The theme of this episode is Thanksgiving, and it starts off with the remaining nine contestants expressing gratitude. Aaron is gone! He was horrible! He was messy! They drink beer and breathe a collective sigh of relief.
But there’s a shadow on the horizon. As Gregory says, things aren’t going to get any easier. The survivors like one another and have grown close. It’s one thing when the guy you all hate leaves. It’s another when everyone you triumph over is your pal. Maybe they’ll all start a restaurant together one day.
The action begins when former contestant Tiffani Faison, of Sweet Cheeks in the Fenway, turns up and whisks them all off to a cranberry bog. They have to harvest the cranberries as quickly as possible, which is hard work, as they’re wading and hauling and running. This is the kind of “Top Chef” challenge I could do without: What does an ability to haul cranberries quickly have to do with being the best cook?
Then they must use the fruit they harvested in a dish. The winning contestants get to draw from a pantry of choice ingredients; the others get run-of-the-mill stuff to cook with. Stacy wishes she had cream but decides to turn cauliflower into some kind of substitute, which doesn’t seem like a great idea. Katsuji decides to make steak tartare out of skirt steak, which doesn’t seem like a great idea either. Katie is making some crazy cranberry borscht. It’s nice to see her taking risks, although it appears she may have never used a blender in her life given how many near-accidents she has with it. Mei makes some sweet-and-sour pork dish that Tiffani wants to eat every day, but Katie’s borscht turns out to be delicious, plus creative and smart, and she wins. Tiffani calls Stacy’s soup clunky. It needs seasoning.
Then it’s time for Thanksgiving dinner at Plimoth Plantation. Stacy has been sulking and Skyping her Marine boyfriend overseas, but she tries to rally despite low morale. “I wanna go churn some [expletive] butter,” she hollers with spirit.
Among the guests are chef Ken Oringer, members of the Wampanoag tribe, and Mayflower descendants like Puritan & Co. chef Will Gilson and father David of the Herb Lyceum. Having Thanksgiving dinner at the same table was probably a little bit less awkward before all that history happened. Will Gilson does some talking about pride and heritage, and the Wampanoag dinner guests graciously temper the stink eye they probably want to give him.
Since video of the contestants at Plimoth Plantation:
People talk about their own family traditions: Mei and Melissa’s families both ate duck stuffed with sticky rice for Thanksgiving when they were growing up. Tom’s folks had lasagna before the turkey. We’re celebrating the immigrant experience, yet Katsuji’s arbitrary subtitles find time to return briefly. Thank goodness the Wampanoags don’t get them.
Meanwhile, the chefs find themselves in a time warp. This is Thanksgiving dinner made with the ingredients and equipment they would have had at the very first feast back in the day: spits and fire pits and the like. Everyone is crying from the wood smoke, but they all look like they are having a genuinely great time cooking.
The first team nails it. Doug’s spit-roasted rabbit tastes great. The Wampanoags used to use lobster as bait, but they still like Katsuji’s squash with lobster, chestnuts, and ancho chile butter. “I love it,” says Oringer. “Who’d have thought a Mexican guy cooking kosher food would turn a Wampanoag Indian into loving lobster?”
Melissa’s dish of zucchini, parsnips, and green beans looks exceedingly plain: Maybe this wasn’t the time for her to choose to showcase her knife skills. Stacy makes ramp-smoked clams with butternut squash, lobster, and ramps. Tom praises the rustic presentation, but there is a musty flavor in the dish no one seems to dig.
“It all feels right,” Tom says. “You can imagine this was part of the table way back when.”
On the second team, Gregory’s goose is cooked, but not so well. It was a risk to prepare something so tricky, and it backfires. That bird is chewy. Keriann started off making blueberry pie but turned her filling into sauce for venison when her dough went south. It seems to mostly work, although Gail thinks it’s too sweet. Adam makes succotash with spiced goat milk. Mei offers duck fat-roasted cabbage with trout vinaigrette. Both are hits. And Katie takes a risk again, making blueberry stuffing with blue cornmeal cornbread and lobster. The judges think it’s crazy, but also crazy good. They can’t stop eating it.
Katsuji wins. And although there’s no bad dish on the table, someone must go home. Melissa, Gregory, and Stacy are up. It seems as though Melissa should leave for her vegetable dish, but she isn’t the weakest contestant up there. Stacy clearly is. And she is the one eliminated. “I made Boston proud. I really did,” she says. And so the lone local contestant departs. It was inevitable.
Coming up: appearances from Jacques Pepin, Gronk, and Mei’s annoying brother. It sounds like the setup for a joke.
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