Top Chef Season Three

I was going to write a quick entry on Top Chef Season Three (or with its insanely ubiquitous product placement, it perhaps should be called “Toyota Top Bombay Sapphire, the home appliance manufacturer Breville, Cold Stone Creamery, Evian Natural Spring Water, Merck/Schering-Plough Pharmaceuticals, Red Robin, Glad Chef Season Three“). It reminds me of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest which describes a future North American country so commercialized that even the numerical naming of years has given way to “Subsidized Time“. Subsidized Time is quite literally the selling of naming rights for years to corporate sponsors (“Year of the Purdue Wonderchicken”, “Year of the Trial-size Dove Bar”, “Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment”, and coincidentally, “Year of Glad”).

However, after reading this succinct and spot-on post at The Amateur Gourmet, I don’t think I would have so much to add.