Monthly Archives: June 2024

Top Chef Frotcast Post-Show: Amar Santana on S1E1

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Top Chef Wisconsin (aka Top Chef Season 21) may be over, but the Top Chef Frotcast Post-Show isn’t. This week we welcome Top Chef season 13 finalist and season 20 fan favorite Amar Santana, chef/owner of Broadway and Vaca, both in Orange County, California. Amar is great interview, and actually seems to enjoy talking to us for whatever reason. Which I hope won’t get him into any professional trouble. Years ago I tasted Jamón Iberico for the first time thanks to Amar, which is one of those things you never forget.

We get all the Top Chef inside info from Amar, including what his casting process was like, how much editors manipulate the show, and whether Top Chef winners still dream of opening new restaurants. He takes us back to when he first heard about the show, working alongside Ilan Hall (who went onto win Top Chef season 2) as line cooks for Charlie Palmer, and why he decided to be on it. He talks about the moment Top Chef stopped feeling like a reality show and started feeling like a legit cooking competition (it involved the Voltaggio Brothers), as well as the auditioning process, the psych evaluation, and more.

Finally, we made Amar go back and watch the first episode of the first season of Top Chef, and we discuss all the things that make it kind of hilarious to watch now, from Katie Lee being the host instead of Padma, to Tom Colicchio’s soul patch, to that crazy Irish guy who got kicked off for putting his finger in Hubert Keller’s sauce (Ken Lee). Uh, that’s DJ Hubert Keller to you.

As always, thank you to our sponsor, Blackwood Distilling Co. (Yes, the show has a sponsor, that’s why it’s free on all platforms).

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Frotcast 594: Bloodsuckers! Dracula (1992), with Alex Goldman

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This week, we were honored to welcome guest Alex Goldman, formerly of ReplyAll, currently of the Western Kabuki podcast and the Cool Dude Zone Substack. We discuss the reason our kids are annoying, bad vibes in the podcast industry, questions Alex would like to ask Elon Musk, and of course, 1992’s Dracula. Because why wouldn’t we discuss 1992’s Dracula? That was actually Brendan’s idea, only the bastard wasn’t here to see it through because he ended up having to parent. UGH! We discuss Monica Belucci as a sex vampire, Gary Oldman as the original steampunk f*ckboy, Keanu Reeves’ accent, and Winona.

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Top Chef Frotcast Post-Show 3: The Top Chef Wisconsin Finale Breakdown

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Joey Devine and Vince Mancini are back with the last Top Chef post-mortem, on the Top Chef Wisconsin finale! (Which actually took place on a boat in Aruba). We actually recorded most of this after having watched every part of the show except for the last five minutes in which they declared a winner, and then had to go back and finish the podcast after the winner was declared. We thought we knew who had one with a great deal of certainty. And it turns out, we were wrong! We break down the entire meal, dish-by-dish, and then return with our discussion of the winner, what we’ve been cooking, and how we rank Top Chef Wisconsin, aka Top Chef season 21, in the pantheon of Top Chef seasons. Hope you enjoy, and thanks again to our sponsor, Blackwood Distilling.

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Lance Oppenheim Offers the Latest Updates on HBO’s ‘Ren Faire’

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Documentarian Lance Oppenheim last hung out with us just a few months ago to talk about Spermworld, his Hulu documentary about unlicensed sperm donors. At the time he teased us with news of his next project, Ren Faire, a documentary series about the eccentric owner of the Texas Renaissance Festival, one of the largest renaissance festivals in the world. Well now that documentary is here. Ren Faire, produced by the Safdie Brothers and Ronald Bronstein (Uncut Gems, Good Time, etc.) follows George Coulam, an eccentric octogenerian ex-Mormon who dresses in a self-designed military-inspired uniform who everyone calls “King George.” King George is the capricious ruler of the TRF, who says he wants to retire while his long-suffering employees scramble around trying to please him while plotting against each other and trying to set themselves up to become the heir apparent.

Ren Faire‘s main characters include Jeff Baldwin, the portly theater kid entertainment director who has recently become general manager, Louie Migliaccio, a steampunk energy drink addict who runs the festival’s kettle corn empire (but dreams of more), and Darla Smith, an elephant trainer-turned renaissance faire capitalist. Lance opens up about how he shot Ren Faire, what all the Ren Faire characters are doing now — big scoop on Jeff Baldwin and the rest of the staff in there — and how many energy drinks Louie Migliaccio consumes in a day. Oh, and about how King George’s sugar daddy dates at the Olive Garden actually went down, and whether George asked them any questions beyond whether their breasts are real.

Ren Faire is a great docuseries and the ultimate show for anyone who wants to know how unhappy rich people actually are.

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Top Chef Frotcast Post-Show, Episode 2

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PLEASE SIGN UP ON PATREON, EVEN IF IT’S FOR FREE! Posting everything here has become a burden, and if you’re only listening to this feed you probably aren’t getting all of the episodes. Patreon dot com slash frotcast! This episode is free, but you would’ve heard about it sooner on Patreon.

Vince and Joey are back talking the latest episode of Top Chef, part one of the finale in Curacao. This week, part one of Top Chef’s season 21 finale took the chefs to the Caribbean nation of Curacao, where the final four competed in a battle to combine gouda and lionfish, and then in an eight-course fish tasting menu on a Holland America Cruise Line with fresh fish ambassador, Morimoto! As promised last week, host of the Roundball Rock podcast and Top Chef superfan, comedian Joey Devine is helping me, Vince Mancini from The #Content Report/Frotcast, break down the latest Top Chef ‘sode. Enjoy, share, subscribe, and check out our sponsor, Blackwood Distilling.

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[Teaser] What if famous novels were Maury intros (Frotcast 592)

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Martin Rickman of the new newsletter Assigned joins the Frotcast this week. We’re discussing Richard Linklater’s new Netflix movie, ‘Hitman,’ starring Glen Powell. But long before we get to that, we breakdown a new Trump clip in which he ask whether it’s better to be electrocuted or eaten by sharks. There’s also a new Dane Cook project, leading us to reflect on the Dane Cook comedy-vehicle era, and a new Maura clip, which makes us try to imagine what great American novels might sound like as Maury Show intros. Finally we discuss the movie, before betting into Axe Body Spray commercials, and reminiscing about all the ridiculous companies that have advertised with the UFC.

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