I am actually a little surprised about how little talk there is about this show- even the Bravo boards are pretty quiet and what comments there are are pretty noncommental.
I was completely unaware of this show until I “accidentally” saw part of the first episode (as a repeat). Either the hype was not there or I totally ignored it. But I am a fan of Top Chef, Hell’s Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares and this appeared to be along the same lines so I am giving it a shot.
I find the Chef (whose name I can never remember) to be more sincere than Ramsay seems on his show(s) and I like the concept better. Rather than setting it up as a pure competition- only one will win- this show could theoretically “graduate” all nine contestants and thus have nine “winners”. I am hoping that will cut down on some of the drama of the others and maybe we will see more of everyone working together to help each other more. (I watch these shows more for what they are doing than the “reality” aspect. I don’t care about their personal lives or who likes whom or why.) To that end, I really enjoyed how genuinely happy for each other some of them seemed to be. When the blond housewife (Suzanne?) was declared to have made the best dish, one of the others said, “good for her!” with a sincere smile and it just felt good to see, especially juxtaposed with the current season of Top Chef’s contestants whose faces turn sour at the announcement of a win that isn’t their own and there have been statements of “how could they have liked that dish, I could do better than that in my sleep!” (paraphrased) .
I am enjoying Chef Academy so far- and have even learned a new technique, so I am going to stick with it at least for now and hope that it doesn’t back slide into “Drama! Reality! Scandalous!” TV. (The porn-star story line notwithstanding.)
This. I can see how he would be considered attractive, but to me he is bordering on hideous- I can’t place it, maybe too sculpted or too squinty or something…definitely not my cup of tea and not someone I would enjoy looking at for aesthetics alone. To make matters worse, I went to Bravo’s website (looking for discussion about the first episode) and found out about the porn-star bit before the episode aired. In the forums someone handily provided the stage name and links for us to see for ourselves. Not that I would ever look for porn on the internet 
and against my own inner voice telling me to stop, I did visit the sites in question and also did a google image search on the porn name. Having seen him “in action” makes it harder for me to take him seriously as a chef (why one thing would affect the other I have no idea, just my weird associations I guess). And every time he is shown cooking he has that silly smug smirk on his face like he is better than this or maybe that the whole thing is beneath him which makes it even harder for me to root for him.
