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April 20, 2006
Chef's a top!
Last night I did something I've never done before. I hurried home to watch the new episode of a competitive reality show. True Life: I have a new television addiction - Bravo's Top Chef.
But EEK! you don't watch competitive reality programming, with the exception of the Real World/Road Rules Challenge, which you only watch for the nudity and catfights!
I know! (and stop peeking in my windows at night! we've talked about this!)
I will cop to having watched a few episodes of America's Next Top Model, because A) there's always the chance there will be nudity and catfights and B) they are in a constant re-run cycle and very difficult to avoid. But it goes without saying that I just don't care who wins. Or who takes home the paper wedding dress on Project Runway, or which bizdork wins over The Donald, or godforbid becomes an American Idol or a Survivor. I just don't care. But Top Chef? I have opinions, America.
Last night's episode just confirms why Harold Dieterle (28, from New York, has worked at The Harrison) should get all the spoils and glory (and maybe get naked in the process). He's consistently solid in the kitchen, laughs when things are funny (amazing, but so many reality show people have no sense of humor), and swears loudly at the camera in Italian. He wears a cute stripey apron. Important: he's hot and butch, which appear to be mutually exclusive traits for televised chefs. He wears that little white coat with rumpled style, though I did notice last night that he doesn't have much going on in the ass department.
Still, the guy knows his way around a coconut-milk soup. And when his team won the restaurant concept challenge last night, he didn't promote himself to win the individual prize like his spazzy teammates, instead opting to give Tiffani the Tyrant her due as a great cook and Dave the Wreck ultimate respect as a great front-of-house guy, helping send Dave to Cannes to suck the butt of some famous restauranteur I won't bother to learn about until he has his own television program. When they sent the sacrificial piglet, Miguel, home last night, Harold pulled Chunk LeFunk close and claspd him on the back of his head in what can only be desrcibed as the sexiest man-hug ever. He's above the drama, self-deprecating, competent, and hot in an apron. Give the boy the prize already!
On the other end of the spectrum, crazypants Stephen Aspirino is really growing on me, despite his pedantic style and creepy Windsor knot ties. Perhaps it's because he journals the episodes on his website and manages to crack me up every time. Who knew the enfant terrible of the sommelier world gets baked and watches Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle (or, as Easy Chiarello on FoodTV says, Castillo Blanco)? Last night, he left patrons hanging in the waiting area without seats and food cold in the kitchen so he could explain, in excruciating detail, the origins and virtues of the Spanish wines he presented with dinner. After we watched him down on his knees, trimming the carpet with scissors while Miguel and Lee Anne sweated it out in the kitchen. And I'm starting to notice his little smirks, which seem to indicate that he is playing an absurd role for our benefit. Bravo indeed, Stephen! You've crafted a reality tv personality as fine as the most idiosyncratic clarete.
As a patron, would I have been annoyed by Stephen's schoolmarmish presentation of ten thousand trivia facts before I can drink my damn wine? Probably not. This is where I admit I have a high tolerance for the restaurant absurd. I frequent El Mundo, after all, where we're often the receptacle for all kinds of running monologue, most of which aren't in the least bit educational. Every time I visit, something's a little off and abrasive, from the NO!!!! sign scrawled in Sharpie and duct-taped across the entrance to their back patio to the unwritten and wholly subject to change rules about downstairs versus upstairs seating. God forbid should you have someone joining you at a slightly later time ... you all eat together at El Mundo or you don't eat at all! In light of the lectures I receive there several times a month, I might even enjoy some barely-legal sommelier blathering about regions and rosés, even to the detriment of my actual food.
I leave you with this snippet from the avant-garde world of Stephen:
To me, food and sex is a close second to food and wine, and quite the "flavor combination" if you will. If you are ever feeling ambitious in this realm, try shaving truffles over your significant other. Truffles are a natural aphrodisiac and not too "messy."
Posted by eek at April 20, 2006 07:35 AM
Comments
Hi there!
I came across your blog while searching up info on Harold Dieterle from Top Chef. I laughed out loud at your perfect description of why Harold should win. I completely agree with everything you said but you said it more eloquently than I ever could! Glad to know there are more Harold fans out there!
Take care,
Ana
Posted by: Ana at April 26, 2006 11:31 PM
Right on, now when Harold vanity-googles himself, we're on the map.
Team Harold!
Posted by: eek at April 27, 2006 09:14 AM
That geek restaraunteur who was being butt-kissed by Harold did have his own reality show - "The Restaurant" with Rocco DiSpirito.
Posted by: j-rome at April 27, 2006 05:00 PM
Shit! It's seriously time to get some TiVo or -Faux.
Posted by: eek at April 27, 2006 06:20 PM