Top Chef Power Rankings, Week 7: A Sausage Race War
Each sausage represented a different race, battling for supremacy. Grrr, baseball!
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Shameless Plug: I guested on the Pack Your Knives Podcast this week.
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This week, on this 21st, Milwaukee-based season Top Chef, the chefs traveled out to the ballpark where the Milwaukee Brewers play, for a challenge based on that classic between-innings entertainment: the sausage race. That’s when mascots of different sausages race around the bases. It’s also when mascots of different sausage races race around the bases.
That’s right, the sausage mascots were meant to celebrate the incredible racial diversity of Wisconsin, as represented by Chorizo, Italian Sausage, Polish Sausage, Bratwurst, and Hot Dog. Which is to say, Mexican, Italian, Polish, German, and… also sort of German again. WISCONSIN: Celebrate all the flavors of Germany.
Ah, but before that, we had a Quickfire Challenge. And what a Quickfire Challenge it was! This week’s Quickfire was a classic Sponsored Content™ challenge, with that sponsor being Finish Ultimate. Which is apparently a dishwashing detergent, even though it sort of sounds like a fetish porno. “Finish Ultimate” is absolutely something they would’ve filmed at Kink.com (RIP).
This was to be a Flambé-based challenge, which actually isn’t bad, considering how much the dish soap-sponsored challenge on Top Chef usually sucks shit (yes, they always have one). This time around, Kristen Kish only had to read about a half sentence of ad copy for soap, and the brand put up 20 large for the winner. Pretty good deal, all things considered. Cheers to the soap guys for seemingly being so cool about this. I’m going to Finish Ultimate all OVER my dishes now.
I don’t really remember how they connected it to dish soap, but the chefs were given 20 minutes to make a flambé dish. And then, surprise! The top three flambabes then had 20 more minutes to make a dish celebrating char. It’s a bummer chef Manny didn’t make the top three. He’s spent half his time on this show setting ovens on fire and char feels like it would’ve been a gimme for him.
After that, they brought back Amar Santana (Big Sleazy!) and Bryan Voltaggio to help guest judge the sausage race war challenge. Amar and B-Vag are both sort of Top Chef lifers, with Amar having competed in Top Chef twice, in 2015 and 2022, and Voltaggio also having competed twice, on Top Chef Vegas in 2009 and Top Chef All Stars LA in 2019 — or three times if you count him being on Top Chef Masters in 2013 (which I kind of don’t because that was a spinoff).
If you ever have trouble keeping track of the Voltaggio brothers, the best way to explain it is that if the Voltaggios were Tom Hanks’ kids, Bryan would be the Colin and Michael would be the Chet.
They were there to take all the chefs to a ball game to show off their wieners. I like Kristen Kish a lot, but Padma would’ve made an absolute meal of all the double entendre potential in this week’s ‘sode. The chefs were split into two teams, and each would draw a wiener and compete wiener-to-wiener against an opposing chef in a sausage-measuring contest. “This sausage just explodes in my mouth!” Padma probably would’ve said at some point.
All of it took place at American Family Stadium in Milwaukee, which used to be called Miller Stadium before we all sold our souls to insurance companies. Honestly, who even knows “American Family” is an insurance company without Googling? Eh, I guess it’s still better than the Crypto.com Arena or, God forbid, FTX. By the way, if you ever want to know how dumb the people of Wisconsin are, just note that in Wisconsin, a place with beautiful summers and brutal winters, the stadium where they play baseball, which runs from spring through late summer, has a (retractable) roof. While the stadium where they play football, which runs from fall through winter, does not. It’s all part of their cherished identity of getting drunk and pretending not to be cold.
Anyway, the challenge went inning by inning, with two chefs cooking the same sausage against each other, with each inning worth one run. Team with the most runs wins. And if I’m eating five sausages, I’m definitely getting the runs, am I right? It was judged by Amar Santana, Bryan Voltaggio, Brittany Snow from Pitch Perfect, ex-Brewers star Ryan Braun, and a handful of other so-called sausage experts somehow not including your mom. Wait, no Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago? Seems like an oversight.
Honestly, with these supersized episodes this season, you’d think the producers could give us just 30 or 60 seconds of background on how Top Chef’s random actor guest judge generator happened to land on Brittany Snow. Is she a local, you might be wondering? Nope, she’s from Tampa. And also admitted that she never eats sausage. Obviously the most logical choice! As long as we’re just choosing celebrity guest judges totally at random, might I suggest Peter Stormare?
Sausages strangely seemed to bring out the best in these chefs, to the point that the chef who got sent home was eliminated after cooking, according to Gail Simmons, “one of the best risottos we’ve ever had on Top Chef.”
The risotto curse is alive and well.
RESULTS (Spoiler alert and whatnot)
QUICKFIRE TOP: Danny*. Amanda. Kevin.
QUICKFIRE BOTTOM: ??
ELIMINATION CHALLENGE WINNERS: Yellow Team, Kaleena, Danny, Michelle*, Laura, Amanda
ELIMINATION CHALLENGE LOSERS: Blue Team, Savannah, Kevin**, Soo, Dan, Manny.
Round 1: Hot Dogs
Soo (Blue) vs. Danny (Yellow)
Result: Soo wins, 9-6.
(My vote, based solely on how it looked: Soo)
Round 2: Polish Sausage
Savannah (Blue) vs. Michelle (Yellow)
Result: Michelle Wins, 13-2
(My vote: Savannah)
Round 3: Italian Sausage
Kevin vs. Kaleena
Result: Kaleena wins, 13-2
(My vote: Kaleena)
Round 4: Chorizo
Manny vs. Laura
Result: Manny wins, 9-6
(My vote: Manny)
Round 5: Bratwurst
Dan vs. Amanda
Result: Amanda wins, 12-3
(My vote: Amanda)
POWER RANKINGS
Ranking: (change from last week).
10: (-1) ((Eliminated)) Kevin D’Andrea
AKA: Le Kevin. VousTube. Un Trevail. Monsieur Brie-st.
On the one hand, I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop with Le Kevin for like three weeks now, so it isn’t a huge surprise to see him go home. On the other, this felt like one of his strongest episodes.
He came out hard in the Quickfire, cooking up a “shrimp flambé au pastis” (pastis apparently being an anise liqueur, like Pernod) that looked delicious even though I’ve never had it. At which pointed he yelled “Let’s gooo!”
Peak Zoomer. This dude looks and acts like he was raised entirely by the YouTube algorithm.
He went on to lose part two of the Quickfire, despite managing to butcher an entire squab and then cook it two different ways in 20 minutes. I don’t think the show did a good enough job highlighting how completely fucking insane that is. Granted I’ve never butchered a squab (aka a pigeon) before, but it looks hard. And this dude did that, plus charred the breasts and deep fried the legs, in 20 minutes.
Sadly it was a char challenge and he only charred half of the thing he cooked, which is just a pretty stupid idea on the face of it. He also basically did something “two ways,” which is almost guaranteed to get you eliminated on this show unless someone else does a risotto.
And oh yeah, he then cooked a risotto. For Christ’s sake, Kevin, work smarter, not harder. Kevin was bummed about not winning the 20 grand in the quickfire, which he said he was planning to use to visit his family back in France, who he hasn’t seen in six years. This is a guy, I’ll remind you, who was a finalist on Top Chef: France. Seems like kind of an indictment of the profession when one of the best in the world at it can’t afford to visit his family for six years.
But hey, what do I know. It’s a testament to Le Kevin’s integrity that he hasn’t yet pivoted to a much more lucrative career making prank videos or screaming at video games on Twitch.
DISH: Italian sausage risotto, roasted parmesan, and fennel emulsion.
REVIEWS: "I think it's a good risotto, but I don't know any better." "I loved this but it was just way too much cheese. There's almost more cheese than rice." "Probably one of the better risottos we've ever had." "If it would've been a cheese challenge, you would've been the winner."
9: (+1) Laura Ozyilmaz
AKA: Yogurt Soup. Zed. Z-Squared. Ozyilmandias. Oz-matazz. The Wizard of Ozyilmaz. Wild Pistachio. Ruthless. Gamebred.
One way to look at Laura’s performance this week was that she was the only chef to make her own sausage, was on the winning team, and turned in one of her finest performances of the competition. Another way to look at it was that she lost her round and arguably snuck through on the strength of her teammates. Would she have gone home instead of Le Kevin if she had been on the other team?? Discuss.
The judges all made a big deal out of how close Laura and Manny’s round was, and how good both of their dishes were. Eh, I’m not buying it. Laura made a “chorizo kebab taco” and it looked like a weird salad on top of an afterthought tortilla:
It still had a stick in it?
Now look, I’m not going to sit here and tell a Mexican girl how to make tacos, but what the fuck is that? Are you supposed to cut it with a knife and fork or pick it up? Neither option makes a ton of sense, because it’s over stuffed and off center. If you take the time to put a nice lil salad on top, surely you’d take the time to remove the kebab stick too, no? What is the point of leaving it in there? This dish is self-defeating and nonsensical, it’s like the Tesla Cyber Truck of tacos!
Chef Laura needs to get back to what she does best: sabotaging the disabled guy.
DISH: Chorizo kebab tacos.
REVIEWS: "The chorizo relish really makes this dish."
8: (even) Kalenna Bliss
AKA: Khaleesi. K-Bliss. B-Train. Hall Monitor.
Chef Khaleesi proudly told the camera this week, “I came through Last Chance Kitchen. I’m ready to prove that I’m back, and I’m back with a force.”
Don’t you mean… back with a vengeance? “Back with a force?” Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. But hey, I’m working with the benefit of a delete key over here. Anyway, Kaleena took kind of a dull idea — Italian sausage with spicy red tomato sauce and gnocchi — and executed it exquisitely.
When I first heard she was doing a tomato sauce with pasta for her Italian sausage, I thought “Zzzzzzz.” But then when she made perfect little gnocchi and plated them on top of a pool of sauce?
Boring idea, but those were about the most impressive-looking gnocchi I’ve seen anyone make on this show.
I absolutely cannot see Kaleena winning this, but credit where credit’s due, those looked nice.
I just wanted to take another look at those gnocchi.
(Too many memes? Probably too many memes).
DISH: Potato gnocchi with Italian sausage ragú, Calabrian chili.
REVIEWS: “The texture of the gnocchi was fantastic. The spiciness, the fluffiness, everything was absolutely perfect.”
7: (even) Savannah Miller
AKA: Funko. Peepers. Sporty Spice. Fryer Tuck. Big Pun. Bell Curve.
This week, Chef Savannah revealed that she was the only chef in the competish who doesn’t do any dishes at her house. “What? I do all the cooking,” she said.
Ayy, check out the clean hands on Sporty Spice ovah heah! (For real though, I had this exact fight with an ex years ago about whether being the one who cooks entitles one to leave the dishes for the other person, and let’s just saw I’m glad it seems to have gone better for Savannah than it did for me).
Later in the show, when Brittany Snow was introduced, Savannah made this face:
That was kind of nice. When you have that reaction shot, you don’t need to cut away to someone saying “(*looking down at notes*) Brit-tany Snow?? Oh my stars, I LOVED her in (*checks notes*) one episode of Law & Order: SVU!”
Big Pitch Perfect fan, eh, Savannah? Guess so. (Before you ask, Pitch Perfect was filmed in Baton Rouge, so I still can’t figure out the connection).
Later on, Savannah chose Polish Sausage, which gave her the opportunity to reveal that her dad was a negotiator in the Army Special Forces and was stationed in Poland for a few years. I hear the Polish Special Forces Negotiator is the guy who tries to talk one-armed men out of trees (oh what, I can’t do ONE Polish joke?? Cancel culture is out of control!)
Anyway, Savannah made a sausage pierogi, and it may be the fact that I’m the world’s #1 Dumpling Daddy™ talking here, but it looked good as hell. Unfortunately, Savannah’s sausage pierogi was just not sausage-y enough for these judges. Hey, man, if I wanted to see something over-stuffed with sausage I would’ve subscribed to your mom’s OnlyFans.
Anyway, Savannah did not win her round. Probably she was just too star struck by Brittany Snow.
DISH: Sausage Pierogi, Apple and Fennel Salad.
REVIEWS: “I can't find the Polish sausage here.” “This is excellent. But I needed more sausage.”
6: (-1) Manny Barella
AKA: Manny. El Cid Vicious. Brawny.
Last week on Pack Your Knives, Tom seemed to imply that I was in the tank for Manny. A cruel accusation! Maybe I am! Maybe I’m simply biased in favor of stout men who cook Mexican food! Is that such a crime?
Even with a solid performance this week, I feel like Amanda is pulling ahead of Manny. I still think Manny can bring it back if he “leans into his POV” (yes, I’ve been watching this show long enough to start throwing around these kinds clichés) and stay the course while Amanda inevitably tries to pull off something too fancy. That being said, I don’t think either of them quite make the top third at this stage. I hope Manny gets back in the game.
Why do I love Manny so much? Well, I’m a self-described dumpling-loving Mexican food enthusiast, and this week Manny made a chorizo tetela. Which he described as “imagine like a triangle Hot Pocket.”
Oh, I’m imagining, brother. And I like what my imagination is telling me. It’s like he knows me better than I know myself! If Manny’s chorizo hot pocket had lost to Laura’s stick-filled plate of random shit covered in edible hair, I would’ve thrown my TV off a bridge.
Manny if you’re making Team Power Bottom shirts, I want one. Size XL.
5: (+1) Amanda Turner
AKA: Daria. LAN Party. Milton. Grimace.
Amanda has not only been “leaning into her POV,” she’s leaning into her own caricature. I swear she sounds more and more like Daria every week. Responding to the flambé challenge, Amanda deadpanned, “Werll, er herve flermbered frerm term ter term…”
ERMERGERD, FLERMBERRR!
She nearly won that challenge, with a “baked Hawaii” (it’s like a Baked Alaska, only warmer) and then went on to win her round in the sausage challenge against Handsome Dan. Beating a Wisconsin chef at German food? Dan should have to relinquish his Cheese Hat after that one.
Amanda also coined “SOC” to describe the Chorizo mascot, the only “Sausage of Color,” as she put it. Stop trying to take my job, Amanda.
DISH: Caraway Spaetzle, Bratwurst, Caramelized Onion Sauce.
REVIEWS: "You did a really good job just adding layers of flavor." "I also really liked that mustard sauce."
4: (-3) Dan Jacobs
AKA: Ness. Handsome Dan. Froggy Fresh. Kermit. Frames. Jordache Peterson. The Gipper. Two Frames.
I can’t tell if Dan was just having the unavoidable down week that bedevils all Top Chef competitors at some point (see: Michelle, last week) or if he’s pulling a Tiger Woods and fading after a strong start because of his failing legs (I’m not making light, I’m simply saying).
Dan, according to the judges and himself, just couldn’t put it together this week. And that was seemingly without Chef Laura trying to sabotage him by spilling cream on the floor or pre-shuffling recipe cards. Or maybe it’s that Dan and Laura have some kind of Magic Johnson/Larry Bird dynamic, where Dan can’t be inspired to greatness unless Laura is always fucking with him. Although given their relative performances in this competition so far, I guess it’d be more like if Magic Johnson couldn’t perform his best if he wasn’t getting trash talked by Danny Ainge.
DISH: Bratwurst, potato pancake, sauerkraut, herbs.
REVIEWS: "Dan's dish was unimaginative."
3: (-1) Danny Garcia
AKA: Grok. Squeaky. Brooklyn. Stretch. Hype-bot. Subsidy.
Danny’s new nickname is “Subsidy” because his soundbites are corny as hell. “I’m comin’ for that money, y’all!”
Whenever the editors need a brutally literal snippet of dialogue to move the plot along, Subsidy is there. Also, Danny’s last name is Garcia and his bio says that he grew up “in a large, tight-knit Dominican and Puerto Rican family,” but am I crazy or does Danny talk like someone who has never encountered the Spanish language before? That absolute can’t be right, the man works in kitchens, for God’s sake (everyone who has ever worked in a kitchen anywhere in America knows a little Spanish). And yet multiple times during the flambé round Danny referred to Mezcal as “mez-callay.”
Maybe there’s a different word Mezcal is short for or a different dialect with which I’m not familiar, but I’ve never heard it called “mez-callay.” He also keeps calling Laura “Lada,” which I’m pretty sure isn’t how you pronounce that name either. I don’t know, maybe I’m missing something. (I’ll be the first to admit this possibility, you can tell by all the your mom jokes that I’m very dumb).
However you pronounce mezcal, Danny went right to the Top Chef well and flambéd up an aguachile, one of those variations on crudo and ceviche that’s like crack to Top Chef judges (unless you’re Chef Alisha, RIP). That landed him in the top three, and he earned himself 20 large with his charred branzino with charred poblano and charred avocado. The judges saw that and figured, “Hurrrr, food charred! Char good!”
I kid, it looked really good, and kudos to Danny for correctly surmising that the judges were looking for lots of charred components in a char challenge (could you not have figured this one out, Kevin?).
“I’m gonna buy so much stuff with all this money, y’all!” Danny probably said. God, man, I am begging you to say something interesting.
It looked like Danny was about to run away with this challenge until he ran into Chef Soo in a hot dog challenge. I thought Danny’s bacon-wrapped hot dog with braised red cabbage sounded top shelf until I saw that he was facing off against Chef Soo’s corndog fried in French fry chunks. On the one hand Danny got beat, but on the other hand, trying to take on Chef Soo in a junk food challenge is like trying to fight a lava monster inside a volcano. You’re probably not gonna win that one, man. And honestly, 9-6 is a really respectable showing, all things considered.
(paywall)