Food Network Star 6/28/15

The episode description says it's time for Fourth of July cookouts.  On June 28.  Let's do the Time Warp again?

The contestants are divided into teams of three.  Mama Rosa thinks everyone wants chicken parm at a picnic. Brian Boitano realizes that his meat costs $250 with a minute left on the clock...Football Eddie to the rescue as he makes it to the meat department to slice the portion and back to the checkout time as the clock ticks off the last second.  Football Eddie recognizes a fellow athlete as he notes that Brian Boitano is sweating like he just finished a figure skating competition.  Rue's team ended up $100 under budget.  This still isn't Hunger Games, and I'm sure that will come up in judging.  However, it will be someone else's problem as the judges make the teams switch cars.  

Bobby Dean is still in good with the Food Network, and he is the guest judge today.  Dom is mourning the loss of his steaks while Lenny is rejoicing.  If there's one person he wouldn't want to give up a set of gorgeous ribeyes to, it's the Grillmaster.  Mama Rosa has to go vegetarian because someone (Rue?) did not have a protein.  Brian Boitano is wondering what to do with his shrimp while Mike tells him to put it on a stick.  Brian then gets a little too excited about the cucumbers.  He's going to grill some fennel with it, so we'll see if he can do it better than Rosa last week.  Football Eddie has some gorgeous loins.  Sandwich King makes his own ketchup and mayo to use as bases for other sauces.  I admire anyone that can make mayo by hand.  I love watching Meryl Streep do it in Julie and Julia.  Dom pouts for a while before coming up with an idea, but I'm wondering how it will taste.  Armenian Mama will be cooking during service and trying to keep up.  That always goes well.  

Time for everyone to introduce their dishes to the Dials of Doom.  Each person gets to only choose one meal to eat.  Emilia starts out channeling Katy Perry as a firework and the audience responds.  Rue starts out ok and fizzles from there.  Stage Fright Dom returns and makes Rue look engaging.  Brian Boitano sets the stage and is on fire, and then Sandwich King takes all of the rest of the time crashing and burning.  Or almost all of it.  Football Eddie has to actually interrupt him to get ANY time, and then Sandwich King jumps back in to talk over him at the end like a five-year-old wanting his mommy.  Mama Rosa is engaging for once, and Armenian Mama and Lenny keep it going.  Looks like everyone is going to want their food, so we'll see if Armenian Mama can keep up with cooking her skewers.  Football Eddie engages with the crowd since he didn't get to talk during presentation.

Tasting time.  Dom's steak is good and his panzanella salad has decent flavor but is a little soggy.  Emilia's mint pea puree is good, but her tandoori chicken is bland.  Rue's shrimp dish gets good marks as well.  Too bad they had no line after the first five minutes.  Football Eddie's loins lack flavor, but Alex's sandwich is the best dish so far.  Brian Boitano's shrimp lollipops are bland and undercooked.  The white team has a long line, but it's because both Mamas are in the weeds trying to keep up with demand.  They start losing people to the boys' team.  Mama Rosa has too much unheated bread for her mushrooms.  Armenian Mama is ending up with charred skewers.  Ah, time management.  

The red team had 40 seconds left on the clock thanks to Dom and Rue.  Football Eddie would have liked that time!  Rue is told, "PLEASE step up!!  We need your food, but you suck at selling it.  Please, have a party! Feed us drinks!  GET US LAID!!!"  Football Eddie is told he has been letting it all slip away.  Blue team won by 3 tokens and are all safe from elimination.  In other words, Rosa and Michelle dicking around on time management cost their team the win and sheltered Alex from the whupping he deserves for his presentation.  Rue is safe despite her lecture from the judges.  Dom and the remaining Mamas are at the bottom.  The judges are not sure whether Armenian Mama can cook outside her home kitchen but decide to send the last Italian Mama home instead.

Tune in next week to see if we lose our last Mama or if District 11 loses their last tribute.

Food Network Star 6/21/15

I'm finally emerging from the haze of medication and finding an appetite again.  Let's see if this makes me lose my appetite again.  Looking at the synopsis on the DVR, we are (pretending to be) sad that Hashtag Manic Squirrel left before Buzzword Day.

Some of the girls are in the car mourning that the guys are staying in the top 3.  Michelle gags a bit, and Mike comments that this probably isn't the first time a guy has made her do that.  Trish will like this challenge for Shoot the Food, since they have to photograph their dish.  Emilia body checks Football Eddie to get to the mussels, and her Thai red curry mussels make me want to try it despite generally not liking mussels.  Football Eddie's seared scallops are SEXY...I don't want someone to break me off a piece of that, I want the whole thing.  Michelle wants to deconstruct a ratatouille...isn't that called a farmers' market basket?  Brian Boitano gets creative with plating his crostini...since all of the plates are taken, he turns small bowls upside down to create pedestals for his creation.  Sandwich King starts out with some decent looking crab cakes - this Maryland girl can see the lumps inside.  But then he ruins it to the point where Mike is yelling at the screen like it's a football game.  Because then when we yell at the screen, it DOES affect the outcome, damnit!!  He tops those little lovelies with generic poofy slider buns.  You're killin' me, Smalls!!!

Giada and Bobby aren't even going to taste two of the dishes, so the sex appeal of the photos really does matter.  The first one they pick is Football Eddie's scallops, and they agree with me.  SO jealous I didn't get to taste it!  Lenny is next with his steak over blue potatoes.  Stage Fright Dom is engaging, and so is his eggplant parm.  Brian Boitano's plating earns him a taste, but his personality and food are not as engaging.  Michelle's deconstructed ratatouille (animated character meets a spring trap?) and her presentation are both described as lacking their usual spunk.  Mama Rosa describes her meatballs as "basic" and Bobby gets on her for underselling herself, but Giada thinks she was on par with her description.  Mama Sita needs a lesson from Gladys Knight on the flavor of chicken and waffles.  The last dish to be tasted are Emilia's mussels, so Rue and Sandwich King lose out.  Dom actually wins something!  Let's see if it helps in the next challenge.

Ooh, Geoffrey Zakarian and Sunny Anderson!  We learn from Armenian Mama that Geoffrey shares her nationality.  Well, that answers that question.  We also learn that it's apparently a trend to make food that sounds like it should be gross.  Dom needs a vocabulary lesson since he apparently didn't learn "incendiary" in school.  Do they not take the SATs on Staten Island?  We have teams of guys versus girls.  They have to make a raw appetizer, a burnt salad, a stinky entree, a slimy soup, and an incendiary dessert.  Dom talks about the essence of "stank" like he's on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.

At presentation time, the girls decide to go raunchy and offer Fifty Shades of Flay.  Rue has bland steak tartare on warm bone marrow, which slightly cooks the steak.  Armenian Mama fails to seduce with a slimy spinach soup with eggplant tentacles...oh, wait, octopus tentacles!  She knows what eggplant testicles are, thankyouverymuch!  However, she wants to throw everyone else overboard and go on a private cruise with Geoffrey, while Sunny wants to take the eggplant testicles to the face.  Rule 34???  I will note that, in the adventures of my changing appetite, eggplant testicles made me hungry.  I got ham and smoked Gouda and crackers, though.  Mama Rosa makes a burnt fennel salad that isn't as sexy as it sounds despite her pun about diners being burnt out.  The ship is going down, and the little man in the boat is unhappy.  Which one is the little man, Bobby or Geoffrey?  Mama Sita has made my go-to of penne, but she made it with crab.  Waste of good crabmeat if you ask me, and crab and garlic do not "stinky" make.  Emilia is flaming her spicy mango napoleon with meringue tableside and has a much more successful napoleon than I ever see on Chopped.

The men have no theme other than "Boys rule, girls drool!"  Sandwich King did not make a sandwich but did a lovely tuna tartare with radishes for the raw app.  I want!  I miss raw tuna!  Lenny is worried about his slimy gumbo.  It looks like his roux seized up.  Pathetic for a Louisiana boy.  Football Eddie freezes up in his presentation, and the burnt element of his salad is not visible.  Dom does bring the stank with his Gorgonzola polenta.  Brian Boitano also needs a vocab lesson, as he can't remember how to pronounce the word incendiary and never uses it in his presentation.

Going into judgment, we think Mama Sita and Rue are most likely to go home, with our money on Rue since she also missed tasting in the first challenge.  I hope not, though, because she brings something really new that I would love to watch.  I love things like South African peanut soup, and I'd love to learn to make more African cuisine (no Somalian foreign aid jokes, please).  Armenian Mama and her eggplant testicles were the best on the women's side, with Emilia second.  The men were better on the food and the women won on presentation, so neither team came away with a win.  Brian Boitano and Dom won on the men's side, but Michelle won overall.  Whew, Rue is safe!!  Football Eddie is in the bottom three, though.  He's safe, and hopefully that lights a fire under his butt.  Rosa is safe, too, and Mama Sita goes home.  She would have gone home last week except for Manic Squirrel being a cocky jerk.  Mama Sita comments that they won't get to taste what she can do.  Um, they already did, honey, that was your problem.

All right, now that we're caught up, I will try to be more prompt with our next installment.  But for now, more cheese and crackers.

Food Network Star 6/14/15

Now that I'm done watching Starks die on Game of Thrones, it's time to see the ways FNS contestants will murder food tonight.  Ooh, Melissa d'Arabian is back on tonight to watch the contestants make dinner with what's in the random fridges and the pantry.  The rush for the fridges when the challenge starts is reminiscent of the start of the 74th Hunger Games, but Rue is more of a contender here.

Emilia gets to the chicken first and takes Armenian Mama's idea of chicken soup but makes it Libyan with dried mint and harissa.  Mama Sita got the rest of the chicken, but she's putting mayonnaise into her chicken alfredo.  Well, the only thing I can say is that my Italian aunt Rose puts American cheese in her lasagna.  Meanwhile, Mike is grabbing a biscuit and going off to cry about mayonnaise alfredo and Jon Snow.  Rosa's pissed that everyone else got to the pasta first because she's Italian.  Reminds me of Debbie a few years ago, who wanted everyone to know that Koreans use soy sauce and garlic 'cause they're Korean.  She finds flank steak singing to her...honey, if the steak is singing to you, you've got bigger problems.  Brian Boitano says that he has to make something perfectly.  Um, yes, dear, that is the intent.

Presentation time.  Brian Boitano's performance is on ice, and his food should be there too.  Rosa treats the camera like her best friends, but she's way too babbly with her friends.  Let's see how Mama Sita's mayonnaise alfredo with cheddar cheese goes over...hopefully for her, it's better than her performance.  Mike says he wonders why a Jersey Girl can't keep talking for 30 seconds straight.  Mama Sita wants to cry after her performance, and the judges do too.  Matthew rehearsed his part.  To me, it didn't seem to help enough, although the judges liked that he was more focused.  Football Eddie manages to fit Cheat Day into his spiel about 8 times in 30 seconds.  Rue doesn't even get the name of the dish out in 30 seconds.  Sandwich King abandons his sandwiches to make fried rice...doesn't the idea of leftovers lend itself perfectly to a sandwich?  Emilia wants to play with the spices...like in a sandbox?  She slowed down, but she didn't smile at all.  Armenian Mama made pork chop soup since she didn't make it to the chicken in time.  Lenny II made a barbecue salmon hash and presented it perfectly.  Bobby challenges him to show something new about himself each time.  Dom still has STAGE FRIGHT, and his rehearsing really didn't help.  You're killing me, Smalls!

Next challenge: make a savory baked item that is inspired by a sweet baked good.  While you're at it, turn your workstation into a bakery that will impress pastry chefs.  Armenian Mama is lost until she thinks of a traditional Armenian appetizer that is similar to an apple turnover.  Matthew breaks out the science experiments as he makes a blue cheese ice cream with liquid nitrogen to go with his treat.  Brian Boitano makes princess cakes, and Mike wonders whether those aren't just "cakes" coming from him.  Emilia has almost nothing out at the end and is already calling her food a "disaster."   At judging time, in comes Alex Guarnaschelli, because she doesn't spend enough time on the Food Network as it is.  Mr. Stage Fright calms sown, but then he starts explaining himself too much.  If you have to explain yourself, that's not usually a good thing, but it comes across better than expected.  Lenny Jr, on the other hand, is so rehearsed that he comes across as a used car salesman.  Brian Boitano makes up for his previous performance with a turkey meatloaf cupcake.  Emilia is also apologizing for herself and writing her own ticket home.  Mama Sita takes advantage of the fact that there's no time limit and talks and talks and talks and talks.  Alex delivers the ultimate blow: "This dish tastes like something on Chopped, like someone was constrained to use specific ingredients."  Eddie Football makes Caribbean corn muffins, and Alex and Giada rave about him like they're ready to let him at theirs.  Bobby doesn't seem to mind getting some crumbs either!  Rosa seems to engage the judges and is described by the judges as a possible star, but she grates on it.  Sandwich King describes his Vietnamese crepe as a different kind of sandwich.  Alex comments on his sex appeal...man, the girls are ready to go today!!  Armenian Mama puts forth a bland appetizer and admits not making her own puff pastry, but Alex describes her as "genuine,"  Matthew comes across as having NO social skills and calls Alex a "beast."  And his food is just as good.

Judgment time!  This week's winners are Eddie Football and Brian Boitano.  Bottom two are Emilia, Mama Sita, and Awkward Matthew.  Awkward Matthew acts like he knows everything and the judges are just being mean.  Alex describes Awkward Matthew as being like riding a bull at the rodeo...apparently that's one of the guys in the lineup that she doesn't want to ride today!  Awkward Matthew's cocky smile when it looks like Mama Sita is being sent home gets Giada to change her mind, and the judges decide to send him home.  Confidence will get you far, but cockiness will get you an express ticket home, even ahead of Emilia.

Tune in next week to see who's a king and who chokes worse than Joffrey.

Food Network Star is back! 6/7/15

Well, the first thing we see is that Giada's dresses are getting even more revealing this season!  Next we see one person calling the studio more amazing than childbirth and another who looks like he's the only one who thinks he's fashionable.  We have 3 food truck owners so far, including one with stage fright.

We start with the challenge to introduce yourself and your point of view in 30 seconds.  We start with a Jersey Italian girl who Mike thinks looks straight outta Goodfellas.  Our "fashion plate" doubles as a drag queen and used to be a professional figure skater.  I'm sorry, didn't we already try that with What Would Brian Boitano Cook?  We have Italian soul food from Mamma Sita, and Lenny Part II describing himself as a "big Southern teddy bear."  We have an Armenian woman married to a Venezuelan man...Mike says, "Just because you're Latin by injection does not mean you know how to cook arepas."  Mr. Stage Fright has a mac and cheese food truck in Staten Island.  Eddie and his muscles used to play for the Dolphins, and oh, yeah, he has a Caribbean food truck.  Emelia is described by one of the other contestants as Stepford.  Christina thinks she has an edge because she can cook all kinds of food...how does that set her apart again?  And then she wants to ignore the advice of the coaches...there's a winning strategy right there, sweetheart.  Matthew is like a little manic squirrel that has been snarking on everyone else.  Yes, I am, too, but I don't have 11 other people that I'm competing with!  Rue looks a lot more mature and put together than Rue from Hunger Games (as much as I loved her).  She takes less than 30 seconds, but South African cuisine is certainly something new for Food Network.  Someone else wants to take the crown of Sandwich King.  Yes, Jeff Mauro's not wearing it anymore, but that's probably because it didn't make a lasting show.

Now they get to make a video doing the same thing...yay for a second chance.  Let's see who listens to feedback and who doesn't.  They also get to cook for a Food Network Star Food Festival...and Bob and Susie.  I do miss when they were on as regular judges.  Christina can't cut her green papaya on the mandoline and is getting flustered.  It's been nice knowing ya, sweetie.

Time to taste the food and see the videos!  Mr. Sandwich has a comeback on his video, but then his food destroys it.  Ms. Goodfellas was busting out of her rice ball.  Rue needs to learn that if you say you have a charming personality, you usually don't.  Her shrimp is incredible, though...I'm jealous I didn't get to eat it!!  Brian Boitano muddled his message but had a lovely plate that got rave reviews.  Emilia tries to tell you that she is racy...that never goes over well.  Her food is good, but not great.  Lenny Jr. has an engaging and funny video and a delicious but spicy bite.  Mr. Stage Fright shows it BADLY in his video, but Giada gives his Italian food the thumbs up.  Michelle the Mom needs her video to be more interesting, but her food is pretty good.  Eddie Football has the drag queen licking his lips but isn't very clear in his POV.  His shrimp is very good, but doesn't seems to follow his POV.  Christina offers a tasty ride...I'm sure a lot of people would like to take her up on that, but she didn't personalize that enough for the judges.  Her food isn't just badly cut, it's bland.  Mamma Sita rocks her video, but not her dish...it gets described as tasting like it was made with an instant packet.  Matthew looks more like a magician than a Food Network star.  Bobby says WTF after his video and is surprised that his food is actually good.

Evaluation time: Your top three are Lenny Jr., Eddie Football, and the drag queen.  We are surprised that Emilia is also safe, leaving Manic Squirrel, Stage Fright, and Christina.  Michelle the Mom tries to get all mothery with Manic Squirrel, who shoots her down because he obviously knows everything.  We'll see if he starts to listen, because he and Stage Fright get another chance while Christina goes home.  I guess no one else wanted to get on her tasty ride.

So that's it for tonight, SnarkFolks!  We'll see you next week for Adventures in Foodiesitting.