—more spoiler space—
I mean, it was clear that Michael wasn’t going to make it all the way (final two is Melissa and Jeffrey with Melissa the slight favorite to win), and I wonder what inspired him to try out for the show. BUT.
What the hell is with Debbie? She’s selfish, she lies, and she’s anything but “Seoul to Soul”. I have yet to see ANY Southern (and she wouldn’t know Soul Food if it hit right in her lyin’ ass) in her dishes. She’s Asian and she’s cooking Asian food. Great. I love Asian food, but don’t pretend that it’s somehow more than Asian food.
For a network that requires so much cross-germination amongst its stars and shows, they sure seem willing to overlook the fact that she couldn’t find teamwork with a flashlight and a map.
I used to love this show, but now it tires me out trying to watch it, and I usually can’t be bothered. If someone put together 15-minute capsules of the episodes, I think I would love it again.
I knew Michael would go but I think the Judges have Debbie’s number. She is a lair and the judges called her on it before. I think she is trying to sabatoge everyone.
Well fundamentally they need too make a show out of whoever. And they have almost flat out said Debbie is a demographic they desperately need. That combined with the fact she seems to generally make good food, seems to make her the clear favorite.
It’s fun to watch the execs desperately try to get a demographic, while the chef’s keep pointing out the food flaws. Debbie can cook, but she’s a rat and needs to be publicly crucified for it. I’m hoping Melissa is enough of a demographic that she gets a legit shot at the title.
Yeah, I was sad to see Michael go but this is far from the first time that he’s shown or admitted to camera-shyness. He’d be an awesome local celebrity chef, that kind of thing, but trying to adjust for television just tripped him up every time. Hopefully his stint on the show gets him some good publicity for whatever he goes into.
Did I see something on next week’s promos for Bobby Flay or someone saying they were taking away Debbie’s Asian ingredients? I would love that. I’m a vegetarian but I cook meat, and do a good job IMHO. Watching her cook is like being back when Bobby Flay seemed to take every Iron Chef challenge to mean “turn it into a tamale.” When he beat Rick Bayless I had to grudgingly admit that he had shown more flexibility and creativity than before.
Well, Michael admitted to the judges that he hates being on camera. TWICE.
I think that the contestants did not think through the challenge. Jeffrey’s plan to have two people in front-of-house was unwise, and put an unreasonable load on the kitchen. Also someone (one of the contestants) should have grabbed him during service and said, “we are in the weeds here; get your ass back in the kitchen and start cooking!”
What they should have done during the party fiasco is dump all the prep-heavy canapes and concentrate on the ones that could be mass produced. In fact, a decent caterer should have seen that coming. The contestants were too focused on “My food first” to pay any attention to the guests and their needs.
I have to add that I like Melissa a lot more than I thought I would. When I saw her at the start of the show and she talked about cooking for her kids, I automatically pigeonholed her as a Suzy Homemaker who probably didn’t know much about serious cooking. However, she’s really impressed me so far with her knowledge and skills.
And silenus, you’re right, they really messed up all over the place on that last challenge. From two out as front of house, to uneven workloads in the kitchen, really fussy and labor-intensive foods, etc., there was more than enough mistakes to go around on that.
Debbie got the (well-deserved) rap for the production problems, but Jeffrey should have put the kibosh on the overly complicated canapes.
Good on Melissa for calling Debbie out when she went into martyr mode. It was hysterical when they did the math and proved Debbie was full of it.
Debbie now has zero credibility with the judges and the other contestants have seen her throw people under the bus on three separate occasions. I’ve got a better chance of winning than she does at this point.
It’s funny that the only reason she was kept was that her food was the best of the lot. Was it a conscious decision on her part to make sure her stuff was polished, while making sure that everyone else would suffer from mediocre preparation? She’s just passive-aggressive enough to do something like that IMHO.
I think that Jamika and Melissa are going to be the final two, if Jamika can pull it together. Otherwise it’ll be Jeffrey and Melissa.
Was it really Jeffrey’s place to do that? He was given the liberty of assigning positions at the outset of the challenge, but once that was done, was he really the “boss” or just the host? There were several times that someone should have stepped in and changed some of the decisions - the food preparation, the overly complicated appetizers, the lack of vegetarian options - but Jeffrey certainly took none of that upon himself, and I’m not sure if he was supposed to.
I agree that it was not Jeffrey’s job. He was there to give assignments. Now, once he heard the recipes, he could have said, “Wait, maybe we need some more back of house staff.”
On the other hand, if Debbie had actually pitched in like a member of the team, she would have had four, Melissa would have had four, and Jamika could have handled three in between running trays (give her the easiest ones).
Frankly, I’m to the point now where I no longer believe that Debbie is anywhere near as experienced a caterer as she claims. Based on her expediting “skills” as demonstrated, anyone who’s every worked for her probably hates her guts.
I do think the basic challenge was unfair though. They rewarded the most complex hors d’oeuvres, but then bitched because four people couldn’t keep up with ~60 guests. They should have had wait staff. Let the cooks cook!
Yeah, I was wondering about that also. In real catering companies, are the cooks actually supposed to bring out the food themselves? I’m not talking about the parties where they have a steam table set up, but rather in a setting like that depicted on the show, where the food has to actually be brought to the partygoers.
The network is “selling” not exactly that party experience, but the personalities of their potential stars-to-be. Normally a caterer would probably have staff to handle this, but since we don’t have a way to taste what’s on screen, they had to force the contestants to interact with the judges and the guests to promote their food as well as hand it out.
I think that was one of Jamika’s problems this episode - she had the “I’m busy and have to get back to cooking” attitude, rightfully so, but that’s bad for public relations.
Yeah, but the guests only got to see Michael and Jeffrey for any length of time, plus a little Jamika. If their goal was to show off the contestants then they should have had each contestant back in the kitchen then coming out to present a couple of trays of their own hors d’oeuvres to the whole crowd.
The whole challenge was badly conceived and poorly executed. As I said in a previous thread, Bob and Susie don’t really seem to know what the hell they’re doing. I mean this is the fifth season of the show and they’ve got one bankable personality to show for it. Hell, American Idol is running a better record than that and most of the people who vote on that show don’t know dick.
Debbie sucks. She’s sucked since the first week when she screwed Jeffrey and Michael with the food orders and made the dreadful angel food disaster. I’m so glad Melissa busted her shit. Her food was the best because she spent all of her time worrying over it, whereas the other chefs had to balance other dishes.
Having said that Michael was the obvious ax this week. He has consistently said that the cameras are a problem for him… which begs the question, why did the show producers move someone to the finals with that issue? I get it, he’s camp… as nice a guy as he seems I think that he would get on my nerves after a while.
I also thought it was funny how the judge (Ted?) was totally trying to flirt with Michael but he was oblivious.
All of the other chefs - Jamika, Melissa, and Jeffrey - are very likable. I’d watch their shows.
Michael’s personality seemed almost as big as Guy Fieri, but his place is obviously not in front of a bunch of cameras.
Having been on live TV a couple of times, I can say that cameras can be daunting, especially in a multi-camera studio setting. You look up from what you’re doing, and there’s a glass eye practically the size of a dinner plate seemingly two feet away from your face, and there are two or three others nearby, also gliding along, silently staring at you. As Michael hinted at when they were on the Rachael Ray show, it’s like they’re judging you. The trick is trying to look past the cameras and make a connection to the viewer while simultaneously looking into them and unable to see anything but the cameras.