Top Chef - FuKu Style

With Project Runway on hiatus until July Robert and I have gotten hopelessly sucked into watching Bravo's Top Chef on Wednesday nights after I get home from a grueling 7 hours of class. Katie Lee Joel has nothing on Heidi Klum as a host, but the culinary judges are starting to have something substantive to add in later episodes. So our love of food has drawn us into seeing these quick fire cooking challenges to inspire our own cooking.

Now at Chez Barrington, it's Top Chef nights two days a week. Robert and I each pick a night to prepare a new meal. We each wander to our preferred grocery, pull together the dishes, plate them and voila--gourmet dining from our own kitchen. Just like the chefs on the show, we have different approaches to cooking. . Robert's the lightning flash cook who at a spontaneous moment will come up with a recipe in his head. The next day, out comes artichokes placed like flowers on the plate, with delicate shrimp and corn buds at harmonious play in the center. One taste and we thought we were eating lobster. We died and went to heaven.

Me, I'm the gal who grew up hooked on Shake and Bake and Chef Boy-R-Dee, so it's all about research for me (thanks to Mom's professional librarian skills). I start with a theme ingredient like gorgonzola, then head online searching for the killer recipe to highlight the selected ingredient. With the help of an recipe I from Australia, I made romaine heart wraps filled with roasted red pepper, grilled portabellas and a gorgonzola glaze. Pretty tasty and fun to eat.

I photographed Robert's amazing handmade calzones, stuffed with baby broccoli, an asparagus pesto, riccota and some secret ingredients I'll have to ask him about. They baked to perfect flakiness on the outside, rich and soft on the inside -- another Kuhar original. Making him Chez Barrington's and my true Top Chef (though as a former cook at the Front Street Trattoria in Red Bank was there ever any doubt?)