Top Chef Tuesdays: S08 E04

Imagine you are told to make a dish but are not able to use knives or any kitchen utensils in the prep. As Fabi'oh' stated, it's like a "surgeon without surgical tools". The chefs were given the challenge of making the best stuffing but the true test would be how resourceful they were and the prize of immunity and $20,000 just added more crazy to it. It was like watching an episode of MacGyver but it's all food focused.

Carla is cavewoman-esque, beating an onion with a pan, Jamie is butchering a quail with the top of a pepper grinder and Fabi'oh' is seen grating parmesan cheese on the shelf of the stainless steel rack. Casey states she feels like "Tom Hanks in Castaway" and I'm grateful there aren't any ice skates around.

Casey's dish didn't come together, Tiffany made her mom's stuffing too sweet and Carla, well, poor "what is meant to be, will be" Carla asked the judges if they needed floss for her al dente quinoa, which the judges thought was not a stuffing. Marcel's stuffing was a contender but it was Tre's spicy stuffing that won, without the aid of a swiss army knife or duct tape, may I add.

The Elimination Challenge is to create and present a healthy dish head-on-head at the US Open. The chefs are split into 2 teams and come up with different strategies. Casey, Carla and Tre tell us how they know what food is needed since they are into health and sports themselves and good ole Antonia, she never played sports but smoked a lot of pot. Guess that helps in some way, since she would know all about the munchies.

Fabi'oh' is making gnocci again. Jamie is worried about undercooked chickpeas, as she should be because I'm wondering why she isn't using a pressure cooker with her small allotment of cooking time, and Carla slices off half her fingernail and refuses to go to the hospital. The other teammates feel she was right in sucking it up unlike Jamie in last weeks episode.

This is where the fun really begins. Team Orange and Team Yellow compete against one another and it was so fun to see the team spirit. The high fives, the screaming and jumping. I too was jumping up and down in my living room, alongside each point won and I wasn't even rooting for a specific team. Though, even with the great camaraderie, wouldn't it have been a little fun to see some John McEnroe tantrums? Too bad Jen was eliminated in the second episode, I'm sure she would have fulfilled my wish for some good/bad tv.

Team orange wins with Carla, Antonia, Carla and Richard at the Judge's table. Carla, with cut finger, wins the challenge and a trip to Italy. She feels validated that her vegetable soup won since the other chefs didn't feel it was a worthy dish.

Team yellow is the losing team and Tre is lucky he has immunity as the judges felt he gave up since he had the pass card. Tiffani's tuna was unfavorable and her salad was overdressed while Casey's dish was too protein heavy though she disagreed with the judges calling it hearty.

Marcel pulls the whiny 3 year old act, crying that people touched his food and changed it. He was angry that Jamie didn't get to serve up her bad dish and that Angelo, who has a reputation of maybe sabotaging people, sunk him by adding sweet sauce to his dish. Ultimately, it was the under seasoned shrimp that sent him home and I'm not talking about Tom.

Catch u all next week!