Top Chef DC - Episodes 2 and 3: Outside The Lunchbox/Capitol Grill

Since I didn't give episode two its own official post, I thought I'd combine it with my thoughts on the most recent one. Its been a little while since I saw them (especially the second), so I'll deliver my comments via bullet point:

- The "two chefs/one apron" quickfire was absurd, but entertaining. Angelo winning again has definitely made him the chef to beat. Not saying he's gonna take the whole thing, but you can see him striking fear into the hearts of the other chefs.

- At first, I thought all the instant talk of "strategy" when Angelo picked Kenny was silly and unwarranted. I just figure he wanted his team to win, and knew Kenny was a good chef (despite them being each other's competition). But yeah, his celery/peanut butter dish was pretty weak. That combined with his "I can't answer that" and "I don't like Kenny" comments are leading me to believe that, while not completely rolling over and throwing the challenge, he didn't try nearly as hard as he normally would have. If so, I think that's a pretty sneaky/backwards way of getting rid of your competition. If you're really better than Kenny, beat his ass head to head with straight-up cooking. And what reason does he have to "not like Kenny", anyway? Granted, I'm not with them in the house/kitchen, but how long had they been there when filming that second episode? A couple days? Sounds like he's just intimidated by someone who's on par in the skill department.

- And while I'm not officially on "Team Kenny", it would have been a shame for someone with his talent to be sent home so early in the competition, especially if it was largely due to the aforementioned backwards "strategy". I thought that was gonna be the case for a second, because at judge's table, everyone seemed to lash out at him specifically, seemingly in an attempt to send him packing (Kenny's expression showed how surprised he was by it, as well). Glad he stood up for himself when being chastised by the other team, calling out their two-pounds-of-sugar pudding, for example. Hilarious!

- Speaking of judge's table, how entertaining was that? Very surprised by how quickly everyone started slamming one another, all frantically scrambling to save themselves from elimination. Vicious! This early on (before the chefs really know each other or their personalities), I'm used to them just standing up for their own dishes - defending, explaining, or whatever. Here, they immediately started attacking each other, and it made for some fantastic entertainment.

- I, too, was baffled by Amanda's choice of using sherry (and therefore, alcohol) in the children/school challenge. When it first came up, that immediately set off an alarm in my head, but I gave Amanda, the food, and the show the benefit of the doubt - "Well, maybe that's in more cooking than we realize, maybe it's essential to the dish she wants to make, which is appropriate, etc..." But yeah, turns out I was right. What was she thinking? And Gail totally clowned her with the vodka remark, making the other judges crack up in the process. This came right after Amanda started hissing to the other team about how many calories are in peanut butter, how it wasn't appropriate, and so on. I was thinking the whole time, "Excuse me, who are you to be saying aaaaanything???" So glad she got called out. It's a shame, too, because a lot of their budget went towards that sherry (instead of the chocolate or whatever), ruining the chances of the Jacqueline's pudding in the process. Not only should she have been more assertive and fought for her dish, but it's stunning that the whole team let that sherry/alcohol error fly. Seemed like an obvious mistake to me, right from the get-go.

- Tracey's "shameful" confession that she and her kids sometimes eat fast food once a week made my eyes widen in embarrassment (not for her, but for myself - I eat fast food a few to many times a week). And she sweats doing it once, which would be a major step up for me. Yikes.

- Good to see Kenny finally win something (third episode's quickfire). You know that just coming up short so many times was driving him crazy, and after the second episode's elimination challenge, immunity must be a giant relief. By the way, what's with all the chefs shitting their pants at the prospect of baking a pie and BBQing? As far as Top Chefs are concerned, all this should be pretty basic, despite everyone's fear of pastries in general. Tom Colicchio points this out pretty well on his blog post of this week's episode, which you can read here.

- A little surprised that Arnold took home the win (he seemed somewhat shocked, too), as he didn't even seem to know how to light a grill properly. I'm trying to decide if this is this a testament to his ingrained talent, or did he simply fall backwards into victory? Not too many others did particularly well (despite everyone loving each other's food), so maybe this was a case of a B-minus dish taking the game simply because everyone else did so much worse. Hard to tell.

- Don't see Timothy (who seemed on the verge of tears at judge's table) lasting too much longer. Making too many rookie mistakes over the course of these three episodes.

- Where's Eric Ripert? Missed him these past couple episodes. It was funny seeing Tom, Padma, and Gail having to eat and judge in the school cafeteria, but there's no way someone of Eric Ripert's stature would be seen rubbing shoulders with those little squirts. Get outta here.

That's all that comes to mind for now. As always, really looking forward to tomorrow's episode!