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I would like to know which knife brand do most of the "top chef" chefs prefer.

Richard,
First let me echo that you should have won last season. You had , consitantly , outstanding dishes, some of which I never saw. It's unfortunate that you chose Pork Belly for your final dish. Being southern, I've used pork belly (salt pork, side meat, fat back, or whatever you want to call it) to season greens, beans etc. Never have I used it for a main dish, but that's just me.

Now for the best part. I LOVE that you are giving us "behind the scenes" info. Your posts are the most interesting to me. I always wondered about such things and now with your post, I have answers.

Keep it up.....

Chef- great blog, glad to have your POV adding to the season! Keep it up!

@Lynda - Actually, if you watch S-1, Harold kvetched all the time. He complained about pretty much every challenge until the wine-truffle contest. Of course, he also won most of them.

As for all the wonderful techniques and ingredients, it just reinforces my contention that Top Chef is to most cooking (including most restaurant cooking) as the NFL is to touch-football with your family on Thanksgiving. Both of them, pro and home version, are fun. But they are very different animals.

Love the grumpy old man reference, Richard, haha.

I'm oooooold! And I'm not happy! And I don't like things now compared to the way they used to be. All this progress -- phooey! In my day, we didn't have these cash machines that would give you money when you needed it. There was only one bank in each state -- it was open only one hour a year. And you'd get in line, seventeen miles long, and the line became an angry mob of people -- fornicators and thieves, mutant children and circus freaks -- and you waited for years and by the time you got to the teller, you were senile and arthritic and you couldn't remember your own name. You were born, got in line, and ya died! And that's the way it was and we liked it!

Thanks for this breakdown of the equipment. It's particularly nice to get this, given how less and less camera time is being given to the actual food preparation these days. And thank you for mentioning pressure cookers. I have been wondering why we see so little use of them, given the time constraints on Top Chef. It seems to me that pressure cookers would open up a whole new range of possibilities for ingredients that would usually need much more time to be made edible than is usually afforded in the challenges.

Awesome blog! Thanks for the inside look at some of the equipment that are available for use in the challenges. Can you give us an inside look at the food and other ingredients that are available? It always amazes me - especially in the quickfires - how the cheftestants can find what they need so quickly to produce such amazing food.

I always enjoy your blogs. I like how you break down certain elements so that the layperson, that would be me, may not look for. I think it is very interesting and even telling that TC continues to upgrade each season. It means that the show itself is growing and learning about what chefs use and it is a good way of showing the public on how we can expect or theorize how our food is prepared when we go out to eat.

Thanks Chef!! I love info like this, it always makes me feel like I've got an inside line. And a reason to pause the Tivo and go back...my hubby and I have to watch TC separately because of this.

Hi Richard, thanks for the good inside info. But, what do you mean by a secret tool or ingredient? Are the chef contestants allowed to bring their own equipment and ingredients, or are they kept hidden from the rest? Please explain.
TIA