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  11. Patrick Rolfe. Patrick, who had earned a culinary arts degree, worked as a sous-chef. His aim was to introduce new stuff that “ain’t no one seen before.” His watchwords: “Local, local, local, fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh.”

  Potluck

  The first challenge is usually a layup, and this was no exception, other than the fact that it was the first time the finalists would be in front of the cameras. Finalists had to make and present something representative of themselves for a potluck dinner, with each one creating a different course or dish. Amy headed straight for the bistro, preparing flank steak, or bavette. “I totally want Bobby to like my food,” said Amy. “Especially since I’m grilling. That’s a Bobby thing.” Tommy made cioppino, in huge Grella-size portions, and Paul quickly seized the chance to inflict the season’s first knife wound on himself. Michael offered to help him by making crostini, the traditional toasted-bread accompaniment, for his cioppino. They were made but they were never plated.

  At the evaluation, Bobby noted that instead of blaming Michael Salmon, Tommy took the hit for not having any crostini. “I don’t know why it didn’t make it out,” Tommy said. Admiringly, Bobby told him, “You have the sense of loyalty on day one.”

  “Star is one of the few reality series where character matters. You must embody the kind of spirit and character that’s going to make a true television star. That’s something that no other food competition cares about.”

  —Bob Tuschman

  Vivien was happy to take the salad course. “I’m very creative with salads,” she said. “I love my salads with a lot of texture.” The Selection Committee liked Vivien’s delicious, crunchy, flavorful salad but Bob said it had nothing to do with who she was.

  CHINESE CHICKEN SALAD

  Recipe courtesy Vivien Cunha

  Yield: 4 to 6 servings; dressing yields ½ cup • Prep Time: 40 minutes • Cook Time: 35 minutes • Ease of Preparation: easy to intermediate

  FOR THE CHICKEN

  1 cup chicken stock

  1 cup water

  2 chicken breast halves with bones (2½ pounds)

  1 teaspoon black peppercorns

  1 teaspoon kosher salt

  ½ onion

  1 carrot, cut into 4 pieces

  1 large piece fresh ginger, about 4 inches, sliced

  2 garlic cloves, smashed

  FOR THE DRESSING

  2 tablespoons rice vinegar

  2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

  1½ tablespoons Dijon mustard

  1 tablespoon soy sauce

  1 tablespoon honey

  FOR THE SALAD

  1 head romaine lettuce, thinly sliced

  1 head Belgian endive, cored and thinly sliced

  1 head radicchio, cored and thinly sliced

  1 small bulb fennel, cored and thinly sliced

  ¼ cup toasted pine nuts

  ¼ cup sliced scallions, white and some green, cut on the diagonal

  2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds, for garnish

  ¼ cup dried cranberries, for garnish

  1. FOR THE CHICKEN: Place the stock, water, chicken, peppercorns, salt, onion, carrot, ginger, and garlic in a large, deep skillet and bring to a boil. Simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, until the chicken is cooked. Let the chicken cool and shred it.

  2. FOR THE DRESSING: Mix all the dressing ingredients in a bowl and whisk to combine.

  3. FOR THE SALAD: Toss all the ingredients together, then combine with the shredded chicken and the dressing. Garnish with the sesame seeds and cranberries.

  what is CIOPPINO?

  Tommy made his cioppino for the soup course, but it’s more of a fish stew, originating in the San Francisco area around the 1930s and named (probably) for a Genoese word meaning, confusingly, “little soup.” Into the tomato-wine broth go crab, clams, shrimp, and some white fish—whatever is fresh at the fish counter.

  From the Green Market

  Colombe came up with a side dish that represented her healthy, fresh POV perfectly. As she explained, “It really looks like a salad that was inspired by a farmers market, and everything’s really fresh.” Colombe was even-keeled when she found out she had won the challenge. “I don’t want to let it get to my head,” she said.

  “The dish came to me on the fly, under a lot of pressure. Squash was in season. I immediately thought of all of the ingredients I could choose to bring out its naturally delicious flavor. It’s a cozy wintry dish that really reflects my seasonal, green market–driven style of cooking. I’ve also made it as a Thanksgiving side dish. I sometimes throw in spinach or arugula instead of beet greens.”

  —Colombe Jacobsen

  ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH

  with Beet Greens, Goat Cheese, Toasted Walnuts, and Mint

  Recipe courtesy Colombe Jacobsen

  Yield: 6 to 10 servings • Prep Time: 30 minutes • Cook Time: 30 minutes • Ease of Preparation: easy

  4 small butternut squash (6 to 8 pounds)

  2 tablespoons olive oil

  1½ teaspoons kosher salt, divided

  3 cups beet greens

  ¾ cup roughly chopped walnuts

  ¼ cup roughly chopped fresh mint leaves

  1 cup crumbled goat cheese

  ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more, to taste

  1. Preheat the oven to 425°F.

  2. Peel and seed the squash and cut into ½-inch cubes. Place on 2 baking sheets, drizzle with the olive oil, and season with 1 teaspoon of the salt. Coat evenly. Bake until softened and golden, 20 to 25 minutes.

  3. Wash, stem, and thinly slice the beet greens. Toast the walnuts in a medium-size skillet over medium-high heat.

  4. Remove the squash from the oven and toss with the beet greens, mint, and goat cheese. Top with the toasted walnuts. Add the ½ teaspoon salt and the pepper, or to taste, and serve warm.

  SPOTLIGHT ON

  WEDDING CRASHERS

  “It was a genuine wedding. This was when we stepped up the challenges and made them location-based, real-world challenges as opposed to doing demos in the studio. That was a very difficult challenge. You’re not just cooking for TV cameras, you’re cooking for someone’s biggest day.”

  —Bob Tuschman

  For their next challenge, the finalists arrived at the grand ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel, where they were faced by a huge, elaborate wedding cake and Duff Goldman, “the Ace of Cakes,” or “the bad boy of Food Network,” according to Tommy. Duff’s showcase cake took three people three days to make; finalists had ninety minutes to decorate theirs. As Bob Tuschman noted, even though they weren’t asked to actually bake the cake, this challenge didn’t play to anyone’s strengths. “It got them off on a very bad foot,” he said.

  The cakes took shape, often odd shapes, like Patrick’s asymmetrical design. (Patrick had practiced with a pastry chef before the show, just in case this kind of challenge came up.) Michael, sticking to basics and hoping for the best, used strawberry leaves, which aren’t renowned for taste. Vivien failed to realize that the challenge was for a wedding and made a cake with a Brazilian-flag theme in green, blue, and yellow. “It’s fantastic,” said Duff. “For a ten-year-old’s birthday party.” Paul’s cake, with a groom and groom on top, looked great, but Duff knew the cut fruit would melt the fondant. Rory’s luminescent creation was about half sugar and half cake.

  “I didn’t think this challenge was too tough. For some reason I didn’t realize the challenge called for a wedding cake, so I had fun with it!

  “It’s funny; I have had people ask me to re-create that cake on three different occasions. Now I am known to do these wild-looking cakes. So when people are looking for a funny cake that looks like their seven-year-old made it, they call me! Recently I made a red velvet cake with a caramel vanilla custard filling and cream cheese icing. It was bright blue with a blue-eyed horse’s head on the top with a yellow mane. Go figure.”

  —Rory Schepisi

  Who won? Amy, whose cake was the most wedding-appropria
te. But just when the finalists had wiped their hands clean of icing and fondant, Duff revealed another surprise. In walked chef Robert Irvine from Dinner: Impossible, who explained Part Two of the challenge. Finalists were to split into teams and cater a wedding for one hundred people. In six hours.

  As a prize for winning the first two challenges, Amy and Colombe were chosen as the team captains for the wedding dinner. For the Green Team, Amy picked all the caterers: Nikki, Paul, Patrick, Rory; Colombe’s Orange Team included Michael, Adrien, Josh, and Tommy. The odd woman out, Vivien, was offered a choice and picked Amy’s team.

  Chef Irvine: Scared?

  Amy: Yes.

  Chef Irvine: You should be.

  After Vivien chose to be on Amy’s team, Colombe got an extra five hundred dollars—twenty-three hundred in all—to spend at the store for cooking one person short. The bride, Jennifer, the groom, David, and their canine ring bearer, Mr. Foo, described what they wanted: a lot of vegetarian food, Indian, Thai . . . When Colombe and Michael shopped, Colombe, who was worried about the budget, ended up spending less than $800. As a result, the team was short of ingredients and seemed to be making too few dishes. “I’m kind of worried right now, for you,” said Chef Irvine.

  “The wedding challenge was not too stressful for me. After all, I’m a caterer, and cooking a meal for one hundred guests in six hours was pretty manageable. Our Green Team worked well together under Amy’s leadership.”

  —Paul McCullough

  Duff Goldman: A Q&A

  The cake decorating challenge was maybe the biggest train wreck ever on Star . . .

  Well, it’s one thing to ask someone who’s never cooked a steak before to cook a steak—no offense to anyone who cooks a steak—but you can pretty much figure it out. To decorate a cake is such a specialized thing. Finalists are under so much pressure and they’re doing something they’ve never done before. If I was offered a choice, “would you rather dismember a side of beef or decorate a cake?” I’d chose the side of beef. It’s easier.

  You could see how uneasy some of them were . . .

  You’re already afraid. Then you have all these TV cameras and people watching you. Then you have all these other people in there doing the same thing so fear is thick in the room. Everyone’s looking around to see if there’s a ringer. There’s always someone who did this before and will shine.

  Then you have me standing there. I don’t consider myself very threatening at all but I’m the guy with the show about decorating cakes. It was early and they were feeling their way on the show. And it was my first time and I was uncomfortable myself. Bobby came in and introduced everyone and said, “Okay, guys, here’s Duff. He knows about cakes. I’ll see you later. I’m going to soccer practice.” Great, thanks!

  So you were nervous yourself?

  Every time I’ve done it, I’ve been just as if not more nervous than the finalists. You have to run the thing and you have to be the professional. There are these people who want to do what I’m doing and I don’t even know what I’m doing.

  It helps the finalists feel comfortable because they see me screw up a lot. I’ll mess up a line, forget someone’s name, say something stupid and have to redo it. They’ll see that and say, “Oh. This is television.”

  Fondant has very specific properties, which some finalists were unfamiliar with.

  I worked in a number of different hotels and restaurants before I was a pastry chef and everywhere you work somebody needs to know how to bake a cake, put frosting on it, and put fondant on top. For some reason it fell to me because I had an artistic leaning. I could take something 2-D and wrap it around a cake and make it 3-D and make it look good. So I’ve worked with it forever.

  Even if they didn’t know it, the show set them up a little bit because they gave the finalists a lot of fresh fruit to play with. They had star fruit and strawberries and if you stick them on fondant, they’ll suck all the moisture out and it will start to melt. I don’t know if it was designed like that or the producers didn’t know. But it was a mess.

  Paul did put the two dudes on the cake and I gave him props for that. Like, man, good for you.

  “They weren’t great; they weren’t terrible. I’ve seen worse. I’ve done worse.”

  —Duff Goldman

  Thai’d Up

  The number of ingredients and the amount of prep work involved meant that Patrick really had to hustle to get his summer roll appetizer finished.

  “I got the recipe for this dish from a girl I went to culinary school with who was from Thailand. We became good friends and she taught me a lot about authentic Thai cuisine. Every time I make them there is something different. They are the hands-on portion of my cooking classes when we cover Thai cuisine.”

  —Patrick Rolfe

  THAI SUMMER ROLLS

  Recipe courtesy Patrick Rolfe

  Yield: 6 rolls • Prep Time: 20 minutes • Ease of Preparation: easy

  3 ounces rice noodles

  1 tablespoon rice vinegar

  6 spring-roll wrappers

  6 large fresh basil leaves

  12 fresh mint leaves

  24 slices drained pickled ginger

  1 small carrot, grated

  3 tablespoons fresh cilantro leaves

  Thai peanut sauce, for dipping

  Soak the rice noodles in very warm water until they are tender, about 10 minutes. Drain well and toss with the vinegar. Lay a clean kitchen towel on a cutting board. Dip a spring-roll wrapper in warm water for about 10 seconds to soften, then place it on the towel. Place 1 basil leaf on the lower half of the wrapper and top with some of the rice noodles. Add 2 mint leaves, 4 slices of the pickled ginger, some grated carrot, and ½ tablespoon of the cilantro. Fold the sides of the wrapper over the ingredients and, starting from the bottom end, roll up tightly. Place on a plate and cover with a damp paper towel. Repeat with the remaining spring-roll wrappers and ingredients. Slice each roll on the bias and serve with Thai peanut sauce.

  Dropping the Ball

  Tommy had said his Polenta Napoleon was going to be “a walk in the park.” He described the ingredients to both teams, and Paul from the other team noticed that the recipe, which was supposed to be vegetarian, called for chicken broth. Paul discussed it with Nikki, and they agreed not to say anything to the other team. But Tommy realized quickly enough that he had a problem, and Colombe and Jag devised a new vegetarian entrée. “I’m the badass in the kitchen,” Jag said proudly after thinking on his feet.

  When it was time to serve, Amy’s Green Team, which Robert described as “a happy family,” was ready to go; the Orange Team, which he said was not working well together, was lagging. The Orange Team’s buffet was quickly out of food, and when Bobby stepped in to start serving wedding guests, it seemed like the team’s fate as the losers of this challenge had been sealed.

  The judges made their way through the appetizers and entrées and waited for dessert.

  When shopping for the Green Team, Californians Amy and Paul hadn’t realized that New York supermarkets don’t sell alcohol, so Nikki was down a key ingredient for her dessert. Still, she moved ahead, despite a disagreement with Chef Irvine. She said her dish had crust. “So you’re making a pie?” said Chef Irvine.

  “Yes, a cobbler,” said Nikki.

  “That’s not how I understand a cobbler . . .”

  “Trust me,” said Nikki. “This is what I do, chef, this is what I do.”

  To which Chef Irvine replied, “And I don’t?”

  “Enjoying peach cobbler is an African-American tradition, and it’s guaranteed to be the centerpiece for all of our family celebrations. Of course I had to take it over the top, with a dollop of Dream Cream and a clever presentation. I don’t need any variations for this sweet treat. ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ ”

  —Nikki Shaw

  Nikki toasted the newlyweds: “May you guys have sweet dreams and a wonderful life.” Then she personally delivered her cobbler, served in martini glas
ses, to the Selection Committee. And dropped one on Bobby Flay.

  As Susie dabbed at his coat, Bobby said, “It’s only Calvin, don’t worry.” Clearly, this wasn’t the impression Nikki was hoping to make.

  “Dropping my dessert on Bobby Flay seemed to be a nightmare at the time. I remember holding my breath as I fought back the tears. He looked up at me and whispered, ‘Relax, Nikki, it’s okay. It’s not a big deal.’ I really needed that.”

  —Nikki Shaw

  “Nikki dropped that on me and everyone made a big deal out of it. I felt bad for her. I don’t care, I’ve had enough food spilled on me.”

  —Bobby Flay

  PEACH AND RASPBERRY COBBLER-TINIS

  with Dream Cream

  Recipe courtesy Nikki Shaw

  Yield: about 20 heavenly servings • Prep Time: 30 minutes • Cook Time: 1 hour 10 minutes • Ease of Preparation: intermediate

  Cooking spray or oil

  1 (12-ounce) package refrigerated pie crusts (2 crusts)

  3 (24-ounce) cans sliced peaches in juice

  1 pint raspberries, plus more for garnish

  4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, cubed