And then there were 5. Correct choice all around. Jyll never had the chops to be on TV, mush less star in anything.
Jeff is starting to excel here in the home stretch. That pork chop sandwich looked yummy.
WTF was Vic thinking? Other than the name, that dish was repulsive.
Yes, the pork chop sandwich looked good, but are the judges and America ready for the frat boy attitude? He’s got gobs of youthful enthusiasm that needs tempering.
Vic was thinking “Wha’do I do wit’ lasagna?” instead of “How do I show 'em lasagna with a twist?” Repurposing leftover lasagna is a neat trick if you can do it without slapping on more bread and competing flavors. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Vic did with it.
A more clever chef would’ve shown me how to make leftovers into a lasagna. Use meatloaf, maybe an eggplant or zucchini, do it on the stovetop… Show me that, and I’m impressed.
Vic’s biggest screwup though is not even being able to explain why you’d want to make his dish. “I forgot a simple sentence,” is not real forgivable when the sentence you forget is your subject line.
Susie J’s new campaign against stereotypical Mexican fare was poorly conceived and horribly delivered, but I’m at least a bit sympathetic knowing it’s pushback against Susie F’s simpleminded efforts to pigeon hole her into an ethnically focused market commodity.
Whitney got a pretty conspicuous pass on her “chili”, which Bobby described as a chicken tortilla soup. And the “Serve it cold as a gazpacho 'cause firefighters eat it cold” answer was a WTF moment for me. But she got her relatable story in to please Susie Fogelson, which was the whole point I guess.
Jeff’s sandwich looked great. I’m still not digging the rambunctious “energy”, which seems forced to me, but I think he’s doing it, like Whitney’s storytelling, to appease the all powerful FN marketing wing. Bleah.
Mary Beth picked up her dishes but fell down on her one consistent strength and forgot to make it interesting. She wasn’t quite as bad as Vic, but I’d expect a food writer to be able to fill three minutes without faltering pretty easily, especially with Q&A. Hell, she should be able to talk about buttering bread for that long.
This is a better show without all the drama, but I wish they’d refocus the judges so that they concentrate on the contestants’ presentation skills and POV rather that trying to hammer them into the closest (or most convenient) archetype they’re looking for.
There isn’t a single one of them that I’d set aside time to watch their show.
Vic is a huge phony who acts and looks all aggressive and menacing, but at the first hint of criticism goes all puppy dog eyes at the judges. Just like all his ink means to look threatening, but when you look at it, it is just loopy doodles and meaningless shapes. I’m not even convinced they’re real.
Jeff just annoys me with his juvenile humor. He has at least stayed true to his “theme” throughout the show, but “I can turn anything into a sandwich” isn’t a theme that appeals to me.
Mary Beth just looks weird to me with her huge eyes and sideways oval face. I can’t remember a single one of her dishes.
Whitney, while easy on the eyes, likewise is forgettable. What is her theme, anyway?
Maybe Susie I’d watch if she did ignore the judges and stuck to the real Mexican angle. That’s something that is missing on that channel.
I have to say, at this stage my favorites are Jeff & Susie, but only if they can stay true to themselves and stay focused. I still like Vic & Mary Beth, but I don’t think they can pull it off in the long run. I haven’t liked Whitney from the beginning - she’s like Rachel Ray without the “pep”.
BTW, silenus, I appreciate you starting the weekly thread but I don’t usually get to watch until Monday. Could you put a little mouseover spoiler space in next week? Thanks.
IIRC, Suzie didn’t start out wanting to do a Mexican show. She’s trained in French cuisine. She’s been pushed into doing Mexican because the judges insist every dish have a stupid personal story behind it, and that pigeonholes her into Mexican. She does seem to ocook it well.
Yeah, when I saw the first episode, and I saw the judges jump on her for not making Mexican food, I felt really, really uncomfortable.
Vic seems like a nice guy, but I don’t think I really get his point of view, and I’m not really interested in watching more of him. Mary Beth seems for all the world like most of the other people they have the Food Network, but not as good. Susie is quite watchable, but I’m not interested in Mexican food. If that’s the box they want to put her in, then no.
Whitney seems very good at explaining things, and, frankly, that’s what I want when I watch a cooking show. I don’t want a bunch of fake-ass personal stories, I don’t want to hear about your mom’s suicide or how you met your wife; I want to know why you’re doing what you’re doing and how to do it. She also seems to be maybe the best cook left; I remember reading somewhere that she worked on the line in a Michelin-starred restaurant. Those are some serious chops.
I also like Jeff’s P.O.V. I love sandwiches, and it seems like most shows don’t cover them. I would totally watch a show about sandwiches. And, franky, I can handle goofy a lot better than I can handle saccharine.
Jyll leaving. . .I have mixed feelings about that. I really felt kind of weird last week when the judges jumped on her for not being upset enough at being embarrassed by Wolfgang Puck. It just seemed. . .well, catty, and mean, and completely off-point. Not breaking down under that kind of pressure is impressive; I’d much rather see that than someone crying. I thought she was okay; she definitely wasn’t my favorite, but she didn’t seem at all bad.
I wish that, instead of trying to fit someone who fits into their existing market profile, they’d try to expand their market profile into a new demographic. Or, at the very least, I wish that they’d try to find someone to fit into the niche that Alton Brown left when Good Eats stopped. Whitney seems like she’d be good for that, and Jeff seems like he could maybe pull it off, too–though their personalities both seem very different from Alton, they both seem to be able to inform. I think the now-departed Justin B. could’ve done it, too.
I am shocked that in one of the “Previously on” clip p[packages they showed this moment again because I thought they would have wanted it to go down the memory hole (of course they themselves aired it in the first place but you get what I mean :))
It’s all about marketability, and they know they can market “Here, let me show you the recipes I learned at my abuela’s knee.” a lot better than, “Even though I’m of Mexican heritage, I’m a professional French chef”. Bob Tuschman’s no dummy, and he knows that if somebody’s “ethnic”, the Food Network viewing public expects them to cook “their” food.