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Top Chef Seattle premieres on Wednesday, November 7, at 10:00 pm ET/PT on Bravo. And folks at Bravo invited me to talk to celebrity Judge Wolfgang Puck and discuss the upcoming season.
What is Top Chef Seattle season ten about?
Bravo Media premieres “Top Chef: Seattle,” the tenth season of the Emmy and James Beard Award-winning series, on Wednesday, November 7. Famed chef and restaurant mogul Wolfgang Puck joins as a judge this season, alongside Tom Colicchio, Gail Simmons, Hugh Acheson and Emeril Lagasse with Padma Lakshmi returning as host, as 21 chef’testants compete for the “Top Chef” crown.
“Top Chef” offers a fascinating window into the competitive, pressure-filled environment of world-class cookery and the restaurant business at the highest level. The series features aspiring chefs who compete for their shot at culinary stardom and the chance to earn the title of “Top Chef.”
Each episode holds two challenges for the chefs. The first is a Quickfire test of their basic abilities and the second is a more involved elimination challenge designed to test the versatility and inventiveness of the chefs as they take on unique culinary trials such as working with unusual and exotic foods or catering for a range of demanding clients. The challenges not only test their skills in the kitchen, but also uncover if they have the customer service, management and teamwork abilities required of a Top Chef. The competing chefs live and breathe the high-pressure lifestyle that comes with being a master chef and each week someone is asked to “pack up their knives” and go home.
So, here, you can check out my interview with chef Wolfgang Puck about Top Chef Seattle.
Guillermo Paz: Hello Chef.
Wolfgang Puck: Hello.
Guillermo Paz: Hi. You mentioned recently about contestants getting a good day or a bad day. What’s the biggest advice you give new chefs to achieve consistency?
Wolfgang Puck: I think the most important thing when you are in a competition and you have, let’s say, ingredients you have to use make something you did already because none of the judges, you know, probably had it in our lifetime, so I think do something you feel confident with, not something completely new where you are not sure how many hours or how many minutes you have to cook it or if the seasoning is right or if the combinations of spices and herbs are right.
So I think to do something where they are familiar with what they did some already many times. I think I would suggest just to do that maybe in a different fashion. It’s okay. Maybe you don’t have the same fish or the same meat, but to do something you are familiar with. Don’t go and cook Indian food if you never cooked Indian food, you know?
Guillermo Paz: Yes, right. And just a follow-up to that, if you would help to make like an algorithm for the perfect dish what it would be in terms of flavor and presentation? What’s the combination for those?
Wolfgang Puck: Well I think the most important thing for me is to really buy the best ingredient. Like I just came from the fish market and I had the choice what should I buy a local Albacore from Maho Bay or a Bluefin Tuna, you know, which came from Portugal. And I said, “You know what? They fished the Albacore yesterday and it’s local, so I’m going to do that.” Now I’m going to make it up into something probably for tonight, you know.
But I think I generally try to buy the best quality and keep it simple. I don’t try to make too many decorations, too many things with it. I think I love like the Zen like Japanese approach, yet I love strong flavors too. Like I don’t mind if it looks clean and clear and you know what you are eating if it has Italian, Chinese or Japanese flavor I love them all.
Guillermo Paz: Now, specifically talking about the show: Any dish on the show that you could not stop eating or you wanted to get maybe like a doggie bag or something?
Wolfgang Puck: Wow, you know what? I have to remember them. No, I think there were a few dishes. Like I remember one person made a fried chicken, which was really good, and I love fried chicken. I could have taken it home or maybe there in Seattle go sit in the sunset, have a glass of wine and eat it, the picnic, take it with me.
Guillermo Paz: Okay and the follow-up to that, any dish you did not want to taste?
Wolfgang Puck: You know what? I looked at one fried chicken. I don’t know how they came up with it, but it was one of the worst fried chicken I ever ate. And also one of the omelets one of the guys made in the first segment. I said, “God just to look at it I don’t want to eat it. It looks like it came off the floor.”
Guillermo Paz: Okay. Thanks so much Chef and you’re invited to come to Argentina whenever you want to visit us.
Wolfgang Puck: I will come to Argentina very soon. Actually my, one of my, (sons) is in Buenos Aries right now. He just left on Monday. And one of my partner, Alex Resnik has a very tiny hotel there and he’s from Buenos Aries and so I’m going to go with him. And he owns a small vineyard in Mendoza, so it’s time for me to go and visit.
Guillermo Paz: Okay we’ll be waiting for you.
Wolfgang Puck: Okay. Thank you.
Will you watch Top Chef Seattle on Wednesday, November 7, at 10:00 pm ET/PT on Bravo? Let me know in the comments section. Also follow me on Twitter for more Interviews with celebrities.