The curse of bad cooking

The final of Chiefs! was played Monday evening on poor cooking, in the pan as in the thermocirculator.

Élodie missed her sweetbreads, Michael didn’t give enough love to his duck confit legs, so it was the perfectionist Ronan, with an almost faultless four-course gourmet menu, who put on the chef’s hat. gold of the 12^e season of Radio-Canada’s culinary reality show.

28-year-old Ronan Ulliac, sous-chef at Montreal’s Maison Boulud, peeled his green peas one by one, weighed his sea bass crudo by the gram and avoided, unlike his colleague Michael Ho, to present a “boutique dessert”, an unforgivable misstep, according to judge Jean-Luc Boulay.

Potin plateau, here: the two finalists of the Chiefs!, Ronan and Michael, were friends before entering the television competition. They crossed paths in the kitchens of Maison Boulud, where Ronan has been busy for a little over a year.

“I always wanted to leave France to work abroad. The United States attracted me. I sent lots of CVs to New York and it was Daniel Boulud who answered me first, ”explains Ronan Ulliac, who grew up in a small village of 5,000 inhabitants north of Nantes, in the west. from France.

In 2018, he worked for a year at Daniel’s restaurant on the Upper East Side until his work visa expired. Next destination: Montreal, where he ends up at the renowned La Chronique restaurant on Laurier Avenue West.

“I really liked New York, coming directly from the countryside. Montreal looks like New York, but smaller. We find the same North American culture there, with the advantages of Europe. I’ve been living in Montreal for three and a half years and I’ve never returned to France since,” adds Ronan Ulliac in an interview.

We have seen it over the last 10 weeks: Ronan is a precise, skilful and refined cook. In the final episode, he even laminated his voluminous game plan on his station in the kitchen of the Chiefs!. And until the last second, while Isabelle Deschamps-Plante was squealing, Ronan improved and tweaked his dishes. The foie gras shot, which Ronan gave to the salamander one minute from the end, almost caused the host Élyse Marquis to faint. “What a perfectionist, incredible,” exclaimed Jean-Luc Boulay, obviously a Ronan fan.

On paper, 26-year-old Michael Ho, however, had more stars than Ronan. The hot duck starter (undercooked) and Michael’s too simple tartlet cost him precious points. Jean-Luc Boulay did not digest that Michael is content with a simple “boutique dessert”, without coulis, ice cream or sorbet.

And the height of sacrilege: Michael has done it again – scandal! – his praline from the quarter-finals, a praline that was too bitter and too burnt, recalled Jean-Luc and Isabelle, irritated by this choice of Michael, which stuck in their throats like a Cornish hen bone.

After the first round, the panel of judges (guest Olivier Perret was practically useless) removed the oldest Élodie Larivière, 36, because a) the cut of her scallops was irregular and b) her sweetbreads veal lacked cooking. At this stage of the contest, this type of mistake is not forgiving, like forgetting to put eggs in a gnocchi recipe.

The smoldering blow of Survivor

We had to wait long weeks to witness the first smoking gun Survivor Quebecwho extinguished the torch of the formidable guru Jean-Junior, the most dominant player, with his ally Karine, of the Pag-Asa tribe.

This betrayal – a fratricide, let’s say it – was nicely planned by Kimberly and Christophe, with the complicity of Nicolas, survivor of the island of Redemption. Not only did Kim and Chris take out the biggest threat in the game, but they also forced Karine to squander her last immunity.

A hugely satisfying “two for one” – who would have imagined that Chris would sacrifice his twin JJ? – after long sequences of school-of-fish type eliminations.

And poor Karine, the intense 37-year-old karate teacher, who visualized her victory so strongly. She lost everything on Sunday evening, tumbling to the bottom of the pyramid of the new alliance formed by Kim, Chris and Nico.

Honestly, Karine’s great plan to impress the jury was a big mess. She wanted to downgrade the “Chris & JJ Show” by granting her protection to…Chris? No one on the jury understood this haphazard strategy. Nobody believed, either, that Karine did not know that her first immunity necklace was expired. Bad summer theatre, badly rehearsed, badly performed. The Karine Show caused a great feeling of uneasiness around the fire.

Also, one would swear that the last competitors of Survivor Quebec have just discovered, less than a week before the final, the importance of putting the jury in your pocket. During the last tribal council, Kim and Chris multiplied the expressive faces to show the jury that they were capable of playing hard, of reversing the dynamics of power, watch how the cage is shaken, vote for us!

JJ, Karine and Justine were completely blindsided by the breakup of the alliance of the three musketeers. Their defeated faces after the votes were read was worth at least a club sandwich, two claps and a wow.