Robert Peyton Suspects a Photogenic Conspiracy on Top Chef

In case you were wondering, yes, Haute Plates food blogger extraordinaire Robert Peyton is watching the 11th, New Orleans-based season of Top Chef, and no, he hasn't been so dazzled by the generally photogenic nature of the contestants that he can't soberly evaluate the competition thus far (the food looks delicious). Writing after the episode two last week, Peyton explained that, while he enjoys Top Chef because it seems to reward the talent and hard work of its competing chefs, he's also noticed that all the chefs are suspiciously camera-ready:

"I like Top Chef because it rewards cooking. It's a reality show; there's no doubt about that. I'm sure the chefs were generally chosen for their abilities, but I'll be goddamned if they didn't also just all happen to be young and photogenic."

It is television, after all?our cynical, TV-watching brainstems should be conditioned by now to only seeing relatively attractive reality show casts. Still, for food lovers like Peyton, the attractiveness of the Top Chef cast is beside the point. Even though Peyton suspects that "some of the chefs on this show were selected for reasons other than their culinary bona fides," what they've prepared so far has looked good, and good-looking food is really the only aesthetic observation worth making during a cooking contest.

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