Wildcard Kitchen Season 2 Episode 5
"I woke up like this"
24 in 24 was an intense show. It had a lot of different types of challenges, had new and old faces, and definitely kept my attention. I’d recommend it!
This week’s episode of Wildcard Kitchen featured the hosts of 24 in 24 (Esther Choi and Michael Symon) in the first time they’ve competed against each other. They’ve known each other a long time and have great banter, even though there’s a little bit of a power dynamic between them (Esther said she sees Michael as a mentor, and they mentioned that Esther worked in the Food Network kitchens when Michael was on Iron Chef).
Marcel Vigneron (Top Chef Seasons 2 and 8) was the third competitor here - and honestly, it’s crazy to think that it’s been almost 20 years since his first season of Top Chef. He looked like a modern day Danny Zuko (John Travolta’s character in Grease) in his leather outfit.
Read ‘til the end to see some fun facts about WCK. I’ve got a lot of thoughts, but please let me know in the comments what analyses you’d like to see when the season is over!
Speed round
Like in Season 1, though in none of the other Season 2 episodes so far, there was no required ingredient for the speed round. I wonder if this was actually the first episode filmed and they hadn’t yet decided to add the required ingredient to the speed round? I watched carefully when Eric was explaining the round to the judge; I don’t think anything was edited out, so it must have actually not been a requirement this round.
I was pretty proud of myself as a couch-chef for two moments in this round:
Two chefs (Michael and Marcel) cook very similar dishes (fish and chips) and my instinct is to say that it’ll make it hard for judging because they will be more directly compared to each other than to Esther’s dish. And when it came to judging - Alex chose Esther’s dish!
Even before Eric asked Michael if poaching fish was enough of a “guilty pleasure,” I was already thinking about that - and Alex agreed. When he first saw the dish card, his response was “we all love a greasy-ass cheeseburger.” Maybe after poaching the fish, he should have put some sort of rich sauce on the fish. He at least double-fried his chips!
Although they each made fish and chips, Marcel and Michael used different fish: cod and salmon, respectively. During the cook, Eric reminded Marcel that he needed to pickle something, and not just use pickles. He pickles shallots and makes a spicy pickle aioli. Esther, to increase the richness of her dish, uses duck eggs. She was a little worried about her duck eggs getting too crispy. I loved how Marcel plated his dish on a salt block and added caviar - that definitely meets the criteria of a guilty pleasure!
Side bar: I do take issue with calling something a guilty pleasure. I am a proponent of not assigning moral value to food, and I don’t want people to feel ashamed about eating things that bring them joy or pleasure. It’s really okay to like delicious things!