Top Chef Masters: "I Felt Like I Was Choking"

Get the scoop on last night's show. Was the quickfire challenge the most difficult of the season?

Forget about last night's elimination challenge on Top Chef Masters.

The real culinary curveball was thrown at the seasoned chefs during the quickfire challenge. The cheftestants were not only blindfolded, but they also had to plug their noses and wear noise-cancelling headphones while trying to guess various foods and condiments using just one of the major senses.

While it may have made for good TV, it didn't go down too well with last night's eliminated chef...

The judges may have liked Celina Tio's pretzel, but she was still sent home. Why? Because of the out-of-place salad the Kansas-based chef served with the salty treat.

Is it nice to finally be able to talk about the show and not keep what happened a secret anymore?
It's so funny because everyone thinks it would be so hard to keep it a secret, but I actually enjoyed it and found it amusing. I had no problem keeping it a secret. Everyone was waiting me to tell them something or slip and I was like, 'My husband doesn't even know what happened. What makes you think I am going to tell you.'"

Did you expect to be cooking things like pretzels on the show? It's not something I expected on Top Chef Masters, just like cooking on a tour bus or in a fast food restaurant.
It doesn't surprise me because all the challenges were exactly like that. It's interesting to see Hugh say in interviews, "I don't know how she's going to pull that off and make it into a find dining thing." Not once were we supposed to make it into a fine dining thing. All the challenges were something fun and interesting for the viewers and hopefully fun for us. And it was for me.

Which was your favorite challenge?
I thought the bug one was fun. I don't think it would have been as fun if I got the nightcrawlers but since I got the crickets it was OK with me.

How about last night's sensory challenge?
That was awful! That was the most difficult challenge because...I'm a nose-breather. I'm like an infant. I don't like breathing out of my mouth. I felt like I was choking just trying to eat something without having my nose to breath while I was doing it. That was very very difficult.