Top Chef

[scarlet]

Oh, I know she switched the Splenda to the sugar; I just meant I understood her confusion about if she stayed under the 500 calories, then the switch was irrelevant.

They should have locked up all the other foods, other than everyone's measured out, and accounted for ingredients, if they wanted to insure no fudging was involved. But, then again, there are cameras everywhere, so they should've been able to see if anyone else changed their recipes.

[shawnalanne]

pamster said:

topher said:

Masterchef Goes Large, what? How has no one mentioned this before? When is it on? Why hasn't anyone started a thread on it?

It's on BBCAmerica at 9am, 12pm and 6:30pm. They have been having marathons on Sunday afternoons of the previous week's eps. There are only a couple of new eps left until they pick the Masterchef, though. They might show the whole thing again; they do that a lot with their programming.

I was looking for a really good reason to expand my cable package from basic to premium. What basic package doesn't have BBC America? Please. ...

Topic: I've been watching the new season and while it's still good a spark seems to be missing.

[topher]

Not to get all TWOPy, but what would be the calorie difference between Splenda and sugar?

[pamster]

Quote ShawnaLanne:

I was looking for a really good reason to expand my cable package from basic to premium. What basic package doesn't have BBC America? Please. ...

I got satellite for exactly that reason, ShawnaLanne. My local cable had BBC America on the premium tier and there wasn't one other thing I wanted on it. I got the satellite for the same price for more channels and have never regretted it.

[scarlet]

From Tom's Blog:

Betty was having problems with her meringues. Unlike savory cooking, where one can use a freer hand with ingredients and proportions, baking is an exact science requiring careful, precise measurement. Betty made the mistake of using Splenda, a sugar substitute, in her meringues without factoring in the role that sugar’s chemical structure plays in holding egg whites together. Her meringues never became the crispy cookies she envisioned.

The second day of cooking the chefs were expected to recreate the recipes they had developed the day before, and that’s where things started to fall apart. Although the rules explicitly stated that the recipes were to be unchanged, Betty somehow missed this and altered her meringue cookies by reducing the number of egg whites and substituting real sugar for the Splenda. Since the rest of their meal was well under the caloric limit, she figured the extra calories the sugar introduced into the meal wouldn’t push them over the edge. Unfortunately, there was no way to determine this officially, as the nutritionists weren’t there to check.

snip

Both the Red Team and the Orange Team were called in front of the judges. It was here that Sam brought up the idea that his competitors had violated the honor system on day two, and worked outside of the 500-calorie rule. He and others witnessed squirt bottles of olive oil being used liberally (a surefire way to boost both flavor and calories) even though they hadn’t been part of the original recipe. Mia mentioned that Betty had changed her cookie recipe on day two (surprising, given that others insisted they had seen Mia add sugar to her cole slaw).

Link

[splendagirl]

Eh? I thought that the rules were very clear. You could not deviate from recipe. Otherwise, groups will improvise on their own (without the benefit of a nutritionist) and add yummy ingredients (such as olive oil), all the while reasoning that "this little bit of sugar, oil or fat and it will only add 100 calories to the whole batch." Adding a little bit of yogurt would have made a more tasty smoothie.

Sugar has a lot more calories than Splenda. Switching the two is probably not a good idea (nor healthy idea) for campers of Camp Glucose.

[jilly]

While I really like Betty, I find it hard to believe that she was confused about the rules. Had she turned in her first batch of cookies, I they might not have won. Totally unfair and the win should go to the runner up team. But the whole challenge was botched by the illegal EVOO squirting. They should have kept the nutritionists around until the dishes were completed.

[scarlet]

If you read Tom's blog, he says the cookies weren't very good, anyway--and indicates they didn't play a role in the Black Team winning, rather it was all about the pizza.

[jilly]

scarlet said:

If you read Tom's blog, he says the cookies weren't very good, anyway--and indicates they didn't play a role in the Black Team winning, rather it was all about the pizza.

Oh, no doubt. The pizza was the star attraction. But she deviated from the rules, so it wasn't an honest win, whether she was confused or not.

[scarlet]

Perhaps, but given the other allegations of cheating--including Mia also using sugar in the coleslaw and the more egregious olive oil controversy--I can see why they left it as is. And, in the end, it was Frank, for the pizza, who was the true winner, not Betty.