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" This week on Top Chef: Alex&amp;#039;s tough beef brings him to the bottom of the group in the CIA-themed elimination challenge. Meanwhile, our favorite chef, Tiffany, reigns supreme (again) in both the Quickfire and elimination challenges, guest judge and CIA Director Leon Panetta makes an untimely exit, Angelo sweats over his food and the prospect of going home, and Top Chef Masters chef Wylie Dufresne still needs a haircut. As part of our ongoing weekly Top Chef recaps, guest judge Eric Ripert talks about the episode, and just how bad Alex&amp;#039;s dish tasted. ESQUIRE: As it turns out, Angelo&amp;#039;s fianc\u00E9 lives in Russia. Do you think that distance is stressing him out? ERIC RIPERT: He&amp;#039;s a strange bird. It&amp;#039;s a long time that they cannot communicate. I mean, they can do one phone call every week or something, but it&amp;#039;s rough. No TV, no iPods, no music, no nothing.  ESQ: Were you surprised to see how much Angelo was sweating in the kitchen? He said it was the first time he had dripped sweat into a meal. ER: Yeah, which was gross for us who ate the food. ESQ: Those guys didn&amp;#039;t have to wear hairnets. Doesn&amp;#039;t everyone have to wear hairnets in the kitchen?  ER: Well it&amp;#039;s a competition so I guess they can get away with it. I haven&amp;#039;t found a hair yet. Thank god. Let&amp;#039;s pray for that.  ESQ: The mystery-box Quickfire challenge seemed to be the hardest yet. The ingredients were really strange, like jicama.  ER: Jicama is okay, because it&amp;#039;s pretty neutral in flavor and it has a crunch. The black garlic, although it sounds exotic and it is exotic, is pretty sweet. It doesn&amp;#039;t break your dish; you can integrate it pretty easily. I think the most difficult one was the passion fruit. It&amp;#039;s very tart and fruity, and whatever you start to cook, then you have to integrate that. It&amp;#039;s difficult.  ESQ: They had to cook with &amp;quot;ramps.&amp;quot; What is a ramp?  ER: Ramps are kind of a wild scallion or leek rolled in a string. It&amp;#039;s like a wild garlic, so it&amp;#039;s strong \u2014 very strong. But when you cook it, it becomes a bit softer. I think every contestant is pretty exposed to that product. It&amp;#039;s not a big deal for them.  ESQ: Tiffany is not only winning challenges left and right, but it seems impossible to dislike her. Do the judges feel that way, too?  ER: Yeah, she has a great personality. She&amp;#039;s on a rampage. She&amp;#039;s having a good time and she&amp;#039;s having fun and she has a very, very nice personality. And for me she was by far the clear winner. By far. And she wasn&amp;#039;t even happy with her dish!  ESQ: You went to visit the CIA this week. What was the screening process like?  ER: That was a big deal. I couldn&amp;#039;t believe it. The screening process \u2014 yeah, it&amp;#039;s brutal. After all, it&amp;#039;s the CIA. You don&amp;#039;t expect a doorman like at the Ritz Carlton waiting for you. They keep the CIA safe.  ESQ: Did they give you a harder time because you&amp;#039;re French?  ER: [Laughs] I don&amp;#039;t know about that. But you can&amp;#039;t go to the bathroom by yourself. I mean you can go inside the bathroom, yes, but they bring you there and take you back. I went to the bathroom. Someone went with me.  ESQ: Do you think it was really Alex&amp;#039;s time to go?  ER: Oh it was bad. Really \u2014 I mean seriously, I was like, &amp;quot;Oh man, how can you do something so bad?&amp;quot; Everything was bad. The cheese tortellini was so hard to eat. Like a dry piece of wood.  ESQ: When the food is that bad, do you finish it to be polite?  ER: No. You push it [away].  ESQ: How important is a track record for someone like Angelo who has been excellent the whole season and then blows it on one dish?  ER: That&amp;#039;s it. You don&amp;#039;t care. Angelo almost was out \u2014 it was really, really bad. At the end of the day, what saved him was that Alex&amp;#039;s was worse.  ESQ: Ed seems to be doing really well lately.  ER: Ed had a really good dish, too. But it really looked like a chicken cordon bleu. But his dish was very, very good yesterday. He&amp;#039;s a guy who knows technique very well. I think he overcomplicates his food, but he&amp;#039;s a good cook. He knows how to cook, for sure. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/restaurants/a8279/top-chef-season-7-episode-10/>