Noelle Myers recaps the 5th episode of Top Chef New Orleans!

This week was a lot of fun on Top Chef New Orleans.  Gail and Padma waited as the chefs walked into the Top Chef Kitchen.  Everything in the kitchen was wrapped in foil: pots, pans, pantry items…everything.

Padma and Gail introduced their mothers to the chefs.  They split the chefs into two teams: Team Simmons (Gail’s mother) and Team Lakshmi (Padma’s mother).  The moms had to go “shopping” through the foil wrapped items for five minutes.  Then each team had to create three dishes, incorporating every item that the moms grabbed.  The winning team split $10,000.

It was great fun to watch the two moms dashing about, each team yelling at them to remember this, grab that, and hurry!  It was chaotic in the kitchen but in the end both teams put up three lovely dishes.  The guest judges, Gail and the moms, decided that Team Lakshmi won the Quickfire.

The moms and Gail left and Lea Michelle from Glee walked in!  For this week’s Elimination Challenge, the chefs would be split into two teams.  Each Team would create two dishes for a costume party that Lea Michelle was hosting.  The chefs had to create vegan or vegetarian dishes, and Lea Michelle wanted to see a lot of cheese and a scary/spooky theme.  She was really wanting to indulge and emphasizes how much she LOVED cheese.  She also mentioned that she was not really a fan of beets.

Padma divided up the teams.

To Nina’s great displeasure she was paired with Michael on the Orange Team.  They spit and sputtered their way through the challenge, with Michael being very condescending, and Nina barely holding her temper back.  Their dishes were not well paired because they didn’t work as a team.  Nina created a ricotta gnocchetti with kale pesto which was inspired by candy corn.  Michael created a “bloody eye” with a yellow arancini with saffron and tomato jam.

The Yellow Team, Nicholas and Patty, had a very difficult time meeting the scary/spooky criteria, so they decided to stick with a fall theme instead.  Nicholas made a butternut squash cannolli with ricotta salat.  He changed his original plan of making gnocchi after seeing Nina making hers.  Patty stuck with her original plan of lemon arancini stuffed with smoked mozzarella, despite the fact that two other teams were going to be making arancini.  This was a good choice, since this was everyone’s favorite arancini served at the party.

Benne and Brian decide to go with a spooky spa cuisine even though Lea specifically said she wanted to indulge.  Brian created a crispy quinoa salad with mushroom espuma and Bene made a heirloom tomato salad with wilted kale

Stephanie and Carrie were the Black Team.  Since their aprons were black, they decide to carry the theme through to their food.  Stephanie made “doomed shrooms,” which were mushrooms with black garlic and radicchio.  Carrie served “freaky leeky,” which were ash coated vegetables with a fontina fonduta.  Lea loved both dishes, and loved the spooky element of each dish.

Shirley and Louis had a lot of fun working together.  Shirley created a “worm salad,”  which were hand cut noodles with fresh daikon radish.  Louis made a “severed thumb,” which was braised quinoa with a potato puree.

Travis and Carlos went with a dia de los muertos theme.  Travis made a colorful vegetable ceviche and Carlos serves a goat cheese fondue with white wine, and fried zucchini

Sarah and Justin were teamed together and seemed to have a fun time working with each other.  Justin took a risk and used beets in his blood pasta with green tomatoes.  Sarah was the third person to make arancini for her evil eye arancini with Moroccan vegetable chutney.

The judges for this week’s Elimination Challenge were Tom, Padma, Lea Michelle, and Hugh Acheson.  There were several successful dishes but two teams definitely stood out as the top teams.  Nicholas and Patty and Carlos and Travis were called into the Judges Table first.  Lea Michelle loved all of their dishes and Travis and Carlos were declared the winners.  Leah Michelle asked if they could come back to Los Angeles and cook for her all the time.

The Orange Team (I use the term team loosely) and the Green Team of Bene and Brian were on the bottom.  The judges LOVED Nina’s gnocchetti, but were very unhappy with the lack of teamwork on the Orange Team.  Michaels dish was just disappointing.  Lea Michelle was not thrilled with the “spa cuisine” idea.  She really wanted to indulge at this party.  Tom said no one would ever win a challenge with a simple tomato salad.  He wanted more creativity.  In the end, the judges decided to send Michael to Last Chance Kitchen (where Janine was reigning supreme at the moment).

Next week – La Provence and John Besh.