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"  With the conclusion of Top Chef: Seattle this week, the long-standing cooking competition show crowned Boston&amp;#039;s Kristen Kish, a 29-year-old instructor at Stir the winner. For fans of the series, the significance of this win is twofold: Kish is only the second female to take home the title in ten seasons as well as the first cheftestant to win after being eliminated (she rescued herself by winning the webseries, Last Chance Kitchen). From early on, it was clear that Kristen&amp;#039;s talents were above most of her competitors. Week after week, she showcased her French techniques but in a subtle ways that never seemed overbearing or too high-brow for us amateurs. In the finale, as head judge Tom Colicchio notes, Kristen won because of near-perfect execution, as well as Brooke&amp;#039;s unfortunate choice in cooking chicken wings (as delicious as they did look). Esquire.com spoke with Kristen about her Top Chef strategy, contestant drama and the easiest French dish to master in order to wow that special someone. ESQUIRE.COM: For the first time in Top Chef history, the finale was in front of a live audience. What difficulties did that present to you? KRISTEN KISH: In more ways, it was not easier, but fun for me. I didn&amp;#039;t find it debilitatingly difficult. It added pressure but that pressure quickly turned into excitement that I get to cook in front of people. ESQ: Like a rock star. KK: Sort of. [Laughs.] ESQ:Do your teaching background helped you perform in front of people? KK: I think it was a huge advantage that, for two years now, I&amp;#039;ve been cooking in front of people. Cooking, talking, and all that fun stuff while still giving them a five-course meal. The difference between that and the finale is the amount of people I cook for. Small little challenge. ESQ: Did you have a game plan going into the finale? KK: I had the idea of every dish that I wanted to do. The bone marrow course switched like three times during the actual finale; I didn&amp;#039;t really know where that was going. Other than that, they were pretty much thought-out. ESQ: When things don&amp;#039;t go your way, do you get flustered? KK: I try not to get flustered. Nothing good comes out of that. With the bone marrow thing, it went to duck, then it went back to bone marrow and then I was adding stuff and building that dish on the fly, essentially. I never really felt out of control. I was like &amp;quot;Alright, well, we changed it again.&amp;quot; When I cook and conceptualize dishes, I just think about the dishes I&amp;#039;d like to eat and how I like to eat them. I give people what I would want to have at dinner. ESQ: You won by being eliminated and going through Last Chance Kitchen, which saved you. Did that give you an advantage at all, in not having to go through the final challenges? KK: I was competing and in some ways it was more added pressure. It&amp;#039;s like your &amp;quot;last chance&amp;quot; to really make it back on. I think it&amp;#039;s just a different arena. I was a little disappointed that I missed out in cooking outside and doing all those fun things. I wanted to ride in the helicopter and do all that good stuff. That&amp;#039;s okay. I&amp;#039;ll go back and do it again. ESQ: It appeared from early on that you and Brooke were the frontrunners. Was there a moment or a dish that you felt you really had a good shot at winning? KK: At no point was I ever thinking &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m going to win&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m going to win this individual challenge.&amp;quot; It&amp;#039;s weird, when we&amp;#039;re competing and filming the show, it&amp;#039;s so overwhelming because you&amp;#039;re doing so much in such a short amount of time. It&amp;#039;s definitely different to watch it play out on television. In the moment, you really forget about it. The second you win, you&amp;#039;re back in another competition. You never really have time to relish in that win. ESQ: Compared to past seasons, there wasn&amp;#039;t much crying, backstabbing or throwing others under the bus. Why was that?  KK: It was just a good group of people. There were definitely tears and a bit of drama that affected the kitchen. I appreciate the fact that they only showed the drama when it made sense to show the drama. Meaning, like during the cooking or in the kitchen or it resulted in some weird outcome at judges table. They stayed out of controversy, I suppose. ESQ: What was the most dramatic moment for you? KK: Getting eliminated. [Laughs.] That was bad. ESQ: It seemed like Josie was driving everybody crazy. Was Josie driving everybody crazy? KK: Umm... She has a strong personality. Some people like it, some people don&amp;#039;t. Whatever. I think if we were all to hang out outside of [Top Chef], it would be different, but the fact that we&amp;#039;re all living with each other under those pressures, everyone gets on everyone&amp;#039;s nerves. ESQ: I noticed that Sheldon always wore a knit hat. Did he ever take it off? KK: He takes it off when he showers and sleeps. He misplaced his red one in Seattle one day and it was kinda like this heavy cloud over us. A couple days later, it showed back up. It was his signature. ESQ: Your area of expertise is French cooking. What dish would be the easiest to learn that would impress a spouse or girlfriend? KK: Beef bourguignon. Look for Julia Child&amp;#039;s recipe. It&amp;#039;s the best one. It&amp;#039;s easy, one pot, a couple steps. You just hang out and come back in a few hours, and it&amp;#039;s done. ESQ: For home cooks, what is the biggest thing that get in people&amp;#039;s heads that causes problems? KK: I think people get intimidated when it&amp;#039;s something they&amp;#039;re not familiar with. For home cooks, start with home cookbooks. At the end of the day, you just want to make things that are really tasty. It doesn&amp;#039;t matter how you get there. ESQ: On the show, you mentioned that with your prize money, you&amp;#039;re going to head to Korea. Is that still happening? KK: Oh, 100 percent. ESQ: What&amp;#039;s the best thing you will eat over there? KK: I just want authentic kimchi. Not the stuff you can buy in a jar. I just want the stinky, fermented stuff from the bottom of the ground. That&amp;#039;s what I want. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/interviews/a20135/kristen-kish-top-chef-15157042/>