No thoughts, just chaos.
Top Chef: Season 21 (originally aired on Bravo, now streaming on Peacock) — Like my relationship with Survivor, I became a true Top Chef devotee during 2020. I’ve seen every season (yes, even season one, hosted by Katie Lee who was at the time married to Billy Joel, yes that is important to the story). I was devastated when Padma retired after the Top Chef: World season. I was equally delighted when Kristen Kish took the hosting gig. If none of this makes sense to you, I’m sorry, but also, watch Top Chef. There is nothing more satisfying than watching people who are excellent at their craft cook under extreme pressure and in strange situations for panels of esteemed chefs and judges.
Top Chef is far more lucrative than any Food Network competition (although once established, Top Chef contestants are finding lots of success on that Network—see Tournament of Champions and Bobby’s Triple Threat), and has an air of additional esteem, too. At the beginning, the show cast line cooks and catapulted them into means to open their own restaurants. Obviously, the pedigrees of the contestants have since risen, but that doesn’t make the show any less exciting.
Spoiler alert: I will be writing about this season’s winner below. You have been warned.
Season 21 was set in Wisconsin, and one of the best things about the show is that they shed light on lesser-known culinary areas, highlighting local chefs, and Indigenous ingredients (episode 9) curated by three-time James Beard Award winner Sean Sherman, an Oglala Lakota chef and activist, and Elena Terry, the Ho-Chunk founder of Wild Bearies, a Wisconsin Dells-based nonprofit that promotes traditional farming techniques.
I was also extraordinarily biased going into this season, because I (very briefly) worked with one of the contestants during my years of NYC hospitality and have delighted in watching his career flourish over the last few years. He also WON. As someone with zero desire to ever see myself reflected on TV, I have always wondered how close to reality some of these shows present their contestants, and I will say, the person on screen perfectly represented who he is IRL. Even 8 years ago, Danny was as upbeat, encouraging, and hard-working as he appeared on screen this season. His precision, vision, and drive made him an obvious frontrunner, and it was exceptional to see him take it all the way home.
This win came within the week of a huge loss to the NY Food Scene, with the unexpected passing of James Kent, the head of the Saga Hospitality Group (where Danny works). Kent was a visionary. I had the pleasure of (very briefly) working with him at The NoMad and, more importantly, dining at his extraordinary restaurants Crown Shy and Saga. His loss is a devastating blow, but it’s clear that the chefs he taught, mentored, and supported will keep his legacy alive.Clamato Juice (available at grocery stores, probably, if you want) — Have you ever poured yourself tomato juice and thought, hmm, you know what this needs? Clams. then boy have I got a beverage for you.
It isn’t that I didn’t know about clamato juice until this weekend, it’s that I didn’t think people actually drank it until this weekend.
To clarify, I spent this weekend in Canada, where this is apparently a thing1. There is a drink called a Caesar which is like a Bloody Mary but with Clamato juice. It does not seem to be strictly relegated to brunch consumption the way Bloody Marys are. I was fascinated.
My feelings about clams and tomato juice aside (and to be clear, I feel BAD about it), the true winner of the Clamato juice debate was me, because not only was everyone on my side, but I had this debate with internet friends I met for the first time in real life. It’s hard to make friends as an adult, that much we know. The site formerly known as Twitter is now practically unusuable, this is also true. But once upon a time, it was a place where like-minded writers could connect, even if they lived on opposite sides of the country (or the US/Canadian border). Friends I’ve known for years online were made physical this weekend when I met them.
I just think that’s beautiful—that one day you can bond over Gideon the Ninth with a literal stranger and four years later read a poem at their wedding. That you can read early versions of published authors’ books because they’re your friends, but the first time you see them in the flesh, you debate the pros and cons of tomatoes and clams. The internet is mostly a horrifying place, but maybe it’s really like Clamato juice: not exactly what you want or expect, but mix a few things into it and its probably palatable.2Julien Baker - Little Oblivions (on Spotify, or wherever you stream music, I’m not here to shame) — Yes, I know this record came out in 2021. Yes, I only listened to it for the first time this weekend. Yes, Julien Baker is exactly as sad, queer, and brilliant as everyone said. She’s also a bonkers good songwriter (based on her turns in boygenius this comes as no surprise).
Particularly important to me from first listen, the lyric from Relative Fiction: “'Cause I don't need a savior, I need you to take me home. I don't need your help, I need you to leave me alone.”
I will likely have something more coherent to say about this album once it has finished soaking into my soul, but until then, if you’re sad, have religious trauma, or value a well crafted song and soaring guitars, this one is for you.
There will also be another (surely) gushing review once I see her play in person at All Things Go NYC (affectionately known as lesbian coachella) in September.Hannah Einbinder: Everything Must Go (streaming on Max) — One of the least believable moments in Season 3 of Hacks was when Ava (Einbinder) gave a rousing speech to a young woman about how difficult it is to be a comedy writer, and how hard you have to work in order to get your big break. The lack of believability wasn’t due to Einbinder’s acting, but rather, the trajectory of her own career.
In case you didn’t know, Hannah Einbinder’s mother is Laraine Newman, a member of the original cast of Saturday Night Live. That also means her uncle is Paul Newman, who I know was also an actor but is firmly planted in my mind as a man of salad dressing fame. In this house, we like to shed light on the context into the careers of nepo babies.
There’s nothing inherently wrong on capitalizing on your parents’ careers. My mom is an English teacher, my dad a computer programmer, and I am now a published author who also works in tech. However, what bugs me is when you can still see the chem trails from the private jet a person flew in on. Nowhere is that more obvious than in Einbinder’s new stand-up special, Everything Must Go.
Let me tell you, I went. I watched exactly ten minutes of this comedy3 special and I did not laugh once. Probably because she did not actually tell any jokes. There was a strange spoken word performance piece about her childhood with music and lighting cues, a lot of talk about recreational drug use, and not a single humorous or well constructed anecdote.
It was incredibly clear that she has not spent a lot of time on small comedy stages. These are not jokes that have been meticulously workshopped, or, frankly, even tested on an audience before. Without cutting your teeth on an audience, without having to rely solely on your material, it leaves a show lacking. Or in this case, cut short.
I truly believe that if I had watched the entire 50-odd minute run of this show, I would have lost my ability to watch Hacks without grimacing every time she hit the screen. So I turned it off. Maybe the jokes were in the second half.
It might also be a US thing, but according to my poll (of 9 Americans) we were all firmly on the side of “what”?
Not my best work.
A word I use here very, very loosely.