Halfway checkpoint

So now that Top Chef: Just Desserts has eliminated half of this season's contestants, I wanted to do a bit of a recap and offer my thoughts on this season so far. 

There are a couple of noticeable differences between the current season and the last season.  First, there has been much more of an emphasis on team challenges with each group focusing on one final product/presentation.  They have started to stray away from group work and have started to shift toward more individual desserts in the last few episodes.  We'll have to wait and see if individual desserts will be the new focus.  Although, the next episode seems to revert back to a team challenge with a chocolate showpiece as the main challenge.

Another difference I noticed is that this season's contestants are allowed to have access to recipes.  From the looks of it, each competitor is allowed to keep a notebook filled with recipes of their choosing.  I'm assuming these notebooks were issued and reviewed by the show's producers, but this change has yet to be (and will likely never be) addressed.  This provides for quite the advantage to the competitors.  It makes me wonder how they would fair without this privilege.  I'm also curious as to what brought about this change...

My favorite episodes so far are Pure Imagination for the nostalgic effect it had on me, and Sabotage for the difficulty of the challenge.  'Sabotage' was especially intriguing to me because it challenged the contestants to create desserts with ingredients that are not normally associated with desserts.  Can you imagine what desserts made with ingredients like chicken, pork and beans, pizza, peas, or mashed potatoes would be like?  I know I'd have no clue of what to do with those ingredients, but the creativity of the chefs really came through!  Check out a couple of the dishes from the Sabotage episode:



Sally's Prosciutto Cake,  Chicken Toffee Sauce, and Cheddar Ice Cream



Matthew's Cornbread and Mashed Potato Cheesecake, Whiskey Caramel, and Gravy Foam



In terms of contestants, my favorites that I previously picked out are all still in the running and have been showing great promise for making it to the finale.  After seeing more of each chef's skills, I am now thinking that the three most likely to be in the finale are Matthew Petersen, Carlos Enriquez, and Chris Hanmer, who I previously selected as a front runner.  All three of these chefs have shown that they have the creativity and skills to consistently win over the judges.  I think Sally is still someone to consider since she has been coming on strong the last couple of episodes.  Orlando, on the other hand, is extremely talented, but I feel he is questionable in the decision-making department.  I was sad to see Rebecca Masson get eliminated in the most recent episode.  She was my dark horse and I love her personality!

Just a few more episodes until the finale.  Can't wait to see how it all goes down.  So exciting!!  :D