it and began work on a Plan B, improvising a tasty cauliflower and potato side.

And when the judges asked the final four to each talk about why they deserve to go to the finals, Dale – who already had to do this kind of pleading last week – showed off some pretty impressive, off-the-cuff oratory skills. Basically, he offered a gay culinary retelling of How Stella Got Her Groove Back, with himself in the Angela Bassett role, and the experience of being on Top Chef filling in for sex with Taye Diggs. After having lost his job at a top restaurant (and then been dumped by his boyfriend, as he revealed earlier in the episode), he hadn’t cooked for a year and a half. “I entered [Top Chef] to find myself again,” he said. “I’ve found my flavor. I know I’m a chef again.” From many others, this speech might have come out as contrived, or groan-inducingly saccharine, but his sincerity made it work, at least for me. But I’ve always liked the guy and couldn’t be happier about him going on to the big finale.

Hung, on the other hand, offered similar personal revelations, talking about his Vietnamese heritage, the sacrifices his father made for him, the lessons about cooking he got from his mother. To be fair, this was a pretty revealing and moving backstory for someone we’ve come to see as a kind of despicable character (although, as my brother-in-law complained to me, “Last week it was for the immigrants; this week it’s his family. Make up your mind already!”). But then he had to go and ruin it by carrying on about how much soul his cooking has, a clearly calculated reaction to earlier criticisms. “Soul! That’s all I talk about all day!” Except for when I’m talking about how my own brilliance outshines the incompetence of everyone around me.

Still, I think Colicchio was a little out of line to say, “You were born in Vietnam. I don’t see that in the food at all. Somewhere we need to see Hung.” I get the point that chefs can’t be just technically proficient but have to have style and put their personality into their dishes, but just because Hung is Asian shouldn’t mean he has to draw on that particular influence. Maybe the real Hung is a smug, insufferable Frenchman, you know? Plus, I don’t find the idea of seeing a little bit of Hung in my food all that appetizing.

Casey’s winning streak surprisingly came to a bloody end, with an almost-raw “black and blue” piece of meat, along with a cauliflower side that blew chunks. But she wound up finding a strong supporter in Ripert, who I think might have developed a little crush on her, given the way he kept coming back to his adoration of “Casey’s smoky sauce.”

Dale and Brian each commented that they had so much going on with their dishes it was like a “carnival on the plate” (which meant that when Dale was flirting with one cowpoke over said plate it was a “carnival cruise” – sorry, I couldn’t resist that one). But Brian’s was more a 3-ring circus, where the 3-rings were smattered by a colorful array of droppings. He did bring a carnival barker-like presence to his food presentation, much of which I barely understood, with him yammering on about “honytonks” and “drunken whiskey elk shakes” and such. But it was clearly crowd pleasing -- you should have seen the way Padma strutted through the barn in full-out model-on-the-catwalk mode to get to his table when he started talking about whiskey. Unfortunately, he had so many ingredients for his dish it became a kind of freak show, one the editors visually turned into a joke by fading in and out of his lengthy presentation to indicate the eons it took to put it on the plate.

He also made the strange choice of making others choose their cheese topping. Ripert particularly criticized this, pointing out it really is the chef’s job to present the dish as he or she sees fit. Tellingly, Colicchio was noticeably silent here. As my wise, wonderful partner reminded me, when Colicchio’s restaurant Craft opened, there were numerous complaints of diners having to do so much work in crafting their own dinners, stopping just shy of having to go into the kitchen and slaughter their own cows. Chef Tom did, however, say that Brian’s claim he hadn’t had a chance to cook his own food yet was a “cop out.” And in the end, Brian was the cowboy sent off into the sunset, suffering from a severe case of too much showmanship.

So the final three are a woman, a gay, and, if an audition tape can be believed, a semi-gay. Regardless of how you might feel about them as individuals, that kind of diversity brought to the cheffing world is something we can all feel good about.