New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Tonight’s episode serves as an extended infomercial for a series of books called Modernist Cuisine. We will not pretend as if we had a previous awareness of them. Instead, we will simply state that they appear to be the 2012 chef’s answer to those old Time/Life books about World War II, The Great Cities and the American Wilderness. These are massive tomes and priced steeply enough that your average billionaire would think twice before pulling out their credit card. The six volume set is 2,400 pages long and sells for $450 on Amazon. At that price, we would suggest hiring a chef instead.

Anyway, author Nathan Myhrvold is the special judge for today’s Quickfire challenge. And this is as good a time as any to mention that he’s worth over half a billion dollars, meaning that $450 for a book probably strikes him as cheap. He was the first technology officer at Microsoft, which is kind of like being the first astronaut at NASA. Anyway, the competition this round is “to explore the modernist in you”. The premise is to utilize new techniques to illustrate modern cuisine. The contestant who wins will win immunity and a copy of the super-mega-expensive books.

The challenge seems to heavily favor Chris and Chris, the two molecular gastronomists in the competition. Then again, they are the worst remaining chefs in the competition based upon performance so it is difficult to view them as favorites for anything…other than elimination. Beverly is the chef who struggles the most. She becomes the first and only chef since Marcel to create a foam and when she tries to demonstrate her skill, judge Nathan gets foamed enough to qualify as a Nickelodeon game show contestant. Beverly also catches Padma in the crossfire. That is going to be one expensive laundry bill.

The other hilarious moment in this challenge occurs when Chris J. attempts to explain the benefits of a “magic pill” to Mr. Myhrvold. After a few moments of the sales pitch, the judge truncates the conversation by stating, “I grow these in my basement.” Moto Chris has just tried to sell Mark Zuckerberg on the genius of Facebook. Of course, this doesn’t prevent Chris from finishing on top in the competition. The judge senses a kindred spirit. The bottom is comprised of Paul (?!) whose dish lacked depth of flavor, Grayson, whose dish was too simplistic and Beverly, whose bumbling preparation required too much clean up afterward. Ty and Sarah join Chris on the top and Ty is determined the winner and thereby safe from elimination in the night’s challenge.

Continued:       1       2       3       4       5       6