Before Top Chef popularized competitive cooking, chefs routinely bet on whom could hard-boil the most eggs for block parties, hard-luck boxers with salmonella phobias, and Paul Newman. Reap the benefits of the show’s revolutionary improvements on culinary challenges with today’s Groupon: for $12, you get a one-month membership to Top Chef University (a $24.95 value).
Lauded across the amber-waved virtual landscape for its creative and effective service, Top Chef University carves first-rate chefs out of everyday web traffickers using knives of technology. The university consists of 12 month-long courses––taught by Top Chef chef’testants schooled in mealesson pedagogy––that touch on everything from kitchen basics to the fine art of bacon-cheddar cheeseburgers. Today’s Groupon gives you complete access to the first course, entitled Getting Started: Basics and Techniques. The course is split in to 19 topics that include organization, cookware, and knife skills; cooks working with sporks should consider upgrading before getting started. In addition to one full-month course, you’ll have access to bonus video footage of single lessons from four other courses, which reveal the gastronomic secrets of marinades, Southern fried chicken, and smoked gravlax on pumpernickel, all of which were heavily guarded during the Cold War.
Culinary director Anthony Hoy Fong and Gail Simmons, the show’s resident judge and the special-projects director at Food & Wine magazine, developed Top Chef University’s curriculum. Top Chef is a beloved and mouth-watering reality-show franchise that, unlike the 1958 hit and proto-reality show Who’s Got the Hamburgers?, encourages balanced, delicious diets and doesn’t romanticize condiment binging or sesame-seed spitting. Give a great gift to yourself and your self’s weary digestive tract, or symbolically teach a dear friend to fish, thereby guaranteeing him a lifetime’s worth of popcorn shrimp.
Reviews
Top Chef University has been featured in Esquire's Eat Like A Man, on ABCNews.com, and on The Food Channel. More than 1,000 Facebookers are fans of the online university:
- You've watched them whip up delectable dishes, and a soupcon of drama, in the Top Chef kitchen. Now, stars of the hit Bravo TV series are ready to school their fans: Pack your knives and go... online. – Michelle Locke, ABCNews.com
Top Chef University
At a moment's notice, contestants from the Emmy-Award-winning show Top Chef appear in Top Chef University members' homes, ready to give one-on-one cooking lessons. Though users will meet stars such as Spike Mendelsohn and Stephanie Izard, they don't have to wipe down the counters or season their neglected cast-iron pans in preparation. That's because the school's 200 lessons are all online videos, streamable to any computer.
Top Chef contestants walk members through a slew of cooking methods in 12 one-month courses, each composed of videos ranging from 5 to 30 minutes long. The easy-to-follow curriculum starts with basic cooking techniques such as sautéing and braising, ending with more advanced recipes for modern and ethnic cuisines from Top Chef All-Stars winner Richard Blais. Each video comes with a printable recipe to save and cherish, along with a Top Chef Certificate of Completion.
