In this exclusive interview with tvguidemagazine.com, Suzanne Tracht, chef and owner of Los Angeles’ Jar restaurant, gives us the scoop on her love of Dr. Pepper, how it paid off to be a fan of
Lost and her under-the-radar Round 2 win on
Top Chef Masters.
The show was filmed in Los Angeles. How much of your success was about home-court advantage? Are you kidding? Every morning, I’d wake up early, make my kids breakfast, pack their sack lunches, drive to Jar to do some work, get picked up to go to the show, then they’d drop me back off at my car at 1 a.m. They had the advantage. They all got to stay in a hotel.
At the end of the Quickfire vending-machine challenge, a judge actually licked her bowl clean of your Dr. Pepper aioli. How did you come up with the idea of flavoring homemade mayo with a can of soda pop?I thought, “What goes with fried shallots crusted with crushed Fritos and a fleur de sel of Flaming Hot Cheetos?” I love Dr. Pepper. So I made a perfect little aioli with garlic, olive oil and a Dr. Pepper reduction. It had that nice, sweet flavor.
When the challenge was introduced to cook dinner for some of the writers and creators of Lost, you seemed to be the only competitor familiar with the show. Why? It’s on at a time at night when chefs are working. The first time I ever saw
Lost, my son, Max, and I went to rent a video. I told him, “I heard that
Lost is really good.” So we got the first season. We started watching it in the afternoon and before we knew it, it was time for bed.
So when you saw the array of island ingredients what did you think? It was like Christmas on a table to me! I could live off of those foods every day—oysters, green mango, chicken, wild boar. I just thought, “Woo hoo. I’m going to cook everything!” So I imagined myself on a desert island. Then I thought, “What would John Locke do?” Then I opened up six coconuts and used the water to make a stock for risotto.
You’re extremely soft-spoken. Were Wylie Dufresne and Graham Elliot Bowles so focused on each other that they didn’t see you coming? They didn’t really talk to me at first. Those two boys, they were always in a huddle, talking. And they already knew Elizabeth [Falkner], so they talked to her.
What was the most surprising footage that ended up on the cutting-room floor?They never showed how much actual running around and cooking and stirring we were doing. The whole time we were cooking, everybody was dripping in sweat.
You mentioned your teenage son and daughter several times during the episode. What was their reaction to your making it to the next round? When I was filming it, they were so into it. They kept asking me, “How did you do? How did you do?” So we watched the episode in my bed, the three of us. Both times I won, my daughter said, “Good job, Mom,” and patted me on the head just like a little puppy.