Claudette has a shot at redemption.
- It's my time to cook my food and just start
knocking heads, one by one.
- Will she find the confidence
to put her own flavors on the plate?
What did I ever do to you? - I don't know,
maybe kick me out. - That wasn't me.
Or will she become another casualty of the vets?
- Yep, that's it.
- How's it look, Kwame?
- Ugh.
- I mean, I'm definitely
smoking something over here.
- This is "Last Chance Kitchen,"
brought to you by Hidden Valley Ranch.
[dramatic music]
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
- The only thing that I can think of
when I see Lee Anne,
Marcel, and Kwame
is that I gotta go up against them.
What the hell's going on?
I'm really surprised, but I am not fazed
by these vets.
- Hey, Claudette.
Welcome to "Last Chance Kitchen."
- Thanks.
- Do you recognize any of these guys here?
- Yes. - Yeah.
This one's a little different. So, these "Top Chef" veterans
have already cooked in two rounds.
We start with four veterans,
so they took out Jen Carroll,
Melissa,
and here's Jen and Melissa.
- Hello.
- Now they're up against you.
- I came in talking a big game
about my food in Mexico,
and I wasn't able to show it,
but coming back to "Last Chance Kitchen,"
I can't wait to just kick ass.
- So, the four of you will compete today,
but only three will go on to the next round
- Claudette has that sort of
je ne sais quoi
that it looks like she can cook.
You know, it looks like she can throw down.
- Nervous?
No, you don't look nervous.
You look relaxed.
- It's just cooking, right?
- It's just cooking.
You're absolutely right,
although this one's
going to scare me a little bit.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
So, Claudette, you made your mistake
during the cheese challenge.
You didn't seem to really embrace
the cheese part of it.
- Last night, I thought of
doing the zucchini cooked,
with the pecora rind.
Would've been just that--
more of that cheese-forward dish.
- Why did you hold back? Why didn't you assert yourself?
- Because it was a 50/50, like, give and take.
- Today, you'll have a chance to redeem yourself,
but you'll be using the less glamorous
parts of the cheese-making process.
Today, we have the curds and the whey.
So you all know that nursery rhyme, right?
How does it go?
"Little Miss Muffet, sat on her tuffet,
"eating her curds and whey.
Along came a--"
- Spider?
[dramatic music]
- A tarantula. - Oh.
- "And sat down beside her."
- [laughs]
- Tarantulas, really?
- Yeah, tarantulas. Really.
Yeah. You okay, Kwame?
- I--I don't really like bugs.
- Me neither.
- This is a first for me. - This is a first for me, yeah.
- I've cooked with weirder sh--.
[laughs]
- You cooked weirder sh-- than this?
- Oh, yeah. - Like what?
- I've cooked fresh ant larvae.
I've cooked, uh,
the
straight from the actual plant when it rains.
- Wow.
- Okay.
I--I may get frightened away
of this.
- Oh, my God. - Anyway,
each of you must make an innovative dish
that incorporates curds, whey,
and, of course, our little friend.
You have 20 minutes on the clock,
and your time starts...
now.
[energetic synth music]
♪ ♪
- [coos]
♪ ♪
- [sighs] Okay.
- How's it look, Kwame?
♪ ♪
- Ugh.
[laughter]
- I hate bugs so much,
especially spiders.
That's my ultimate fear,
and now I have to cook with them?
Like, really? What am I gonna do?
♪ ♪
So once I get locked in, I'm like, "I have to do this.
"I'm here. There's no turning back
right now,"
so I taste the spiders,
the first thing I do,
and it tastes extremely earthy,
like a dry porcini or a dry morel.
Mm. Uh-huh.
- Kwame, how's your, uh, tarantula?
- It's amazing.
Oh, he's dry.
I was afraid he was gonna be, like, wet.
- Like, soaking wet?
- Yeah. I mean, I'm kinda into this.
- Taste it first before you say that.
- You know, I bite off a little piece of the leg,
and taste it.
Oh, yeah, okay.
That's--that's spider.
I feel like I'm handling the tarantula pretty well,
and I'm catching a stride here.
I mean, I won the last challenge.
You know, it's momentum to keep on pushing.
- Oh, that's disgusting.
- No whey.
- Tom is looking to not eat tarantula today,
but he's gonna have to,
so I kinda wanna disguise it a little bit,
so I decide that I wanna make fried cheese curds
and fried tarantula over grime time.
So, grime time is kinda like
movie theater nacho cheese
that is so bad, but so good,
and you can't stop eating it.
You could literally dip anything into it,
and it still tastes good.
- 15:20.
Claudette, how're you gonna use that tarantula?
She's in a zone. [laughs]
- Today I'm making a ha sikil pak,
which is closest to, uh, guacamole,
if you were to remove the avocados
and roast all the vegetables with pumpkin seeds.
I was eliminated because I didn't do my food,
so it's my time to cook my food
and, you know, just start knocking heads, one by one.
- Marcel, what are you smoking?
- I mean, I'm definitely smoking something over here.
I'm cooking tarantulas.
You know, back when I was in old Napoli,
those guys made the mozzarella with their hands
and they just put their hands right in the water.
I never knew how they did it. So hot.
I actually spent a lot of time in Napoli,
which is where I learned how to make fresh mozzarella.
I never thought I'd be making a, uh,
tarantula caprese salad, but...
[sucks teeth] You know, here we are.
"Last Chance Kitchen."
♪ ♪
- Let's go, Claudette. Handle that tarantula.
♪ ♪
- I'm making a flatbread,
'cause how can I mask this tarantula
to where it just tastes good?
And covering it in cheese is the only way.
- 11 minutes!
- Aah! What are you making
with this-- - Uh, I just made a little
mozzarella.
- So tomato, mozzarella, and tarantula, yeah.
- I like 'em. It kind of reminds me
of, like, a dried Kalamata. You know?
- Maybe reconstitute them with a little olive oil.
Get the-- moisten them up a little bit.
- Chef, I, uh-- - What do you think?
- I'm losing it again.
I got it. All right, whatever.
- Kwame, what are you doing? - I'm doing a flatbread.
Crispy tarantula. - Flatbread.
- Uh, tomato whey sauce.
- A crispy tarantula?
- Enjoy.
- I can't wait. - [laughs]
I overcame a fear. Like, I ate a spider.
I didn't come back on "Last Chance Kitchen"
for no reason.
"Top Chef" opened up
so many doors for me.
Just want to continue.
I never wanna stop growing.
- Is your tarantula in there?
- [laughs] - I want to give you
the full experience.
You're gonna get all up in your face.
I think the other three competitors
are gonna try to mask the tarantula flavor,
but I want him to actually take a bite of it
and show him how bugs can be delicious,
so I'm just gonna lightly fry the spider as-is,
and then garnish it on top.
- What did I ever do to you? - I don't know,
maybe kick me out? - That wasn't me.
There were several people up there.
- Bullsh--. - It wasn't just me.
- Claudette, there's an extra
can of tarantulas over here
if you need it.
♪ ♪
- All right. Hi, Tom.
- Hi. - Hi.
- Any experience cooking tarantulas?
- No, this is a first for me, for sure.
- Yeah, first for me, too.
Isn't that something?
- I'm making a vodka-based
tempura batter
that I can dip both my
tarantula into and my cheese curds into.
- [imitating Japanese accent] Oh, tempura!
- Time check.
- 5:53.
- Thank you.
My flatbread's coming out great.
I grilled it and got some
nice char on it,
and I put the toppings off
and finishing in an oven,
so when it's the final countdown,
it comes out, it's really, really hot.
It'll be crispy underneath.
♪ ♪
- Three minutes left.
- Aah!
I can still taste the tarantula
underneath the tempura batter,
and I'm hoping that coating it in cheese sauce
is gonna be enough to
make it pleasant for Tom to eat.
I don't want to go home just yet.
Trying to maintain calm, but I'm also pregnant,
and I'm not sure that there's ever been
a pregnant contestant on "Top Chef,"
but let's bring it.
- 1:10.
- 1:10? - Yeah, 1:10.
Start plating.
♪ ♪
- Final moments of plating. I feel pretty good,
but cooking in a competition is nerve-wracking.
You're going to get judged for something
that you've probably never made before,
with ingredients that you've never worked with before.
It's diving into the deep end head-first, basically.
- 49 seconds. - Whew.
- You know, I don't eat tarantula
unless I have a beer. Sorry.
♪ ♪
- Claudette's dish looks pretty gnarly.
It looks like a brown pile of cheese curds.
- 15!
What are you chilling down, Tom?
- Beer.
♪ ♪
Five, four, three, two, one.
♪ ♪
Happy New Year.
[dramatic music]
Okay, so I brought a beer with me,
so I'm ready. What do we have?
- We have a ha sikil pak,
which is a Yucatan--
we call it "Mayan guacamole."
The base sauce has the whey and the curds
blended in with a pepita sauce,
and it has just some fried sweet potato skins
for texture
and the spider.
- Another forkful of spider.
- It's got chicken
- I imagine those are the flavors
you were talking about before.
- How's it going, chef?
- Good, good. So I hope this is good,
because Claudette's was--
that was the best tarantula I ever had.
- I bet it was. - It was the only
tarantula I've ever had.
[laughter]
- So, uh, here we have... - What do we have?
- A grilled flatbread. - Okay.
- That's a whey sauce
with cheese curds. The whey is for acidity,
got the tarantula in there for texture.
- Mm-hmm, yeah. - Little jalapenos.
- Apparently, this is a zebra tarantula.
Not to be confused with the regular...
- Hairy house tarantula?
- Hairy tarantula, yeah.
Okay, two dishes with tarantula.
On to three.
So, Marcel.
- So we're taking this one
back to old Napoli.
I'm making a nice, like, fresh mozzarella,
some heirloom tomatoes.
We have some prosciutto,
and a tarantula gremolata.
- Tarantula gremolata? Yeah.
So did you taste the tarantula?
- I did. I tasted the legs first,
and I thought the legs were a little bit more mild
than the body,
and if you don't know what it is, it's like--
you know, it kind of blends in with the olives,
You could think it's just some Kalamata olive.
- You could.
- It's been a while since I've made cheese.
[laughs] I'm not going to lie. It's been a while.
- It's been a while since I've had tarantula, so...
- [laughs]
- So, Lee Anne, what delicious thing
have you done with tarantulas?
- Uh, all right, so,
you have fried tarantula, fried cheese curds,
over grime time, which is, like,
house-made nacho cheese. - Grime time?
- Yep, grime time. Basically,
you take a whole spoon of it and just...
- This is like double T. Tempura tarantula.
- Yeah, you--you grind it, you know? Like...
Made a little piquillo pepper compote,
and a little whey-honey vinaigrette to sweeten it up,
kind of balance out the spice.
- Awesome.
I'm gonna go drink my beer now.
- [laughs]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Usually, when I eat spicy food,
and weird food, I get indigestion.
I think tonight, I may have nightmares.
I gotta say, the dishes--
the dishes were actually pretty good.
[tense music]
My two favorite dishes
were...
Kwame's...
and Claudette's.
So, you guys are moving on.
Claudette, the flavor-- that was just--just
really, really, deep, dark, and tremendous.
They're the perfect nesting ground
for that tarantula. Um, I also like how the carrots
are all kind of fried in there.
It all worked together really nicely.
And Kwame, I think you did a great job
using that whey, putting that acid in there.
Great move with the flatbread.
It was really nicely charred. Adds some great flavor.
All things considered, really nice dishes,
but, um, I have to pick a favorite.
[relaxed rock music]
It's Claudette's.
- Thank you, chef.
- One step closer to getting back in.
- Redemption. [laughs] - Yeah.
Marcel, Lee Anne, my least favorite dishes,
and going back to the ingredients,
Marcel, you gave a-- you know, a classic take
on mozzarella, tomatoes.
I liked the idea of using the tarantula
in place of olives, and
I think if you marinated it in olive oil
to give it the texture of olives,
it may have helped, instead of keeping it crispy,
but I understand you want to get texture in there.
Makes perfect sense.
Lee Anne, you took the curds
and used them to sauce--
What did you call that sauce?
- Grime time. - Grime time.
I've never heard of this grime time before.
You fried the tarantula, you kind of made a tempura,
but my least favorite dish was...
[dramatic music]
Marcel's.
♪ ♪
That cheese was a little rough.
♪ ♪
You made the comment that
it had been a long time since you made mozzarella.
- I know. I-I didn't think
the cheese was that bad, but, um,
and that's coming from somebody who doesn't really eat dairy.
- See, when you call something mozzarella,
you know, you're expecting it to be soft.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - It was really dense and hard.
Anyway, listen, I gotta say,
It was really great to watch you cook.
I haven't been to Wolf. I've heard great things,
but if you're doing what I saw you did today,
I'm really looking forward to--
- Cool, yeah, come by any time. - Really cool.
Marcel, you can leave the kitchen.
Thank you. - Thank you, chef.
It's no secret that
I'm leaving with a little bit of unfinished business.
I mean, I came back. I was hoping to ultimately,
you know, win the title of Top Chef.
When you put so much heart and soul and love
into something,
it's gonna mean a lot to you.
It's gonna mean the world.
That's just, uh...sucks.
♪ ♪
- We have three under our belt now,
so I think we have the bugs worked out.
- [laughs]
I'm extremely excited
about passing the first
"Last Chance Kitchen" round and knocking Marcel out.
I know that he is capable of cooking amazing food,
but I'm not impressed on his celebrity status.
I know that I kicked his ass today,
and I'm ready for another round.
- So, Claudette, Kwame, Lee Anne,
moving on to the next round of "Last Chance Kitchen."
See you next week.
- Thank you, chef. - Bye, chef.
- [sighs] Did it.
- Good job. - Sh--.
[laughter]