Food Network searches for its next star and Hell's Kitchen premiered with that nasty guy.
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This week just passed, on 6/3/07 and 6/4/07, two food reality shows premiered and I am tuned in.
The concept of a contest for potential chefs or even just great home cooks is a fairly recent idea and it's one that is slowly, but most assuredly, catching on. First, we normally associate television type entertainment with such as music, comedy, dancing...that sort of thing. Of course with the advent and growth of cable TV the great unwashed out here in la-la land have learned that fashion, home improvement, history and yes, even cooking, can be the subject of televised entertainment and given time, a following develops.
The Food Network was one of the fist subject-specific cable stations to make its way onto the TV screen and by now this network has a fairly large following. The broadcast networks rarely feature cooking shows but the Fox network is always the exception.
For Chef Gordon Ramsey this is the third series in his Hell's Kitchen reality show where wannabe chefs exhibit their culinary skills under sometimes very adverse conditions featuring lots of cussing, spitting, hissing, throwing and often shutting down the entire operation.
There's a world of difference between these two shows, do not doubt this for minute. My personal preference is the Food Network Show for Hell's Kitchen offers very little about cooking but realms of information about being a chef and/or running a restaurant.
The winner of the Food Network Star wins a car and a cooking show on...where else? Food Network! The winner of the Hell's Kitchen contest wins his or her own restaurant. The Food Network Star is voted in by the viewing audience; the Hell's Kitchen winner is decided all by Gordon Ramsey.
Now on to some notes and pics from the first night of each annual contest.
The Next Food Network Star 2007
Food Network Star's web site
The series began by the showing of a taped vignette by Food Network's mightiest star, Emiril Lagasse. When I covered this series last year I very pointedly made allusions to the complete absence of Mr. Lagasse and hinted that perhaps Emiril was on the outs at the mighty Food Network. It turned out that Emiril did make a showing but not until near the end of the 2006 contest. I snorted when I saw this introductory vignette by Emiril and I'd like to think it was done because of my prior speculation about his absence and in an attempt to thwart such speculation this year. Heh.
The contenders were eleven in number, an odd number. My guess is they started off with this odd number to get the series going and when "foodies" became aware the contest was underway there would be a neat top ten list of contestants. The contenders came in all ages, sizes, and sexes. There was a former marine, a couple of caterers, a sous chef and one fellow who hosted a local cooking show in his home state. The "selection committee" consisted of a Food Network producer, Food Network's VP of marketing and one fellow I cannot stand...Food Network star Bobby Flay.
So you ask why don't I like Bobby Flay? Bobby Flay is a hothead and his temper is barely contained by the niceties of the TV camera. I don't like his shows, I don't like how he cooks and most of all, I don't like his personality. Yet Flay is always a judge in this annual contest so there you have it.
The first cooking task for the contenders was to prepare a pot luck dinner for 12 people. Each contestant was to prepare one dish which would represent him or her, his or her style of cooking and there would be allotted one hour to prepare this culinary first impression.
As expected there were various and sundry types of food prepared. Contestant Colombe prepared some sort of salad type of thing featuring squash. I don't like squash and I thought her dish looked awful. Yet it was Colombe's dish which was most cherished by the judges and as a result, Colombe was put in charge of the group's next big cooking challenge.
The group's next task was to decorate a wedding cake. This was an amusing task and the results were very interesting. One contender, Paul, put two grooms on the top of his cake because as he declared to the world, he is gay. He then proceeded to decorate his cake with strawberries and other fruit. Food Network's famous cake guy declared Paul's cake a failure in that the fruit would suck out the moisture from the cake.
Another contender, Rory, created something she called a "Texas Sunset" cake. Heh. Okay, these cakes were WEDDING cakes. The inappropriate act of slathering on tons of bright red and green frosting on a cake that should be sophisticated and elegant was lost on Rory.
Contender Amy's final decorated cake was declared the best of the lot and as a result Amy was put in charge of a team like Colombe.
The final task of the evening was for two teams to cater a wedding for one hundred people and they were to prepare their dishes in six hours time. Also in this amount of time the teams would have to shop for their food supplies.
This task was led by Food Network's Robert Irvine, host of "Dinner Impossible" a Food Network show that charges him with creating a fine meal within an impossibly limited amount of time. So too would the eleven contenders have to cater a wedding feast in the almost hopelessly limited amount of time: only six hours to shop, prepare and present.
The bride was introduced to the contestants and she requested vegetarian appetizers. I think vegetarians should be shot and, if possible, eaten. Amy led the green team while Colombe led the orange team. Each team was given $1,800 but since one team would have more cooks, witness the odd number of entrants, the team with one less chef would receive and extra $500 to purchase food.
The food was shopped and prepared, personal camera vignettes and spans of rushed cooks preparing the feast were shown to the viewer. Finally the wedding guests arrived and the teams presented their entries.
After the rush of the wedding reception and the presentation of the food, all contenders were assembled before the selection committee and each were given their first personal evaluation. Two of the finalists were also sent home.
Both teams were criticized roundly for not spending all the money they were allotted. A very fair criticism. Recall that one team had $2,300 while the other had $1,800. One team spent $1,100 while the other spent almost $800. Well why wouldn't they fill that cart with caviar and prepared shrimp because as it turned out, both teams fell short of food during the reception.
Colombe, who led a team, made her initial mistake by not selecting the known caterers amongst the finalists to be on her team. She knew what the task was and yet she allowed her opponent Amy to scarf up all the experienced caterers.
Amy led Colombe's opposition team and all of her team admired Amy's leadership. Although Amy was praised for her performance as leader of the winning green team, the selection committee did warn Amy to stop talking the praises of her time in Paris and the glory of french food. Heh. Food Network viewers aren't known world wide as devotees of fancy french cuisine.
Tommy was declared genial. Paul was told he had the best personality of the bunch but he needed to prepare better food. Nikki was warned that her personality was tood strong. Adrien was told he played it too safe and needed to punch up his food. Mike Salmon had used the punch line "Salmon...just like the fish" throughout the show when introduced. The selection committee told him the joke is old and to stop.
This little snippet made me smile, a person going through life with the last name of FISH. In fact, I too have a standard retort after stating my last name..."FISH...just like it sounds" I always say. Well damn, there's a reason for this. For almost always when I state my last name is FISH I get a request to spell it. I understand there might be lots of ways to spell FISH, at least one that's somebody's last name. But my standard retort almost alleviates the necessity of me spelling it. Mike Salmon probably has people asking him to spell his last name and his standard retort should stop the need to constantly spell it.
JAG, which is this fellow's name acronym, was told he prepared good food and he should stay positive. Vivien was warned that she was too much of a wallflower. Rory has a good personality but her food was consistantly bad, witness that awful "Texas Sunrise" wedding cake. Patrick was warned that he was stiff and his personality did not shine.
After the first two hours of this year's Next Food Network Star's 2000 competition, Patrick and Vivienne were sent home.
The nine finalists hoping to win their own Food Network show are:
Colombe Jacobsen
Michael Salmon
Tommy Grella
Amy Finley
Paul McCullough
Rory Schepisi
Nikki Shaw
Joshua Garcia-JAG
Adrien Sharp
So far I think JAG and Tommy look good.
Hell's Kitchen 2007
Web site for Hell's Kitchen
I don't especially enjoy this reality series as I don't especially like Gordon Ramsey. Ramsey's claim to fame is his world reknown temper and nasty personality. Maybe it's me, but nasty people who cuss and scream at people aren't amongst my favorites.
Still this Fox series is now into it's third year so somebody tunes in to see what wannabe chef will win his or her own restaurant.
On the first night of competition on 6/4/07, Ramsey immediately ordered all contenders to prepare their own signature dish. Viewers were treated to the frantic sight of all the contenders desperately preparing their dish as they fretted and sweated the final verdict by Chef Ramsey.
The act of tasting the final presentation was the first chance for Ramsey to begin his signature brand of insults and berating.
Rock used frozen ingredients for his dish. Josh's meat was raw and the dish was too salty. Joanna's chicken was dry.
On and on Ramsey went, tossing insults and offering few compliments. One dish he complimented was prepared by contender Melissa. What's interesting about contender Melissa is her assertion that she is too often judged by her looks. I regarded Melissa and didn't think she looked bad at all. Which was her whole point, heh. For Melissa feels that she is too good looking to be taken seriously as a chef. However, when one tastes this babe's cooking, these prejudices against her beauty disappear.
Well I thought that was a right brazen statement to make as it's considered impolite to compliment one's own looks. But Melissa's dish was one of only two that Ramsey said he liked. Well damn. Did Ramsey like Melissa's rather ordinary meat dish or was he after the woman's beauty?
The rest of the show continued in that manner as I remember from prior years. Two teams were formed. There was steam and cussing, popping grease and cussing, tears and cussing. The show is an endless montage of bleeped out words although viewers know full well what's being bleeped.
Guests show up at the Hell's Kitchen restaurant and viewers are treated to scenes of restless guests or guests leaving abruptly as the amateur chefs in the kitchen can't serve up suitable dishes quickly enough. Myself suspects that these "customers" are props of a sort and they know full well that the chefs preparing their meals are contestants in this Fox reality series.
Throughout all the cussing and crying we have Gordon Ramsey fretting over the taste of this dish and the missing salt in that dish. Hell's Kitchen's maitre d' provides commentary on the restaurant guests' disposition and complaints.
It's a bit of a hoot and almost always the frantic scene ends with Chef Ramsey throwing down the towel and ordering his staff to shut down the restaurant, that this bunch of chefs are losers and not worth losing customers over.
Heh.
Of course then Ramsey gathers all the contenders together and he sends one home. Beautiful Melissa was the captain of the "non-losing" team and was charged with nominating two of her team mates, one of which Ramsey would send home.
One of the more amusing kitchen scenes of the evening was the saga of the quail eggs. For one of the restaurant's dishes featured fried sunny-side up quail eggs and Tiffany was in charge of frying the things. It turned out that one contender, Joanna, was a short order cook, a cooking job disdained by the other would-be chefs. Joanna could, however, fry a damn egg. Tiffany's final quail egg product was rubbery and void of taste. Joanna complained during the entire kitchen scene about being denied the opportunity to fry an egg.
Beautiful Melissa nominated Joanna as her other team mate to be considered for elimination. Beautiful Melissa said Joanna didn't work well with others.
Ramsey decided to send home Tiffany and I don't blame him. For quail eggs or not, a wannabe chef desiring his or her own restaurant oughta be able to FRY A DAMN EGG!
The top 11 remaining contenders for Hell's Kitchen as of this date are:
Rock
Jen
Josh
Beautiful Melissa
Eddie
Joanna
Brad
Julia
Aaron
Bonnie
Vinnie
For now, beautiful Melissa and Eddie look good.
More TV Reviews HERE
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