Chopped

The night before last as I was sitting down to dinner I was scrolling thru the channels looking for something to watch and as I hit the food channel and noticed that “Chopped” was on.

This was one of the few shows that Jennifer and I would actually watch together. We got the Malody’s to also watching this show when we made a trip to Mesa, AZ on a scouting trip for a potential retirement location. I can’t remember what hotel we stayed in, but it was one like a Marriot Suites. One where we had our own bedrooms and shared a common living area.

It was a cold rainy week that we were there, it was actually snowing in parts of AZ so we ended up staying in the room and watching more TV than we would have normally. Chopped was on so we started watching it and ended up watching several episodes of it.

Chopped is a interesting concept for a reality show. For those who may not have seen it, they start with four chefs and they cook three rounds in a hour. They have the appetizer round, aanentree round and a desert round. A chef is eliminated in each round until you have a winner.

Now the interesting part of this show is the basket of ingredients they are given for each round. It is interesting because the ingredients are stuff that a normal person would not normally put together. So these poor chefs have to try and come up with a concept and execute it in a very short amount of time (e.g. 20 minutes for appetizer, and 30 minutes each for the other two rounds). Some episodes just have some crazy ass ingredients, some that I have never heard of and some where an ingredient has to be prepared or treated in a certain way or it is not going to turn out well.

The chefs are usually a combination of formally trained chefs and sometimes people who are self taught chefs. Most of the formally trained chefs who work as souse or pastry chefs at some famous chefs restaurant or may be a executive chef at some small restaurant. So some of these folks have a good understanding of the various ingredients and some do not. The prize for winning is $10,000.

There are three judges who watch as the chefs prepare the meal and provide color commentary for each round. There are regular judges and a guest judge who is usually some renowned chef known for the type of cooking that is going to take place.

As these chefs open the basket of ingredients and start pulling out the ingredients for the round, it is always fun to see their faces. You can literally see the wheels turning in their heads as they try to compose what the hell they are going to try and make with this basket of stuff they have been given.

Needless to say time management is a huge issue and every ingredient from the basket must be used in some fashion. It is always heart breaking when a chef forgets to use one of the ingredients and usually realizes that when the host (Ted Allen) calls time for the round.

The one I watched on Tuesday night was the ball park edition. So all of the ingredients the chefs were given were food items/things you would find at a baseball park (Nacho Cheese, hot dogs, cotton candy, popcorn, pickles, etc). Anyway this episodes was one that was a little more realistic as far as the ingredient’s go. The combination they were given them in was a little wacky. However it was still a fun one to watch.

Sometimes the ingredients in the various episodes are stuff that are very bizarre and stuff I have never heard of. Again some ingredients have to be prepared in a certain way or they are not going to turn out right or will taste terrible.

The judge chefs providing color commentary will say something like well they need to Blanche that Chilean bean pod before the remove the bean from the pod or it is going to be extremely tough or they need to peel that Kuchamonga passion fruit before they cook it or it will be too sour, etc. Many times some poor chef in the field does not do that critical preparation step and they pay for it during the judging.

Anyway it is a interesting concept for a show and one we liked to watch. I had memories of that trip to Mesa and all the fun we had on that trip. As I said it was a scouting trip check out the area’s around Phoenix and we covered a lot of territory.

The last couple of days have been busy with various activities. One of the different ones has been helping put together a haunted house for a event that the Eureka Casino puts on. It is called Shreek-reeka. Well this year the two highschool interact clubs were to put this on, but a few snags insued so the club has had too do a bit more than we thought we were. Two of our club members really stepped up on this and really put this thing together. Below is video of the mostly completed product. I helped with it a little bit but not all that much. The theme was as you can see was Betelgeuse. I think Jennifer would have liked helping with this one. She liked the first Betelgeuse movie.

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This morning I got my Covid and Flu shots so hopefully got that covered. Tomorrow I have to go to St. George for a follow up for my new blood pressure medication. So will also make a Costco run while I am up there.

Well enough therapy for today.