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Foodies and budding chefs love the reality show Top Chef, but so do millions of other viewers, as evidenced by Top Chef's position as the number one food show on cable. Season 5 of Top Chef takes place in the food city of New York as well as in New Orleans and pits 17 chefs against each other in a test of culinary skill, creativity, flexibility, and performance under pressure. While the show is all about food, it's also about personalities, and this 14-episode season is full of strong personalities. There's the brashly confident Stefan, hyper Carla, ladies' man Fabio, overachiever Jeff, gay and lesbian "team rainbow," and many others, and everyone's antics in the kitchen, the stew room where they await judgment, and their shared apartment translate into some great entertainment. Host Padma Lakshmi is joined by head judge Chef Tom Colicchio, judges Gail Simmons and Toby Young, and an array of guest judges, including celebrities like Emeril Lagasse, Martha Stewart, Jean-Georges, and Wylie Dufresne. The judges are demanding, exacting, and sometimes downright harsh, but they push each chef to deliver the very best food that he or she can--all in hopes of escaping Padma's dreaded words "please pack your knives and go." Each episode consists of a quickfire challenge and an elimination challenge. The quickfire challenges test the chefs' culinary techniques and palates as well as their ability to think on their feet and create winning dishes with very little time and some particularly odd ingredients. The elimination challenges give the chefs more time but test their versatility and creativity, requiring them to cater to groups such as rock's Foo Fighters and other Top Chef contestants and highly regarded food legends; to cook in specific styles that may lead them far from their comfort zones; to employ highly exotic ingredients; to make do with severely limited kitchens; or to engage in the highly competitive restaurant wars at the very last moment, among other trials. Just as entertaining as the food challenges are the unpredictable interactions between contestants, which range from unlikely friendships to romantic liaisons and ugly shouting matches. This fifth season gives rise to several burning questions: can a person get voted out for serving deviled eggs or s'mores in a cooking contest? Is making an ostrich egg omelet original enough to keep a contestant in the competition? Is the Top Chef competition all about food, or does service count, too--and if so, how much does it count? Is this purely a cutthroat competition between chefs, or is there room for compassion and maybe even a little holiday spirit? Bonus features include footage and interviews from inside the eliminated cast house, extended interviews with the top four chefs, some pretty amusing stew room footage, and cooking demonstrations of selected contestants' dishes on "The Wong Way to Cook." The DVD also comes with a cookbook insert that features five recipes from past Top Chef seasons. --Tami Horiuchi
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Last updated: December 3, 2009, 6:15 am
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