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Episode Report Card

Kim: A | 1168 USERS: B-

YOU GRADE IT

Natural Born Leader

By Kim | Season 1 | Episode 9 | Aired on 2009.08.12

In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description!

The remaining chefs (Rick Bayless, Anita Lo, Michael Chiarello, and Hubert Keller) learn that for their final Quickfire Challenge, they will be doing the Blindfold Taste Test. They have to identify twenty ingredients while blindfolded. Hubert gets five, Rick and Anita each get six, and Michael gets seven, even though he's sure that he did the worst. That gives him five stars going into the Elimination Challenge.

Elimination Challenge: Create a buffet lunch for 200 Hollywood insiders, and they get to "hire" sous chefs from a group of twelve former Top Chef cheftestants. They complete a "speed dating" kind of job interview in which most people just ask normal questions about their backgrounds and qualifications, but Chiarello has to be a dick about it and make the cheftestants run around and find carrots and demonstrate their knife skills while answering questions. Finally, Spike just flat out refuses to do it, which is kind of ballsy, but also kind of awesome. When they get halfway through the prep, they're told that they have to pack everything up and finish cooking everything at the site, even though most of their food is already halfway cooked. Once they get to the site, they find out that each chef will have to cut one chef from the team immediately.

Hubert: Picks Antonia, Elia, and Spike, and he cuts Spike. He makes a variety of eighteen different dishes, which seems like more than anyone else. The judges are impressed by how smart he was about spending his budget to make the biggest impact.

Anita: Picks Jamie, Dale, and Ilan, and she cuts Jamie. She makes an Asian buffet with various spices and condiments, and also plans a raw bar before she realizes that her food will be sitting out in the sun. The judges think it's good but not great, which it needs to be at this point.

Michael: Picks Fabio, Brian, and CJ and he cuts Brian. The whole Dale confrontation from the previews comes off as much more one of the cheftestants finally standing up to Michael than Dale being a jerk, so I apologize to Dale for assuming he was at fault. Michael makes a rustic Italian buffet that includes two desserts. His is also a mixed bag, and the judges really hate the texture of his swordfish.

Rick: Picks Blais, Alex, and Betty, and he cuts Betty. He makes a Mexican food buffet including Blais's made-on-the-spot avocado ice cream. The judges have nothing but praise.

When the results come in, Rick has 21.5 stars and Hubert has 22 stars (with a huge disparity between the diners' scores and the judges' scores), so Hubert wins this week. In the bottom two, Anita ends up with 17 stars and Michael earns 19.5 stars, so Anita goes home. After last week, that's hardly a shocker.

Want more? The full recap starts right below!

And then there were four -- Anita Lo, Hubert Keller, Rick Bayless, and Michael Chiarello. They walk into the kitchen as Hubert narrates the obvious: that it feels good to still be around, but that as the numbers dwindle, the pressure goes up. Thanks for tournament 101. Maybe they don't have tournaments in France. It seems like competition wouldn't be very French of them. Except for the whole Tour de France thing that disproves that theory. So I unconvinced myself before I even had time to make a clichéd "the French always surrender" joke, which is probably a good thing.

Kelly promises them that this will be the last Quickfire, so they've made it a good one. I feel like Kelly really hasn't given me enough to snark on lately with her hair and fashion choices. I mean, once you get past the Little Big Head jokes, what else is there? She's kind of robotic, but she's not ChenBot. She doesn't even have a "But first!" type catch phrase. Kelly is a little too happy as she whips out a mask and says that it's time for "the Blindfold Taste Test." Hubert notes that chefs eat with their eyes (unlike us normal people who eat with our mouths, presumably). Kelly recalls that Andrea won this challenge in the first season by identifying the umeboshi plum, and Michael chuckles that he's never even heard of such a thing. Kelly explains that each chef will be blindfolded and challenged to name twenty ingredients. The chef who gets the most right will get five stars, second place will get four stars, third place will get three-and-a-half stars, and fourth place will get three. [Editor's Note: Does this show make anyone else miss Star Search something fierce? -- Mindy.] I guess they don't want to totally screw someone over by giving them one star or something.

As they wait for their turns, we get to see interview footage. Rick is happy that he doesn't have to run around like a lunatic for this Quickfire, and try to make a dish in thirty minutes. Anita is shocked to still be there, since she came so close to elimination last week. Michael is the first to be called in to identify ingredients, and he interviews that he works with "a very narrow scope of ingredients," and apparently never eats anything else at home or in restaurants.

His first ingredient is Hoisin sauce, and he has no clue what it is. Doesn't even venture a guess. Despite his doubts, he actually gets quite a few right, but honestly, some of them seem really easy. I mean, peanut butter? And corn? I would probably get those wrong just because I would guess a much more esoteric ingredient, thinking that it couldn't possibly be peanut butter. Michael is convinced that he did horribly though, and he's not given his results yet.