Dessert: you’d think that every contestant would know that dessert is the nemesis of most that have preceeded them and would memorise a recipe or two in anticipation of having to bang out a dessert.
Improvisation: one thing I am trying to achieve by “Cooking Colicchio” is to be able to improv – to buy what looks great at the farmers market and turn it in to dinner. To take the random things that accumulate in the cupboard and make a meal. Do you remember the game show “Ready Set Cook”? Someone would have $15 or $50 to shop – always ending up with a crazy ensemble of ingredients – and the cooks would compete (with the help of an incredibly well-stocked pantry) to create a multi-course meal.
In some sense, every Top Chef challenge involves an element of improvisation – there’s a time limit, ingredient limit, a twist, a catch. In lieu of the TC drinking game, we debate our approaches to the challenges. It’s harder than it look 
That said —
Why didn’t the sober, barely purple, not-sausage creators go home? I’d make a choucroute of sorts – sausage, braised in beer, purple cabbage……
Green and Perplexed: my first thought was curry. Marinating tofu in beef fat would never occur to me – that was absolutely brilliant.
Hospitality: WTF were those ladies thinking, doing shots in front of their guests and not including the guests in the toast?!!
