#i love her so much the first time she called zag little sprout i was like OH!!!!!

[toonjuiced]

caregiver demeter ❄️🌨️ [ x x x ]

demeter would be beside herself to find out she has a little one to take care of. she has a bounty of love to give, even if she doesn't let herself show it often

strict and firm. has rules for bedtime, for snacks, for playing. is not lax about her rules, either

will never raise her voice at you. she's stern, but she never shouts, and will always explain herself if something you've done has upset her and why

cold hands. she laughs when you try to warm them up by holding them. even though it never works you try all the time

some of the only times she genuinely laughs is with you, and to hear it makes you so happy

is always wearing something soft for you to touch. it makes her very easy to curl up against and fall asleep

naps are the one thing that she's lenient about. how could she wake you up when you look so sweet and peaceful?

calls you little sprout, of course

her presence becomes known to you, and you can tell when she's checking in on you after a while, even if she isn't around physically. the air cools just a little bit

she tends to stand behind you and rest her hand on your shoulder when you're together, out and about. sometimes on your head, too, but she won't mess with your hair

is always fixing your clothes and appearance in little ways. brushing hair behind your ear or fixing your collar when it pops up, brushing stray hairs from your coat

loves for you to play outside. would take you to visit persephone often, if they were in contact. she wants you to walk amongst all the flowers and produce and admire them

would tell you endless things about different crops and climates and plants. about all the different conditions to grow things in, and how to keep your soil fresh, and how you can tell that spring is coming

has many stories to tell, at that. she's got centuries of things to share. your favorite is the story about the first harvest she ever created

never wants you in contact with the winter and snow. hates to imagine you shivering in the bitterness of her own creation. steers you far from anywhere that isn't comfortably temperate

she'll conjure little snowflakes, though, for you to try and catch and look at before they melt in your palms. she likes watching you interact with it in a controlled manner where she can make sure that you're safe

worries about you coming into any sort of harm, no matter it be from another olympian or from the weather outside

she always smells so nice, especially the furs and coats that she wears.. it's hard to describe, sweet and fresh and unique to her

she leaves you with one of her coats and switches them out often, since she knows that you love how they smell and feel, and when she can't be around they're there to comfort you

very insistent that you dress for the weather always. sunscreen, raincoat, boots, whatever is called for you will have on when you leave the house with her

an independent caregiver. doesn't leave you with others often, as she doesn't think anyone can care for you as well as she can

if anyone, she'd trust you to persephone or zagreus, and that's it. she doesn't have a lot of connections and would rather eat dirt than leave you alone with most of the olympians

she struggles to avoid hovering, but you love her doting nature and don't mind the attention

[anewkaiju]

Top Chef Los Angeles Recap: Episode 1

These are strange times. There has always been an element of the unknown to our day-to-day, but typically it's only ever discussed or thought about in terms of limitless potential and never-ending, never-ceasing possibility. Of course, there's also always been a flip side to that element of unknown. You know it. The dread-inducing one. The one no one ever wants to bring up, delve into, wrestle with, or even talk about really. It's hard to say for sure, but that may be where we are now. Or maybe it isn't, and all will be well eventually. This shit is so strange and is going to take time to figure out, but we all have to figure it out and our best chance at figuring it out is considering our community and working together. So, we got that going for us.

These are also strange times that require certain measures to be taken to keep everything hammered down and in place. Put another way, a little TV is needed in order to provide some sort of sense of stability. Put yet another way, it'll help keep shit together. Which is how, we have ended up here. For reasons that are not entirely clear to me (yet) an idea formed in front of me that this latest season of Top Chef (the 17th one) needs to be written about. So, here we are.

The first thing to note about the new season of Top Chef is that it is an All-Star season, which just means that these are all contestants who have been on the show before and have now been invited back. This raises immediate questions in my mind concerning how one becomes a Top Chef All-Star. On what basis exactly is a chef measured to make this sort of call? This doesn't feel like something we can compare to the NBA's All-Star selection process. There, they have the fans for the starters and then league coaches and members of the press vote for the reserves. So, with this cast, are we supposed to believe these are fan favorites or have these chefs been chosen because the people who watch food most closely believe them to be the best? Little of both?

One of the other things about Top Chef and watching Top Chef, at least for me, is that maybe that stuff doesn't matter. You could try to handicap this show and identify the frontrunner and the number one contender and track everyone's progress through that lens, but that grows old eventually. In my mind, the show is at its best when someone is dialed in and making what feels like the best food they've ever made in their entire life. A lot of the time this individual making what feels like the best food they've ever made is painted as the underdog, and that's fine. Watching an underdog zig and zag their way through a competition, defy the odds and then take the title makes for pretty good entertainment. It's also one of those things where there's a lot of talk about James Beard nominations and "features in Food & Wine magazine" and it all sounds really impressive, but what do those accolades actually mean, and more importantly for our purposes, what do those accolades mean for TV? Where's your resume when you're cooking in the snow on the side of a mountain? Also, what does pedigree matter when so often on this show the judges slam someone for cutting corners or ignoring fundamentals? It's also important to note that I know almost nothing about food aside from what I have discerned from watching this show.

How food is thought about and talked about on TV and the internet has changed considerably over the last few years. In the early to mid 2000s, 'good cooking' was more often than not presented and defined as all about splashy presentation, style and a million other things going on at once. The term "celebrity chef" originated around this time to describe someone who is now famous because they cook. Your signature could just be a wild looking plate. This isn't meant to put down food artists, but perhaps some passes were given that shouldn't have been. It's like if you could talk it up enough and find the right wrapping for it then, magically, no questions are asked and what you are putting out into the world doesn't have to be fact or quality checked. This all works on the timeline too as this was also a period in history were there lots of bad rappers at the top (50 Cent, Ja Rule, etc) and the NBA was mired in this weird post-Jordan funk.

It's almost as if things had to pivot back in on itself. These days, simplicity is celebrated. Or maybe it has always been essential and I am just dumb. Either way, let's call this foggy idea the Chef's Table Effect. Now, with chefs, you want to know about their approach to food and what their mindset is like. We want to know how they look at food and how they get it. We want to learn about real, living, breathing chefs and not just be told about someone who is now famous because they cook. In early seasons of Top Chef, there were more personalties, people who just wanted to rub elbows with celebrities and put their names on restaurants. Over time, that has subsided some and when it does happen it comes across as much more transparent. The good chefs emerge no matter what. Their personalties reveal themselves in their own time (call this the Kawhi effect if you must,) and because they are making 'good' food it's all that much more enjoyable/rewarding to watch. We are in this time where food is considered in more serious terms, and as a result, we get more grounded, thoughtful food TV programming. I like to think of it as more of an actual uprising. Everyone collectively all at once had one too many exploding shrimp cocktails bathed in brandy and bedded in dry ice and began asking questions about what we are doing here exactly. With that in mind,

The episode itself was fairly straight-forward. The chefs show up. They are asked to do a mise en place, which is like a prep work drill essentially but since this is a competition show there's a real emphasis on speed and accuracy. There were artichokes, oranges and almonds, and it was explained, that the first five chefs to break down their artichokes would form a team and be allowed to leave for a kitchen right away. When this happens, all remaining chefs would stop with whatever artichoke business they may have left and shift their attention to the oranges. Once five chefs had handled their oranges sufficiently they would then become the second team and then be allowed to head for the kitchen. Everyone left with the almonds would take on the mantle of the third team, and be allowed to move to the kitchen once they were all finished. This opening challenge served mostly as a shakeout session to get things moving and for viewers at home to see if anyone is trying out a new style, whether it be a cooking flourish or a new haircut.

After the mad dash mise en place, the chefs are once again sorted into teams, although, this time around, they go into five teams of three as opposed to three teams of five. For the main challenge of this episode, each team has been asked to make a cohesive, family-style seafood meal over a single open flame and an open flame only for a table of esteemed, established chefs and cuisine writers.  

here is what they presented:

Melissa: Grilled Swordfish with hot & sour sauce, ember grilled radicchio and fresno chiles

Karen: Grilled scallops, gingered plums, nuoc cham and nappa cabbage slaw

Angelo: West coast oyster with smoked bacon rice porridge

Bryan: Sea urchin, spot prawns with hibiscus ponzu and burnt avocado

Joe: Sesame and semolina flatbread with clams, fried garlic, sea urchin, pickled peppers and miso parmesan aioli

Lee Anne: Shoyu Tare Glazed Halibut with charred sweet corn and cabbage, sea urchin and uni miso beurre blanc

Gregory: Charred salmon with grilled peaches and roasted chili dressing

Jamie: Steamed mussels with ember scaled cream and toasted bread

Stephanie: Brined prawn with charred tomato sauce and roasted corn dressing

Jennifer: Spiced tuna loin over grilled kale with red pepper tahini sauce

Nini: Grilled scallops, carrots, tomatoes with charred brussels sprout & fennel salad

Kevin: Eye of swordfish braised in chorizo with coal-roasted onion, olives and peas

Lisa: Charred shrimp and scallop ceviche with candied squash, mushrooms and avocado

Bryan V.: Sablefish with corn porridge and charred leeks

Eric: Chesapeake boil with grilled prawn

It's striking looking at all of these dishes written out. Granted, this is being written from a position of hindsight, but it's so clear which dishes were a hit and which were not. Again, I'm not very bright so this isn't a food know-how thing. It's just a words thing. The most composed, concise dishes were the ones that elicited acclaim. This should maybe be a working rule. If the description of your dish runs over a line long, then you might be in trouble. (You might be looking at Lisa's dish and noticing that it runs over, but it's just barely. She's a great chef who is being oddly slept-on already. She went all the way to the final in her season and has a very no nonsense, quiet drive.)

Anyway, the judges loved Gregory, Jamie and Stephanie's meal with Gregory taking the overall win. Joe, Lee Anne and Bryan had far and away the least liked dish. The challenge called for a family-style meal, indicating that everything will end up on the same plate, so the two sauces made that one flatbread mad soggy. Joe went home for it. (Lee Anne ran into some issues on the grill, but these things happen and Padma said there was a lot to like about her dish. Lee Anne was also on the very first season of Top Chef and the last time anyone saw her was a few seasons back when she surprise-returned. In that episode, the challenge was to cook over an open flame in four feet of snow on the side of a Colorado mountain. Lee Anne was four months pregnant. After she knocked out her dish, she seemingly achieved clarity and announced to everyone that she was going home to prepare for the birth of her child.)

For whatever reason, it tends to take a few episodes before the show really starts moving. There will probably be a few more wild-sounding challenges under even more wild-sounding circumstances. Based off of the "this season on Top Chef" tease shown at the end of the episode, the competitors visit at least one museum and at least one stadium. The official title of this season is Top Chef: Los Angeles which would suggest that everything will be contained to the city of Los Angeles as opposed to the entire state.

There was also a moment in the tease where actor Danny Trejo, star of Machete, Machete Kills and the forever-stuck-in-development Machete In Space, can clearly be seen visiting the Top Chef kitchen which is wildly encouraging.