Just yesterday, I spent hours evaluating the prospective careers of total strangers. I didn’t know whether their talent was good or bad, marketable or not. I just had my own opinions. I watched with intense interest at these individuals successes and failures. I was amused by each of their reactions to power. When someone assumes that they know everything it is incredibly corrupting. Give people power and they forget how to lead. They bully instead. You can see it plain as day, everyday. They start to believe their own press clippings. It was a lesson in the human psyche.

I refer, of course, to the season finale of Hell’s Kitchen where Chef Dave overcame injury and terrible odds to outplay and out cook Kevin and Ariel for the head chef job at Araxi Restaurant in Whistler, British Columbia. I am going to miss watching the invective breathing Gordon Ramsay. He pushed everyone on the show. His intent wasn’t to break the novice chefs but to stretch them to their limits, to get them to be their best. It’s a style and it isn’t for everyone but it seems to work wonders for him.

Thankfully, there are a few more episodes of Top Chef to keep me occupied.

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