# Hell's Kitchen and MasterChef Summer 2012 \*open spoiler\* **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 5, 2012, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212 "2012-06-05T22:45:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/101 "2012-06-27T10:58:20Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > This is the first year I’ve ever watched any of MasterChef at all, I haven’t caught every episode or even every minute of the episodes I have seen parts of. > What’s with the one judge who doesn’t know how to say “espresso”? Is he an actually known chef or is he just a reality show judge? Repeatedly screwing up that severely damaged his credibility for me. Everything else he said about authentic Italian tiramisu didn’t really matter as much coming from someone who can’t correctly pronounce the ingredients. Which one is mispronouncing, the bigger guy or the littler guy? (I haven’t seen the episode yet, I recorded it.) Either way, both of them have tremendous backgrounds. The bigger guy is Graham Elliot Bowles, who worked at Charlie Trotter’s and TRU in Chicago, was the head chef at Avenues, and now has his own self-named Michelin-starred restaurant here. The littler guy is Joe Bastianich, son of the famed restauranteur/cookbook author Lidia Bastianich, who worked in the family restaurants and has opened a bunch of restaurants with Mario Batali. (Not that it doesn’t make me want to hit people when they use those kinds of pronunciations; my knowledgeable advanced biology teacher in high school constantly pronounced nuclear/nucleus as noo-kyoo-lur/noo-kyoo-luss. :smack:) ---
**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/102 "2012-06-27T12:53:46Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > Which one is mispronouncing, the bigger guy or the littler guy? (I haven’t seen the episode yet, I recorded it.) Either way, both of them have tremendous backgrounds. I caught it too - it was Joe Bastianich. He pronounced it “expresso.” I told him his mother would be disappointed in him, but I don’t think he heard me. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/103 "2012-06-27T13:36:16Z")
I was watching yesterday’s episode of Masterchef as I was getting dressed this morning. Gordon asked one woman where the sponge was for her dessert, and her response was hilarious. She said something like, “He was speaking to me in a language I couldn’t understand. Somehow I understood that I needed to add ladyfingers.” Presumably (although I haven’t seen the rest of the episode), he meant that she needed spongecake for the trifle. There was just something hilarious about the way she spoke to the camera. ---
**Author:** ![StarvingButStrong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/starvingbutstrong/32/335_2.png) [@StarvingButStrong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StarvingButStrong)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/104 "2012-06-27T13:40:32Z")
BTW, what’s up with using commercial ladyfingers being okay? They’ve been utterly snarky about using off the shelf items in the past. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/105 "2012-06-27T13:49:51Z")
Time limitations, perhaps? ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/106 "2012-06-27T13:49:54Z")
While I’m no professional, or even a ranking amateur cook, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that making ladyfingers, then prepping them to use in tiramisu, while making the _rest_ of the tiramisu, all in the span of an hour, is pretty much impossible. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/107 "2012-06-27T16:20:44Z")
[QUOTE=Motorgirl] I caught it too - it was Joe Bastianich. He pronounced it “expresso.” I told him his mother would be disappointed in him, but I don’t think he heard me. [/QUOTE] Expresso is a recognized variant of espresso. The odd thing is that it’s considered to be the Spanish, French or even an Americanized version, whereas espresso is Italian. What gets goofy is that espresso is thought to be a corruption of the Latin “exprimere” as the letter x is not in the standard Italian language so the x-version may actually be correct. I can live with him calling it expresso. If he wants to axe someone a question, well, then I’ll have to hunt him down. ---
**Author:** ![ministryman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@ministryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ministryman)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/108 "2012-06-27T16:21:44Z")
> [@Raygun99](#): > > While I’m no professional, or even a ranking amateur cook, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that making ladyfingers, then prepping them to use in tiramisu, while making the _rest_ of the tiramisu, all in the span of an hour, is pretty much impossible. I agree, having made tiramisu with premade lady fingers before, and I am not in these people’s caliber. ---
**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/109 "2012-06-27T18:03:36Z")
So I’ve been watching Hell’s Kitchen this season, for the first time. I have to admit, it is sort of entertaining. But it seems so obviously… staged, or pre-determined sometimes, that it’s turning me off. Like, the latest episode… the two up for elimination were the big guy and some rather bland guy (I’m not very good with names). It was clear from the episode, if I’m understanding the idea of the show correctly, that the big guy should have been the one to go. He was screwing up constantly throughout the episode, getting yelled at time and time again, had made some patently obvious mistakes (seriously, pre-making scallops? Even I know how silly that is). It seemed the other guy hadn’t really done much wrong, and was put up for elimination simply because no one else had been so obviously bad that episode. So, clearly the big guy was going to be the one to go, right? Of course, no; Ramsey chose the other guy. I was stunned for about a second, before I realized - well, of course. The big guy is a much bigger personality. He’s much more interesting and open and a character than the other guy. He bristles with the others on his own team, opening up room for conflict. He’s obviously much better for ratings. That’s clearly the reason he was kept around. Which, to be honest, kind of ruins the show for me. Is it always this transparent? ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/110 "2012-06-27T18:10:35Z")
My WAG was that the big dude got the “incompetent edit” - that the producers said to edit out all the stuff with almost anyone else fucking up, just for the sake of a “surprise” boot from Ramsay at the end. But I guess it could have been per your way, too. We already suspect they pick drama queens and fuckups to be in the cast, so why not? Another recommendation for “The F Word,” BTW. It’s quite good. ---
**Author:** ![Covered\_In\_Bees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/111 "2012-06-27T18:11:07Z")
> [@](#): > > Is it always this transparent? Yes. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/112 "2012-06-27T18:11:37Z")
Of course Hell’s Kitchen is staged. Why else would every competition come down to the wire? Surely sometimes one or the other team would be leading in the vote count throughout. ---
**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/113 "2012-06-27T18:14:26Z")
> [@Covered\_In\_Bees](#): > > Yes. I was thinking as much. Not much reason to keep watching, then. Oh well! ---
**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/114 "2012-06-27T19:15:42Z")
> [@gotpasswords](#): > > Expresso is a recognized variant of espresso. The odd thing is that it’s considered to be the Spanish, French or even an Americanized version, whereas espresso is Italian. And his mom grew up in Italy, which is why I said his mom would be disappointed. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/115 "2012-07-01T20:29:34Z")
> [@StarvingButStrong](#): > > BTW, what’s up with using commercial ladyfingers being okay? They’ve been utterly snarky about using off the shelf items in the past. 😉 I don’t know, but I was happy to see a challenge where half the cooks had to use a canned product instead of fresh, and the canned ones tended to do better. Sometimes it’s interesting to take a premade product and then turn it around into something better. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/116 "2012-07-02T14:42:59Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Of course Hell’s Kitchen is staged. Why else would every competition come down to the wire? Surely sometimes one or the other team would be leading in the vote count throughout. Not at all. The two teams are ALWAYS so close in ability that it comes down to the last vote/tiebreak. ---
**Author:** ![Covered\_In\_Bees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/117 "2012-07-02T17:43:43Z")
I think that was his point, considering the first part of the quoted section. Then of course there are the times when one team starts off strong, then the other just happens to rattle of a few dramatic points in a row to tie things up. CUT TO COMMERCIAL Then they come back and the team that was leading wins anyway or something. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/118 "2012-07-02T21:09:06Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Not at all. The two teams are ALWAYS so close in ability that it comes down to the last vote/tiebreak. Is there a missing :rolleyes: at the end of that statement? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/119 "2012-07-02T22:01:44Z")
> [@TBG](#): > > Is there a missing :rolleyes: at the end of that statement? 😛 Of course not. It’s reality TV which means it’s real. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2012, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212/120 "2012-07-03T03:31:02Z")
It seems ironic to me that MasterChef, a show supposedly dedicated to fine food and world-class cuisine, is the television equivalent of Taco Bell or McDonalds. The manufactured drama, the gimmick contestants with the (ostensibly) interesting backstories (the single mom with only $40 to her name, the gay Asian kid whose traditional family doesn’t approve of him becoming a chef, the gourmet cowboy with a passion for haute cuisine) the panel of judges all playing utterly predictable roles, (the Sophisticated, Intimidating Heavy, the Friendly Fat Guy, the Stern Maestro With A Heart Of Gold) the cheesy background music: The entire production is often literally cringeworthy to me. So if my tastes are so pure and refined what the fuck am I watching it for? Well, much like crappy fast-food, sometimes crappy television is better than nothing at all (I have never had cable, and Monday night broadcast TV options are mighty slim pickings around here this time of year) and I actually like (well done) cooking shows in general, and finally, I suppose that I have to admit that on some level, I guess I must like Gawd-Awful “reality” shows that let me watch an embarrassing trainwreck in the (dis)comfort of my own home. That said, I realize that she is a married woman, but I couldn’t get over how physically stunning Anna was; She looked like a young, hotter Blair Brown or Laura San Giacomo, and I am fully convinced that she’s the most attractive woman on TV this summer. It’s too bad she’s gone, but she is drop dead gorgeous, and hopefully her food industry aspirations will come to pass in the future. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hells-kitchen-and-masterchef-summer-2012-open-spoiler/624212.md?page=7)