Before Top Chef popularized competitive cooking, chefs routinely bet on who could hard-boil the most eggs for block parties: hard-luck boxers with salmonella phobias or Paul Newman. Reap the benefits of the show’s revolutionary improvements in culinary challenges with today’s Groupon: for $99, you get a one-year membership to Top Chef University (a $199.95 value).

Lauded across the amber-waved virtual landscape for its creative and effective service, Top Chef University carves first-rate chefs out of everyday web traffickers using knives of technology. The university consists of 12 self-paced courses––taught by Top Chef cheftestants schooled in meal-lesson pedagogy––that touch on everything from kitchen basics to the fine art of bacon ice cream. Today’s Groupon gives you complete access to the curriculum, starting with the first course, titled Getting Started: Basics & Technique. The course is split into 19 topics that include organization, cookware, and knife skills; cooks working with sporks should consider upgrading before getting started. Future courses reveal the gastronomic secrets of marinades, Southern fried chicken, and rolled pasta, all of which were heavily guarded during the Cold War.

Top Chef is a beloved and mouth-watering Emmy Award–winning show that, unlike the 1958 hit and proto-reality show Who’s Got the Hamburgers?, encourages balanced, delicious diets and doesn’t romanticize condiment binging or sesame-seed spitting. Give a great gift to yourself and your weary digestive tract, or symbolically teach a dear friend to fish, thereby guaranteeing him a lifetime’s worth of popcorn shrimp. You must activate your Groupon within six months of purchase.

Reviews

Top Chef University has been featured in Esquire's Eat Like A Man, on ABCNews.com, and on The Food Channel:

• You've watched them whip up delectable dishes, and a soupcon of drama, in the Top Chef kitchen. Now, stars of the hit Bravo TV series are ready to school their fans: Pack your knives and go... online. – Michelle Locke, ABCNews.com