Track Your Knives, the companion podcast to Pack Your Knives, brings you results of the community's power rankings, fantasy leagues highlights, and data-driven insights. This week, Carly and Kendra discuss how they appreciate the Asheville highlight and Ashleigh Shanti's commentary, plus whether restricting access to ingredients is an advantage. We have a battle at the top of the Power Rankings board & we can't wait to see who comes out on top to secure the dinner at Freight House with Sara ...
May 29, 2026•40 min
The fourth segment of a six-part Savor Charlotte series presented by the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority. Tom Haberstroh is joined by Chayil Johnson, who you might recognize from his appearance as a guest judge in the season premiere episode of Top Chef Season 23 Carolinas. He’s the executive chef of Community Matters Cafe in Charlotte and a James Beard nominee for Best Chef Southeast. Chayil has embarked on a unique journey to Top Chef and culinary recognition. The New Orleans native runs...
May 28, 2026•52 min
Look at those stares … Tom and Sara recap an episode that presented a wonderful ode to Asheville, NC., and ended with an all-time crashout. It’s time to get out our rule sheet and make a ruling on what happened. Sara shares some intel about what may have gone down and the words that were said — allegedly. Tom and Sara try to get to the bottom of the eliminated chefs gripes and propose an alternate theory. Sara shares a story about her gimper’s sour corn. What’s a gimper? She’ll explain, just aft...
May 27, 2026•2 hr 15 min
Track Your Knives, the companion podcast to Pack Your Knives, brings you results of the community's power rankings, highlights from fantasy leagues, and data-driven insights and oddities. This week, Carly and Kendra start off by talking about which chef has entered GOAT territory, debating whether duos are truly dangerous, and how uncommon it is to have a Quickfire with a shopping budget. Leaders have emerged in power rankings, and the winner will get a chef-curated meal at Sara Bradley's Freigh...
May 22, 2026•46 min
In this recap, Tom tries not to get salty about the elimination, but he gets peppered with shame anyway. Speaking of salt and pepper, Tom and Sara debate the best duo in the culinary world in an episode full of poor pairings. Sara explains all the ins-and-outs of rabbit cooking while they both wonder who the mystery judges were and why they were presented that way. Sara and Tom discuss whether the customer is always right on a show like Top Chef. Did one of the chefs skate this week? As the show...
May 20, 2026•1 hr 15 min
In this week's Track Your Knives, Carly and Kendra rave about a return to the previous pace of a Top Chef episode. Carly gives a history lesson on mise en place relays before they get into the nitty gritty of power rankings. What happened to players' scores? We see a new entrant into the Top Ten! And then in their review of Fantasy Leagues, we lament Tom's draft while lauding Sara's. As always, listen for shout-outs to high performers! As always, enter your scores each week before the episode ai...
May 15, 2026•48 min
In one of the best episodes of the season, we got a mise en place race AND boats. Mise en place and boats. THAT’S WHAT TOP CHEF DOES. Tom and Sara take some time to bid farewell to a beloved chef and give some flowers to a fan favorite. Tom and Sara has out the proper pronunciation of pecan, and Sara reveals a personally devastating story about a salamander. If you love cooking tips, you’re going to love this PYK recap. After listening to this pod, Sara will have you microwaving an artichoke ton...
May 13, 2026•1 hr 27 min
This week’s Track Your Knives discusses our go to dinner party dishes and how we felt about the Quickfire into Elimination challenge sequence. Carly took a swing in the power rankings that unfortunately didn’t pay off, while two-thirds of power rankers correctly ranked the winner and eliminated chef in their top 3 and bottom 3 rankings. We then chat about the top fantasy league teams by chef count and call out the top teams - how’d you do? As always, enter your scores each week before the episod...
May 08, 2026•36 min
The third segment of a six-part Savor Charlotte series presented by the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority. Tom Haberstroh is joined by Charlotte’s own Brittany Cochran who competed on Top Chef Season 23 Carolinas. She’s the executive chef of Stagioni in Myers Park in Charlotte and the only Charlotte “hometown” contestant this season. Brittany shares what it was like to be the Queen City representative and how she wanted to break stereotypes that she faced in the restaurant biz. She also reve...
May 07, 2026•51 min
After debating the crown of condiments, Tom and Sara break down the show’s first episode in Greenville, SC and explain how Last Chance Kitchen production goes down. Though they are facing each other in fantasy, they are both Team Mayo (particularly Duke’s Mayonnaise). With the LCK winner back in the competition, Tom and Sara wonders if the right chef was eliminated. When it comes to draft etiquette, Tom and Sara have very different strategies. Plus, the third segment of a six-part Savor Charlott...
May 06, 2026•2 hr 10 min
This week’s Track Your Knives starts out with a deep dive of Restaurant Wars analysis. With 23 seasons now, there’s plenty of data to break down! In the land of Power Rankings, Carly and four other players kick butt by correctly placing the elimination chef as the most likely to be eliminated. Kendra is still ahead of Carly, but Carly’s coming for her! While no one got a perfect score, we call out those who still did well this week for Power Rankings. On top of that, we get into the interpretati...
May 01, 2026•49 min
A loaded recap episode this week tackles all the happenings on Top Chef’s iconic Restaurant Wars episode with a special boots-on-the-ground report from Tom, who attended as a takeout guest. Sara and Tom break it all down and rehash Sara’s Restaurant Wars history and whether she’d prefer to be dine-in or takeout. Sara disagrees with the choice of which chef went home while Tom questions the kitchen jobs of the Tierra Reina team. Is a welcome drink a waste of time? Did immunity save a certain chef...
Apr 29, 2026•1 hr 23 min
We're back for episode seven of Track Your Knives, the data-driven Top Chef companion podcast brought to you by Pack Your Knives. This week Carly analyzed how often desserts land chefs in the top or bottom of elimination challenges and we hypothesized on what will happen next week during Restaurant Wars. Will there only be 7 chefs or will we see a surprise return? As always, enter your scores each week before the episode airs on find-topchef.com and become a subscriber on packyourknives.com ...
Apr 24, 2026•49 min
The second segment of a six-part Savor Charlotte series presented by the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority. Tom Haberstroh is joined by Callan Buckles, Executive Chef at Rada, which was named to the New York Times' most recent 50 Best Restaurants in America, to share his journey and why he chose to relocate to Charlotte from NYC. Subscribe to the PYK Substack! https://www.packyourknives.com/ Rate PYK 5 Stars on Apple or Spotify , or wa...
Apr 23, 2026•43 min
Tom and Sara get caught up in the web of mysteries following the events of Episode 7 and Last Chance Kitchen. With Restaurant Wars around the corner and some uncertainty floating in the air, there are a lot of questions left unanswered. Tom and Sara try to make sense of it all. Step aside Top Chef and Top Scallop. Welcome to Top Sabayon. Tom wonders why every dish has sabayon this season and Sara spins her theories. While Tom and Sara vehemently disagree about Banana Laffy Taffy, they do agree o...
Apr 22, 2026•2 hr 3 min
It was BBQ week at Top Chef! This week we debate western vs. eastern Carolina BBQ (seriously, who hates ketchup?), what we thought of the s'mores challenge and a discussion on how to score it, and dove into how well people's power rankings did this week. As always, enter your scores each week before the episode airs on find-topchef.com and become a subscriber on packyourknives.com to get additional data-driven insights on Top Chef. 00:00 Hello and welcome! 04:33 Episode thoughts 09:23 Carly and ...
Apr 17, 2026•42 min
The highly-anticipated Carolina barbecue episode is here. And we have thoughts. Sara shares her barbecue experiences in food competition venues and Tom gives his scouting report on the various bbq joints (did you know you can get burnt ends at the Charlotte airport?). Was this the best episode to date? Tom thinks so. Why is immunity not a central talking point this season? Sara wonders. They debate about the questionable strategery amongst the chefs and the legitimacy of s’mores. Sara unveils he...
Apr 15, 2026•1 hr 24 min
What a week! Turn around now and watch Episode 5 if you haven't already - because wow, do we have feelings about this episode! From the Quickfire format to the Elimination challenge results, Kendra and Carly dive into how well (or shall we say, poorly?) people's power rankings did this week. We also talk about a scoring fix on the bonus questions, and give a shout out to the first player to get three bonus questions right! As always, enter your scores each week before the episode airs on find-to...
Apr 10, 2026•31 min
On this shocking episode, Team Tom survives the US Whitewater Center rapids while Team Sara capsizes into the rough waters. Tom and Sara break down what went wrong for the elminated chef, and take stock in the points standings. Has a new favorite emerged? Find out what Sara thinks is “f—ed up” in this episode (and Tom can’t disagree). An old Top Chef debate surfaces about the extent to which chefs should help each other out. Plus, with Last Chance Kitchen making its debut last week, the PYK gang...
Apr 08, 2026•1 hr 40 min
We're back for episode four of Track Your Knives, the data-driven Top Chef companion podcast brought to you by Pack Your Knives. Carly and Kendra are here to break down YOUR power rankings and fantasy league results. This week, in addition to our typical debrief of the episode, we talk about the answer to the bonus question: How many times will people mention that Tom hates Okra? Now that Last Chance Kitchen has started, we give our thoughts on how long it will last. Don't forget to complete you...
Apr 03, 2026•42 min
Tom got to eat the food! On this episode, Tom shares his experience of eating the Top Chef “Southern Sides” elimination challenge and why the edit was so different than his own meal. With Tristan Epps-Long back on the show, Sara and Tom run through the the surprising underdog story of the quickfire. Sara tells Tom Colicchio to stop lying about his least favorite food :) and explains how timing is secretly a huge advantage on the show. Sara and Tom also talk about meeting Brittany Cochran, Nana A...
Apr 01, 2026•1 hr 36 min
We're back for episode three of Track Your Knives, the data-driven Top Chef companion podcast brought to you by Pack Your Knives. Carly and Kendra are here to break down YOUR power rankings and fantasy league results from episode 3. If you're just finding us, head over to find-topchef.com to submit your power rankings and play along, and subscribe at packyourknives.com for deeper weekly insights. 01:56 Setting the record straight 07:46 Our favorite moment from episode 3 11:55 Power Rankings anal...
Mar 27, 2026•37 min
With Supperland hosting Top Chef this week, Tom and Sara took their talents to Supperland in Charlotte to recap the episode. Liver mush. An incomplete dish. Flaccid pork. Live in person, Tom and Sara together break down the episode with the help of Supperland’s Jamie Brown, who welcomed the Top Chef crew to her restaurant in Plaza Midwood. Tom and Sara didn’t hold back. With Jamie Brown on the show, the PYK hosts ask her Charlotte, Supperland and bringing Top Chef into their restaurant. Were the...
Mar 25, 2026•1 hr 25 min
We're back for episode two of Track Your Knives, the data-driven Top Chef companion podcast brought to you by Pack Your Knives. Carly and Kendra are here to break down YOUR power rankings and fantasy league results from episode 2. If you're just finding us, head over to find-topchef.com to submit your power rankings and play along, and subscribe at packyourknives.com for deeper weekly insights. This week did not disappoint! We've got 139 power rankings submitted, Rhoda making Top Chef history, a...
Mar 20, 2026•47 min
Tom Haberstroh and Sara Bradley turn up the heat and break down the trip to Puckerbutt with Mei Lin, Smokin’ Ed Currie and Noah Chaimberg of The Heatonist. Sara reveals her shocking distaste for a certain culinary treat as PYK tries to salvage any sponsorship opportunities to the show. We also watch a 2021 YouTube video of Tom eating a dried Carolina Reaper from Puckerbutt. Tom can attest: “If it doesn’t pucker your butt, it’s not Puckerbutt.” With the group elimination challenge, Tom and Sara d...
Mar 18, 2026•1 hr 3 min
This season, PYK is bringing you a second weekly Top Chef podcast. Carly and Kendra will be summarizing and analyzing YOUR power rankings and fantasy leagues! If you haven’t yet, head over to find-topchef.com to sign up and become a subscriber on https://www.packyourknives.com/ to get additional data-driven insights on Top Chef. 00:00 Hello and welcome! 04:55 First episode, first impressions 08:18 Carly and Kendra’s Power Rankings 11:00 Orientation to Power Ranking results 11:42 Shout-o...
Mar 13, 2026•41 min
The first segment of a six-part Savor Charlotte with Tom Haberstroh series presented by the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority. Tom sits down with Charlotte chef and food competition guru Chris Coleman of Built On Hospitality who explains why it's a great time for Top Chef to spotlight the emerging Charlotte food scene. Also, Chris shares the secrets of performing in food competitions and his long-held aspirations of being on Top Chef. Subscribe to the PYK Substack! https://www.packy...
Mar 11, 2026•47 min
Tom Haberstroh and new co-host Sara Bradley break down a dramatic season premiere of Top Chef 23 Carolinas, which was released exclusively on Peacock March 3rd. Tom and Sara get to know the contestants and react to one of the biggest meltdowns in Top Chef history, saved by an impromptu rescue mission from one of the judges. New for this season, the couple and twin dynamics already have Tom and Sara's heads spinning. The controversial ending will be sticking with us for a long, long time. Plus, e...
Mar 05, 2026•2 hr 11 min
On a hot summer morning, Tom received a long text message from Sara. In it, Sara explained that she nerded out and wrote down a list of dishes she predicts will be on Top Chef Carolinas. From Appalachian fine dining to hyper-seasonal sustainability, Sara drew upon the unique ingredients of the South and even sketched out the Restaurant Wars restaurant themes and menus. After it all, Tom rethinks what it means to be a Top Chef expert. Subscribe to the PYK Substack! https://www.packyou...
Feb 27, 2026•23 min
To get us hyped for Season 23 Carolinas, Top Chef judge Gail Simmons joins the pod and coaches Tom about what it's like to "host" Top Chef in your home city (/country). The Canadian shares a bee-hind the scenes incident in Calgary last season and revels in Tom's LeBron comparison. Finally, Tom and Gail each give a scouting report on Charlotte's restaurant scene and what makes the Queen City unique in the American culinary landscape. The big question: Does it need a signature dish? And what would...
Feb 26, 2026•50 min
