Quick Thoughts on Top Chef

Here are my thoughts on Top Chef so far this season. And don't worry if you haven't seen the most recent episode - I don't reveal anything. Here is a cheat sheet with some of their names in case you don't remember.

Preeti...much looks like a boy.

Enough already with the "gay people can't get married" stuff. And I'm not talking to the chef, Ashley, who was speaking about it, but to Bravo for airing every single mention of it to make it seem like she was completely obsessed with the idea. They were definitely just trying to create drama.

I thought the twin thing was a little gimmicky, but it turns out they are both good chefs, so I forgive Bravo. I like to think of them as Thing 1 and Thing 2. Thing 1 being the clean-cut one. Thing 2 being the sunburned scruffy one.

Was Padma wearing a ribbon braided through her hair? Yes, she was. I really hope that is not coming back in style.

What is with that obnoxious sexist guy (aka Nickname Guy)?

Beard guy (Kevin) and blonde girl (Jennifer) are both going far.

I hate to say it, but most of the women are kinda horrible. Ugh.

Eve talks like a kindergarten teacher, and I cannot take her seriously.

Is there some reason the French guy has to wear that red scarf all the time? Reminds me of that scary story you heard as a kid called The Green Ribbon. The girl wears a green ribbon all the time and in the end someone undoes it (her husband perhaps) and her head falls off.

Ron, Robin, Laurine, and Jesse will all be kicked off within a matter of weeks. You have no idea who they are? Well, don't worry about learning their names, because it won't matter.

The whole $15,000 for winning a quickfire seems a bit weird. Isn't immunity enough? Also, why don't get get anything for winning an elimination challenge?

Did you notice how they didn't even show half the dishes in the quickfire so you already knew who wasn't winning or losing. Do they do that a lot and I don't notice?

Her Hood

Anika and I took a tour of her 'hood in Chicago. She lives about two blocks away from the Chicago River - how great is that? The color of the river really disturbed me though. It was a blue-green color that seemed incredibly unnatural for a river. Anika hypothesizes this comes from dying the river green every St. Patrick's Day.

I think that is Trump Tower in the background (blech I hate Trump). Anika lives in downtown Chicago, so there are skyscrapers all around her.

Here we are in front of the river. Looks like a pool, doesn't it?

A puppy came up to us and the poor thing had a neon pink cast on her left leg. She wasn't letting that get her down though, as evidenced by her coming up to us and crawling all over our legs. Doesn't that look just say, "Take me back to California with you?"

Later that night we walked to Navy Pier (which is also right by her apartment) to watch the fireworks. They were in time to the music playing in the background, which I thought was amazing. My favorite part was during a Poker Face clip they had little smiley face fireworks.

And yes, I wore that jacket everywhere. It was unseasonably cold in Chicago (high of 70), so I needed it. Hopefully this didn't offend my fashionista hostess.

Oh, The Things We Made

So, Anika and I did quite a bit of cooking this weekend. I hope I didn't overdo it for her. Not everyone loves cooking as much as I do. I already told you about the chicken that we made together, and as you can see, we also had some of the potatoes gratin (told you I make this a lot) and fresh corn casserole. Some steamed broccoli filled in the gap sitting there in the table. Look how healthy we are!

On Saturday night around midnight we got the brilliant idea to make peanut butter and jelly bars. Thankfully it wasn't too much work - it was from a Barefoot Contessa mix Anika picked up. I do love me some Barefoot Contessa!

The most surprising thing is that nobody ate any bars that night at midnight. We dutifully waited until the next morning to dive in. And dive in I did. It really tasted a lot like PB&J in dessert form. Think peanut butter cookies with a layer of raspberry jelly in the middle. I pretty much ate some of these bars every couple hours or so. Had to keep my blood sugar stable...or something.

Niffers

In Chicago I got to meet up with my oldest best friend - and by oldest I mean my youngest best friend whom I have actually known the longest. We've known each other since she moved next door when I was in the first grade. That is a long time. It's awesome to have friends you have known your whole life, but it makes you kind of glad that all of your friends don't know this much about you.

We spent Saturday morning eating brunch at the Bongo Room in a fun neighborhood (I have no idea what it is called). The food there was amazing. I had lemon coconut ricotta pancakes that were to die for. Clearly I cleaned my plate and then felt pretty disgusting for the next hour. Doesn't that always happen when you eat a rich brunch?

Niki is the pickiest eater I know (clearly the nickname Picky Niki came naturally for her). On the car ride home from the airport we were talking about food and she said "Isn't 'foodie' just a euphemism for 'food snob?'" haha. I like to think it's a little different!

Per my request, we went to Millennium Park (which maybe is also called Grant Park - I am clueless about Chicago). It's one of my favorite parts of Chicago.

Here I am in front of the "bean." It basically begs for a photo. As you can see, lots of other people gather at the bean for photos. Get out of my picture, people!

Here is Niki standing inside some weird sculpture/model thing. She doesn't like pictures, so snapping this one was an accomplishment.

At the park they have these really cool/bizarro faces plastered on giant rectangles with water trickling down them. And there's nothing like a fountain in a city to attract kids to play in the water.

Then occasionally the faces spit water on the kids waiting at the bottom. And some unsuspecting adults who don't know it's coming. Suckers!

Niki and I sat in the shade reminiscing while facing this horrible statue for a couple of hours. The reminiscing was great; the statute was scary. It was funny to see how our memories corresponded to one another. It seemed that whatever I remembered, she had no recollection of and vice versa. Mostly we were both just embarrassed by the things we did and games we played, but I guess that's how a lot of people feel about things they did when they were kids. Right?? Hopefully I will see her again soon and the reminiscing can continue!

Roast Chicken - An Accomplishment

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I tackled the infamous whole roast chicken this weekend with my friend Anika. And, if I do say so myself, we did quite a good job. Doesn't it look purdy?

There isn't really a "recipe" for roast chicken, but I will tell you step by step what we did and some tips along the way.

First, we washed the birdie inside and out and patted it dry with paper towels. Apparently it is crucial that the chicken be dry (inside and outside) if you want it to have a crisp crust. Then we tucked the wings up inside the bird - as shown above. The butcher tucked the legs in for us, so we didn't need to truss the chicken (i.e. tie up the legs).

After it sat out for about an hour and a half, we started prepping the bird. We salted and peppered the cavity of the chicken from both holes. Kinda gross, honestly. Then we cut up a lemon into quarters, and placed the lemon inside the cavity.

Next, we added about six sprigs of thyme. It was kind of difficult to shove these in since the chicken was full of lemon. It would probably be smarter to add half the thyme before the lemons were added.

Then we popped open a fresh head of garlic and peeled about 6 cloves. We added the cloves to the already-stuffed chicken cavity. Luckily, nothing else needed to be shoved in there after this. Phew.

Then we took about two tablespoons of butter and rubbed it all over the chicken. Literally every crack and crevice we could find. Ideally, your butter will be at room temperature before you do this. We forgot to take it out to warm up, so we had to use the heat from our hands to warm it and made it spreadable. Then we generously salted and peppered the outside of the bird - this way it will taste seasoned instead of salty (if you salted it after cooking).

Then we placed our birdie on a roasting rack on a roasting pan. Anika had to buy these especially for our adventure into roasting chicken! She's such a good sport.

Then we roasted the chicken at 450 degrees for about an hour and 15 minutes. Use a meat thermometer and wait until the temperature of the chicken gets to 165 degrees. When you take it out of the oven, the temperature will rise when resting. We ended up with a very smokey oven and kitchen because of all the drippings getting a bit smokey. A smaller roasting pan might have helped avoid this because the drippings would have been concentrated in a smaller area.

Here it is, fresh out of the oven. Please ignore the puncture wound we inflicted on her from the thermometer.

Then we poured the juices from the chicken into the roasting pan. In retrospect, it would have made sense to pour them directly into the frying pan we were about to use, but oh well. There was a lot of juice that came out - probably from the lemons. Yum...chicken juice...

Then we allowed the birdie to rest on a platter all by itself. We were frantically running around finishing other dishes, so we were glad it had to rest a bit.

It was time for the pan-juice sauce. We dumped all of the pan juices into a heavy-bottom skillet and added about 1/2 cup of chicken stock to it - this "deglazes" the pan - i.e. gets all the gunk off the bottom. We heated this on medium and stirred it with a wooden spoon to get all the bits off the bottom of the pan.

Then we let the sauce reduce by about half. Here it is, simmering away and reducing itself. Then we added about a tablespoon of butter to give it some extra richness. We stirred it around until the butter was melted and voila - the sauce was done!

I attempted to cut up the chicken before we ate, so it wasn't such a mess at the table. I had no clue what I was doing, but the pieces turned out okay looking.

We were so proud of ourselves for roasting our first chicken and it came out exactly like I hoped it would - nice and juicy with a beautiful crispy layer of skin on top. One day, maybe John will be lucky and I will make him one!