My mom’s a huge fan of Top Chef.   Sometimes in her emails she’ll tell me about the latest episode. When I talk to her she’ll ask me if I’ve been watching, and my response is always the same: “I don’t watch Top Chef.”

There’s a reason why I stayed away; I had a preconceived notion about the show: that it’d be a cross between The Apprentice (hated it) and The Restaurant (hated it, although it was vaguely compelling, like watching a car crash).  I was also convinced the contestants would be a bunch of no-talent petty backstabbers just looking to become the next celebrity chef.  Not appealing.

When I come home tired and cranky after a long day, I want to see Lidia Bastianich taste her gnocchi, or marvel at Jacques Pepin’s knife skills, or watch Claudia Bassols do, well, anything.  I look to food for relaxation, enjoyment and escapism (I remember reading somewhere that after 9/11, ratings for Food Network went up because that was one of the few channels where people could turn to and not be reminded of the tragedy).  

If I want to see nasty people doing nasty things to each other, I can go to work; that’s why I loathed The Apprentice, and that’s what I thought Top Chef would be like. But after my mom and cousin mentioned the show over Thanksgiving, I decided to give it a chance.

You know what?  I liked it.

Here were a group of talented, established chefs looking to win a cutthroat cooking competition, only they actually seemed to get along and genuinely support one another.  That was a surprise. One guy made a comment about wanting to be a celebrity chef like Bobby Flay, but everyone else seemed dead serious about their craft. The group as a whole were likable. And it was fun watching them scramble to cook their dishes under intense pressure and time constraints (Creme brulee in one hour?  Bad idea).

In this episode ironically enough, Rocco Dispirito showed up as a guest judge.  He was still full of himself, but toned down from The Restaurant days.

(Side note: Two years ago at a triathlon, my bike was racked only a few feet from Rocco’s.  I wanted to ask him how much of The Restaurant was staged, or if the cast were truly as big assholes as the show made them out to be, but it didn’t seem like the right time.)

I enjoyed the blatant product placement on Top Chef, like how they’d cut away from a shot and the camera would move to a logo for “Calphalon”, or when one chef won a challenge and Rocco gave away the prize — “A copy of my new book, Rocco Gets Real.”  Gee, thanks.

What’s with the “immunity”?  That’s basically a direct rip-off of Survivor.  Might as well end the show with a tribal council and surround the chefs with Jeff Probst and tikki torches.

My favorite part is the ludicrous tagline when a chef gets booted: “Please pack your knives and go,” which has to be the single goofiest variation of “You’re fired” out there — it’s time to come up with a better way to kick someone off a show.  

I think I’ll watch next week’s episode to see what happens. That Italian dude Fabio has to cook for a group of women at a bridal shower or something, and it looks interesting.  I don’t know if I’m hooked yet, but this Top Chef isn’t so bad.

What about you — are you a Top Chef fan?