Author: Gail Simmons (1-10 of 12)

Mar 1 2012 02:01 AM ET

Gail Simmons blogs 'Top Chef' season 9 finale: And the winner is...

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Gail-Simmons

Image Credit: Scott McDermott/Bravo

As told to Nuzhat Naoreen.

It was a great season. It felt different for all of us, partially because of the chefs and the locations and some of the challenges that were so special. It was very memorable for me. I’m excited that we have a winner but I’m also sad it had to end.

[The finale challenge is different from] restaurant wars because one chef is in charge, as opposed to a team that’s involved. This has nothing to do with any of the other contestants, this is one chef’s vision, personality, and culinary style. It really gets to showcase who they are as chefs. We [had a similar finale challenge] for season 8 All-Stars as well. We realized that it’s just a much more realistic challenge for chefs of this caliber. It used to be that they’d have to cook for 10 or 15 of us [in the finale, and] serve everyone at once banquet style. But that’s not what a chef does in a restaurant every day. They have to serve many, many people and every batch of food, every plate that goes out has to be the same and has to be consistent. This really mimicked a restaurant experience much more. As the chefs get better every season we really change the finale. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 23 2012 02:01 AM ET

Gail Simmons blogs 'Top Chef:' And then there were two...

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Gail-Simmons

Image Credit: Scott McDermott/Bravo

As told to Nuzhat Naoreen.

I was hoping the contestants would think a little bit outside of the box and really dive into the [fire and ice] idea. We didn’t ask them to be super literal. Fire can mean many things, and so can ice. [Fire] can mean color, it can mean heat as in temperature, or heat as in spice, [and] ice can mean how something looks [or] the method with which you make it. Our chefs did well, the food was good but I was hoping they would all take a little more liberty with the interpretation than they actually did.

It’s funny, when we give [the chefs] too much direction and instruction they get mad because they just want to cook their own food and when we give them not enough and just let them have fun, sometimes they’re so used to the instruction that they get stuck in their own heads. In the end, we were all happy with the results. They all did very different things [and] they did some really creative things — we [had] just hoped they would go all out for the second-to-last episode of the season. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 16 2012 02:01 AM ET

Gail Simmons blogs 'Top Chef:' Guns, gondolas and ice picks...let the games begin!

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Gail-Simmons

Image Credit: Scott McDermott/Bravo

As told to Nuzhat Naoreen.

[Shooting in the cold weather] changes the way you cook, especially when you actually have to cook outside, which we made the cooks do, for better or for worse. It also just allowed us to do so many different things for the challenges that we’ve never done before. [We were able to] have [the contestants] face a complete extreme opposite situation than they faced in Texas. We went from 116 degrees everyday to 20 degrees, which was a bit of a shock for all of us.

[In terms of the gondola challenge], altitude affects the rate at which things cook, it affects the rate at which water boils, and if you’re not used to it and don’t account for it, it really will change a cook time. So, when you only have 22 seconds and you need to get water boiling, you need to make a sauce, you need to sear your meat, you really need to pay close attention or the results will not be what you expect. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 9 2012 02:01 AM ET

Gail Simmons blogs 'Top Chef:' [Spoiler!] makes a triumphant return

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Gail-Simmons

Image Credit: Scott McDermott/Bravo

As told to Nuzhat Naoreen.

[SPOILER ALERT: Keep reading only if you've watched Wednesday night's episode of Top Chef! Or if you don't care to be spoiled...]

Beverly is back. I mean come on, it’s amazing and we didn’t even script that. I think the [chefs] were rightly a little shocked. It was [probably] hard for them to digest that someone was coming back to begin with no matter who it was. Here they were thinking they were the final four, and now they have to take a step backwards and fight even harder. That was a huge blow. [On top of that], it was Beverly, who I think that they don’t believe is as good as they are and who I think they have some personal issues with. I think it was a hard pill to swallow — especially for Sarah and Lindsay. But the truth is, Bev clawed her way to the top, and not by acting mean and not by hitting below the belt, but by cooking her heart out on Last Kitchen. She deserves to be there as much as anyone else. READ FULL STORY »

Feb 2 2012 02:01 AM ET

Gail Simmons blogs 'Top Chef': Redeeming the Alamo for Pee-wee Herman

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Gail-Simmons

Image Credit: Scott McDermott/Bravo

As told to Nuzhat Naoreen.
I love Pee-Wee Herman. I watched Pee-Wee’s Playhouse every Saturday morning growing up. My brother and I used to do impressions and joke about him all day long, so I was really excited to have him on the show. I have to say, he is a really great actor. The most amazing part about meeting Pee-Wee Herman was also meeting Paul Reubens. We get so used to this persona, this stage personality that he’s created, that we forget that that’s not Paul Reubens at all. He turns off [the persona] and opens a beer and sits down and wants to talk about music and food. [He] told us some really amazing stories about his life over the years and [about] how the character Pee-Wee Herman came about. We had so much fun with him. We were with him for two days and it was really exciting. He was really one of my favorite guest judges ever. He just brought so much joy and nostalgia and fun to the set. READ FULL STORY »

Jan 5 2012 01:00 AM ET

Gail Simmons blogs episode 9 of 'Top Chef: Texas:' Skewered at the judges' table

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Gail-Simmons

Image Credit: Scott McDermott/Bravo

As told to Nuzhat Naoreen

For many reasons, I thought there was a big weight on our chefs during this episode. The fact that obviously we were in Texas, they knew that this challenge was coming. We did it at the Salt Lick, which is really a legendary barbecue spot. Not only was the owner with us, but Nathan Myhrvold was with us, and we were all a little nervous to have him on the show because his reputation precedes him. About a year ago, he came out with this extraordinary tome of a book called Modernist Cuisine. He was the first person to really put down in a comprehensive way all the tenants of cooking, and [how] it’s really not just about foam and fancy tricks. It’s basically an encyclopedia of technique. Not only did he create this book, but he’s also a barbecue champion, which you think would be counter-intuitive to modernist cuisine, but it actually gets at the heart of it in so many ways. Understanding the science of barbecue, why barbecue is cooked overnight, why it’s cooked so low, what happens to the meat, how to infuse it with the most flavor, and how to make sure the texture is right — all of these components are so vital in understanding how to make successful barbecue, and that’s what he has really mastered. We were all in awe of him. READ FULL STORY »

Dec 1 2011 02:01 AM ET

Gail Simmons Blogs Episode 5 of 'Top Chef: Texas:' The Edible Cigar

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Gail-Simmons

Image Credit: Scott McDermott/Bravo

As told to Nuzhat Naoreen.

I haven’t been [to a progressive dinner party before]. I don’t know how often they’re done, truthfully. It seems to me like progressive dinner parties would require you to have a lot of staff because if you are in charge of [cooking] dinner, it would be hard to be eating the appetizer at someone else’s house and then going to your house for dinner. I mean it would take a lot of organization, advanced planning or, a staff of chefs like the Top Chefs to pull it off. READ FULL STORY »

Nov 24 2011 02:00 AM ET

Gail Simmons Blogs episode 4 of 'Top Chef: Texas': Turning up the heat

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Gail-Simmons

Image Credit: Scott McDermott/Bravo

As told to Nuzhat Naoreen

I thought the [contestants] did a great job [at the chili cook-off]. It was really fun. I love chili. Texas chili is very specific. I’d never been to a rodeo before, so it was great to be at an event like that.

Chili is very, very regional. It’s sort of like a bolognese in Italy. Everyone has their own very specific recipe. Every region within Texas and also across the Southwest makes their own type of chili and every chili is made differently, so sometimes it takes six hours, sometimes it takes 16. But to make a great chili you definitely need to give it time. You can’t rush the meat. You want to make it as tender as possible. You want to cook it on a low heat for a long period of time. The flavor of the meat [should be] in the actual stewing liquid itself. READ FULL STORY »

Nov 3 2011 02:00 AM ET

Gail Simmons blogs 'Top Chef: Texas' season premiere

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Tags: , , , , , About Last Night, Food and Drink, Reality TV, Television, Top Chef, TV
Gail-Simmons

Image Credit: cott McDermott/Bravo

Texas was hot. This season was shot over the summer and it was the hottest summer on record in Texas in several years, so that was interesting timing, but it was also amazing. We were in three different cities in Texas and we had a lot of fun in all of them. We found a lot of local culture and we were able to play to that on the show. It just has a look and feel that is totally different than anything we have ever done before which lends itself to a lot of new creative pieces we were able to put into the show.

This is our ninth season, which we’re really proud of. After eight seasons in a format, I think we all felt that we wanted to up the stakes. We wanted to make it bigger and better because that’s what we strive for every year. We do that in a number of different ways this season, and you’ll see that as the season moves along, but specifically we thought it would be great to bring the viewer into the casting process and make that a really big piece of the show. It could be a little bit confusing because we’re trying something totally new but I think it really pays off in a great way. You get a different cast than you would have if it had been 100 percent just chosen by the producers.  READ FULL STORY »

Dec 23 2010 02:00 AM ET

Gail Simmons blogs 'Top Chef: All-Stars': Episode 4

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Tags: , , , , , , , About Last Night, Food and Drink, Reality TV, Television, Top Chef, TV

Gail-SimmonsBefore we get to this week’s episode, I have some parting thoughts about recent eliminees Stephen and Dale. Stephen was in over his head and I think he knew it. He made no excuses for it. As for Dale, he’s a really great cook, but he does get over-excited and tends to put too much on the plate. When he’s focused he’s really great at keeping things simple. Interestingly enough, in the season 3 finale, I remember that was his problem when he lost to Hung. Some dishes were so focused and beautiful, but for others, he tried to do too many things. But he took responsibility last week as well. He knew it wasn’t his best work. It’s hard to emulate another chef’s idea or take inspiration. These chefs are so established and so known for specific types of food. You have to be careful.

Whenever I’m out for an episode, I call Tom the next day and ask what happened. Nothing formal. But if there’s a big dramatic point that changed the game, the producers will call me the day after and bring me up to speed. Actually, we always have a meeting at the beginning of the day to make sure we understand the challenge and the rules, and they’ll always give us back up if needed if we weren’t there for the last challenge.

I watched the Quickfire as a viewer like you, and to me, a lot of the stuffing seemed really inventive, especially knowing they had no tools to work with. I’m Canadian and I didn’t grow up with Thanksgiving, and I’m Jewish so I didn’t really grow up with Christmas, so I don’t have a family recipe I’m partial to. But I’ve definitely had some bad and good stuffing over the years. I thought Tre’s did look great, like something I’d want to eat. It was savory and had spice, so I was glad he took that one. READ FULL STORY »

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