Coming Down to Finals of Worst Cooks in America. Predictions, Some Snazzy Snark

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Top Two Battle To Prize Coming This Weekend

Before beginning an excellent synopsis and overview, as expected, if any of yon readers should be interested in being on Food Network's Worst Cook in America, here's some information from the web site:

Are you — or someone you know — a complete disaster in the kitchen? Tell us about the Worst Cook in your life.

Send the following information to mailto:FNDish@foodnetwork.com subject ="Worst Cooks Casting"

1. Name and hometown of your worst cook. You can nominate yourself or someone else in your life..

2. Tell us a little about the person you are nominating: their age, what they do, what’s their personality and why are they great for the show?

3. Why does this person need to be sent to Worst Cooks Boot Camp?

4. What are some of this person's worst, funniest or scariest cooking disasters?

Thus it would seem that the plan is to continue with this show and I suppose it was entertainment in a fashion. This cooking food show junkee was entertained but there was some disappointment.

The premise of the show is a good one. The maligned cooks are sent to a cooking "boot camp" headed this year by Food Network's Bobby Flay and Ann Burrell. The teams, headed by their appointed cooking mentors, are entered into two challenges for each show. One is the "skill drill", a small cooking challenge that begins with the cooking mentors illustrating whatever skill is included in the challenge. The contenders learn what they can from the mentor demonstrations and then are left to their own devices to replicate the skill called upon.

Recent skill drills included making a comfort food, preparing a nutritious meal for school children, and replicating a meal prepared by a mentor.

The competition moves on to the elimination challenge which varies like the skill drill. The most recent  episode had the remaining four contenders preparing a meal for a loved one. Husbands, children and fiances were flown in to be culinary critics of dishes that would be served without identifying the chef who prepared it. The mentor and family members critiqued the dishes presented to them. They did not know who prepared the dishes presented to them. Under this scenario, a close family member or loved one could be responsible for the elimination of their beloved contender.

The show began with each cooking member overseeing the cooking instructions of eight contenders. Each week brought its incidences of cooking tragedies, pathos, laughter, learning and angst. I did my best to learn a thing or two as I'd like to cook better. My disappointment came in that these so-called worst cooks in America were being taught cooking skills way above my level.

"Knife skills", for example, baffles me. I have this handy dandy little chopper thingie that works just fine for the few items I must mince or otherwise reduce from big item to little pieces. It's not an item that would impress most master chefs I suppose. And for sure a cook looks very deft wielding a great big ole knife while fluidly chopping green pepper slices that are match stick thin.

I'm just not convinced that the cooking skills taught were the sorts the "worst" cooks in America need to learn.

Over the course of the contest the contenders have had to cook for school children and their own family. They've had to make diner comfort food and combine extreme flavor combinations. They've made pizza and seafood towers and had to replicate dishes made by their mentors.

In the end, the two remaining contenders are Vinnie and Kelli.

Vinnie, poor Vinnie. He's a nice guy, a big amiable fellow who wanted his son to so much enjoy his steak that he almost cried with joy when he did. Throughout this competition, Vinnie's been criticized by Bobby unmercifully for his inability to control his time.

The final two competitors will be cooking a three course meal for some tough critics on behalf of their mentors Ann and Bobby. I see these two finalists as being about equal in talent though I'd give a slight edge to Vinnie.

The final show is scheduled to be aired on Food Network, Sunday night, 4/1/12, at 9pm.

The first post on the "Worst Cook in America":

Food Network's "Worst Cook in America",an Intriguing Concept

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