Melissa D’Arabian starred in her own show today, Ten Dollar Dinners.
I thought she looked a little nervous, but other than that she was very strong! She talked while working, she got “personal,” she looked at the camera, and the food looked fabulous! And do-able.
She made me want to make home-made piecrust. Ok - not really, I’m too lazy. But the potato torte looked delicious! I might make it for brunch one of these days. I’m not sure about applesauce granita, but the salad dressing looked pretty tasty.
I don’t know her, but she’s from my hometown! I meant to watch the competition show at least once when I heard she was doing well, but I never did. So is Ten Dollar Dinners a new ongoing show, or a one-off special?
I guess I’m in the minority? I think Jeffrey could have done it better.
And I take umbrage in the entire premise - $10 Dinners. First, she make it clear she was cooking lunch. Second, where was that food purchased for only $10?
I can believe that the salad was $3 - it was just greens and a vinegrette. But that tart for $4? I suppose they won’t count the staples like oil, flour, S&P and I’m OK with that. But 3 medium potatoes will run two dollars here, plus two sticks of butter for the crust is another 2 easy. (IMHO butter is a staple until you get into stick territory.) Ditto cream - do people really have 2/3 of a cup of heavy cream sitting around? And that doesn’t even touch the gruyere or bacon.
That said, I do think the tart looked fantastic.
If they explained the pricing and how she came to the $10 the way Sandra Lee does in her new show, I might warm to it a bit more. Or, just call it what it is - ‘Weeknight Gourmet’. I will, however, give it another shot.
I tried looking for it on the DVR and only realized later that the DVR listing was “10 Dollar…” not “Ten Dollar…” :smack: I set it up to record for next week.
dasgupta, I suspect part of it is not $10 for the grocery bill but $10 worth of ingredients if bought in decent-sized amounts. Like I could pay $3-5 for a few pounds worth of potatoes and eat the rest on other nights, for instance. But I agree, she could explain the price reasoning, maybe give tips for alternate recipes to use up the rest of (whatever) or links to some on the FN website.
I totally believe that, which is why I asked where the food was purchased. (Then again, she’s filming in Manhattan, no?)
But how much is a block of gruyere in Ames, Iowa? At least Sandra Lee totals her meals as she cooks them, so you can properly scale the price for your neck of the woods.
I don’t know where Sandra Lee gets her prices, either. I can get a bunch of asparagus for $1.99/lb maybe about 3 times a summer.
I’m surprised they give prices, anyway. It’s not going to be relevant for lots of places in the U.S., and they won’t get much re-run value when prices go up next year!
Loved the show. I’m used to budgeting by buying ingredients that will make more than one meal, and she didn’t use all of the bacon, or very much cream or cheese. We’re trying the salad dressing for dinner tonight (with white bean crostini, because making the torte vegan was just too much effort for a summer weeknight) and it’s delicious!
Yeah, shows with prices are pretty irrelevant to me. You can call it budget cooking without committing to a specific dollar amount, but even that seems unnecessary.
I got sucked into watching the Next Food Network Star reality show when it was running back to back and taped them.
Melissa just annoys the hell out of me. She is just so, so “perky” and, as Lou Grant famously said, “I hate perky.”…plus I thought Jeffery was a better cook.
Will not watch her show, but did like watching the process of seeing who would win. I am now watching Design Star and usually do watch those HGTV shows more than cooking shows.
Yes, I’m hoping Jeffrey will get a show as well, the way runner-up Adam Gertler did last year. I thought Melissa was fine, except for how she held the story of her mother’s suicide until the final showdown, when it has the most impact. To me, that’s manipulative. But I was impressed that her pastry dough was so highly praised by the experts in the final challenge–I’m always impressed by great pastry dough!
Bet your ass it’s manipulative. That’s the name of the game. She wanted to win, she has the cooking chops, and she did what she had to do to take out her competition, fairly and above-board.
I haven’t seen the show but I prefer shows that have some constraints like that. As a single dude who doesn’t get to the grocery store more often than once a week it’s pretty useful and relevant. Food Network is fucking loaded with shows where the cooking, prep time, tools and ingredients are so absurdly out reach for me in any realistic manner that it’s moot.
It’s all fine and dandy to watch Ina Garten with her Hamptons-style cooking, rife with Lobster, artesian breads and cheeses, wine and organic fresh year-round produce. However if I’m actually looking for something I can cook at home it’s useless.
That said, if this bitch’s show uses absurd accounting to reach that “$10” it’s going to piss me off. If they completely disregard the prices during the show and the “$10 Dinner” is nothing but a title it’s going to be obnoxious. That 5-item menus show that was on for like 3 episodes stretched credibility to a point that was irritating in the extreme.
We shall see, but expecting every Food Network show to be unbounded by price misses the point completely.
Fair enough. But at least Danny Deadwife on American Idol announced his widowhood from jump, and didn’t keep it as a card to play later. (How he got his grandpa to die during finals I’ll never know.)
