Top Chef Finale

That's it boys; It's over; Hosea takes home the title. Top Chef!!! As I mentioned in a previous post on this issue, Hosea was the guy I was routing for to win this competition. Sure, I had Carla in the mix and I think she is an amazing person of character and culinary skill, but Hosea was my boy in this one. His ability to think outside the box and produce something of tremendous simplicity is what really impressed me about him and got me on his bandwagon in the first place. It was no landslide by any stretch of the imagination. Stefan gave him all he wanted, but as Stefan as done all season where he would completely kick ass on something and then put out something that was mediocre to the judges. Padma even made the comment about his dessert, "It was pedestrian at best". Ouch!! She might as well have said, the soft serve ice cream at the local Cracker Barrel is better than this pile of fused chocolate cow pie. Not much concern to me, dessert is not something I aspire to dominate in either.

Overall it was impressive, the remaining three competitors, Carla, Stefan, and Hosea drew knives to see which order they would select there respective sous chefs. The sous chefs in question were runner ups from previous seasons. Casey, who is a complete smoke show, Marcel, and Richard. The final challenge was for them to create the best three course meal of there life. After a few hours of prep that day, they were to have three hours to get ready for the final meal. Aahhh, but a twist. As they arrive to begin for the final push, head judge, Tom Colicchio, is waiting on them with a table of fresh food that is indigenous to New Orleans and the region. Alligator, fresh red fish, fresh blue crab. In order to determine who got what, Tom had them each take slice of the infamous King cake. Whoever got the baby, got to pick what they wanted and they also got to choose what there other competitors were to work with. Hosea got the baby and naturally took the fish. He gave Carla the blue crab...that sounds a little wrong, and he gave Stefan the alligator. Why? Because the hell with Stefan.

So they do there dishes and present them to a star studded cast of diners at the world renowned Commanders Palace. I felt like all three of them put together a fantastic meal, but I do have to agree with the judges on this one. Stefan's dessert, not good. Carla, while we think she is great, should have stuck to her guns instead of listening to her sous chef Casey. But hey, if I was in Carla's shoes and Casey was talking to me, making suggestions, I would have probably done whatever the hell she said. She's that hot, to me anyway. Overall, from beginning to end, Hosea put forth the best work and he did exactly what he wanted to do, so my hat goes off to him for winning and my heart goes out to Carla for the mishaps that occurred in the finale. As for Stefan, he is amazing. Probably want be last time he is heard from. Should he have won, yeah he probably should have. Overall, he was the best chef on the show, but he made a big stumble at a time that he needed to be perfect. Hosea didn't have much flaw. The dish that Hosea made that did receive criticism was presented beautifully and this stumble was like a little trip over a sidewalk, where Stefan was a full scale freefall from 15 stories up. I am sure there will be much debate and I even have my reservations concerning the integrity of the show. I am certainly not saying I could do better, but I felt like overall this was not as impressive a field as it should be. However, I did enjoy watching and will continue to do so, as I find it to be an interesting study not just from a culinary standpoint, but from a sociological standpoint as well. Human nature is interesting.