Worst Cooks in America 1/17

We're a little behind at the moment, but we wanted to take some time for decent cooks yesterday. Now we can return to the hellaciousness that Anne and Tyler get to endure on a weekly basis.

After losing Sydney and Gospel Ty last week, we've got 10 remaining hopefuls. They enter to hear they will get to create their own flavor combinations. They get to taste a bunch of flavor samples that on the surface seem blech, but turn out fine.

Yo Gabba Gabba Donna describes the flavors as fighting and then making love in her mouth - I hope she washes afterwards. The olives and white chocolate don't seem to give anyone a pregnant pause. I'm thinking any recruit that looked like they would puke would be on the short list this week.

Time to make ice cream sandwiches! Yay! Oh, wait, the contestants are making them, nevermind. Finger-lickin Holgie has her normal confused stare as Anne demonstrates how to use the mixer and everyone else takes notes.

Tyler demonstrates the science of the cookies. I cannot WAIT to see who screws up the measurements the most. My better half is anxious to see who screws up tempering the eggs the most. It could end up being the same person colossally messing up both, though.

Oh, they get to pick their own flavor of cookie, using what they have just "learned" in flavor sampling. I hope Tyler likes olive-based chocolate cookies that have the consistency of cement. It'll be a blind taste test, which surprises Holgie that they found enough blind people to sample the dishes. My head hurts from the facepalm.

Donna is considering a basil/coconut ice cream, which sounds like it could be passable - until she gets flustered by heat. Too bad, it actually sounded like an interesting concept. Holgie is using espresso and cinnamon in her ice cream, with a peanut butter cookie - again, sounds good on paper. Rachel's going for a margarita based ice cream - OK, that sounds good too. Ernie's going for a peanut cookie, drawing on something he had with his dad.

Chanda is the winner in the who-will-screw-up-measuring contest! You get a teaspoon to hold the world's tiniest violin. It won't help in cutting her cement cookies though.

Taylor is going for a bacon and banana cookie, which sounds odd at first. Manbun Nick is making a sauce of maraschino cherry juice, chocolate, and vodka - so sweet you will get an immediate rush, I think. He seems to like it though.

GINNY THINKS HER ICE CREAM IS BETTER THAN SEX. I feel bad for her sex life. I don't want to know about her milkshake, either.

Time for the blind tasting. Chanda's is picked out right away for the cement consistency. Lazy Latina Glenda went nuts on salt and it shows. Manbun Nick's plate is a mess.

Bottoms up!

10. Chanda (cement dragged you to the bottom)
9. Glenda (salt, blech)
8. Lawrence (sprinkles galore)
7. Ginny
6. Nick (syrup backfired, misplaced on this dish)
5. Holgie
4. Taylor (bacon and banana worked well enough)
3. Ernie (good texture)
2. Donna (I'm stunned she did this well)
1. Rachel (delicious and major kudos for the margarita cookie, a win for the blue team)

Continuing to the main dish challenge, we're making empanadas! As no one there seems to know what those are (including Glenda), Anne explains the basics of them. Tyler shows turkey picadillo empanadas with lime crema. Anne is going for a pork/potato empanada with tomatillo salsa. Glenda thinks this is a really weird combination. I think Glenda is weird for thinking that it weird to have pork and tomatillos in a Cuban dish.

Glenda gets right to work drowning her pan in salt again. Lawrence is going for lamb curry flavor - creative, and Tyler likes it. Rachel's dish sounds good too, going Greek with her chicken assignment. Boston taylor is grabbing the bacon again, which is going to get tired very quickly. Manbun Nick is staying very much in the box in flavors - Spanish only and nothing else, so he's behind his competitors UNTIL he whips out the tequila. Getting judges drunk will help. Chanda is confused on what to make and sounds like she is making it up as she goes along. Ernie is cautioned against going too simple again as he did for the ice cream challenge, which halts his progress for a while as the wheels spin in his mind...and spin....and spin.... and spin. Holgie's making a nice mess, and so is Chanda. Ginny's going to try and use a bunch of things she's never tasted before to be "creative". At this exact same moment, I notice that I have no wine left, and go to get another glass.

Taylor is lost and stressed and the food processor is stumping him as time winds down. Chanda's confusion has not improved. Heck, nobody looks happy or content. Sounds like a perfect time to judge!

First up, Chicken (Taylor and Rachel): Taylor's is dry despite a good flavor profile, but Rachel's is all around good and gets the nod. 

Lamb (Glenda and Lawrence): Lawrence's is juicy but is unbalanced for sweetness. Glenda's is loaded with salt and makes both judges almost gag., 

Pork (Nick and Holgie): Holgie's didn't seal up right but taste good,. Nick's filling is dry. Holgie takes it. 

Turkey (Chanda and Ernie): Chanda actually gets good marks for a breakfast approach. Ernie tried to go Caribbean but get a stinkface from Anne. Chanda manages to take one for the red team!

Beef (Donna and Ginny): Ginny's didn't seal right either, and can't shut up. Anne looks like she wants to punch her. So do half the contestants. The dish is badly seasoned. Donna went for a mini-calzone approach and it gets good marks - it lacks salt but it's enough to win. 

Time for eliminations - my money is on Glenda to go home after getting lucky last week. I don't know about the blue team but I am guessing Ginny may go based on the first challenge playing in as well. 

Safe from Blue: Rachel's was the best this week. Also safe are Lawrence and Holgie, putting Ernie and Ginny in the bottom two. However, Ernie goes home, not Ginny. I'm surprised since he did all right in the first challenge, but Tyler felt he had stalled out and wasn't progressing so it was time to go.
Safe from Red: Chanda is at the top (not saying much considering the rest of the red team), Donna's also safe, and so is Nick. Taylor and Glenda are the bottom two. Glenda is the easy choice to go, as she flubbed both parts today and last week as well.

Tune in next week as the remaining survivors are asked to multitask in the kitchen and Holgie attempts to sell everyone some magic mushrooms so they can taste the color blue.

Worst Cooks in America 1/10/16

Having enlisted my loyal assistant's help for the last post, I'm back again with your weekly snark.

Let's see who can follow directions and who our teenage rebels are.  But wait, first we get to play a trivia game to see how stupid these people are.  Mike says this is like Gordon Ramsay's tasting test for idiots.  Wait a sec, Yo Gabba Gabba Donna is a lunch lady?  I sure hope she wasn't cooking the food!

Each team has to make an Italian classic dish, but they also need to figure out the rest of the recipe by committee.  They do both manage to fill in the blanks correctly, but can they follow it?  Ginny thinks that you dredge chicken by sprinkling it with a little flour (Mike thinks she needs to stop winging it), and Lawrence thinks that prosciutto and bacon are the same thing.  Lazy Latina is having trouble understanding English well enough to read the recipe...she cannot pronounce or understand the word "finely" in the direction "finely chopped."  Holgie has trouble identifying what part of the parsley to use and says the last time she followed a recipe it was the Summer of Love and she was handing out flowers in Haight-Ashbury.  You know, out of everyone here, I'd expect her to be the MOST familiar with various herbs, not the least!  She's still doing better than Gospel Ty, who as never seen a recipe before in his life.  I want my Maryland boy to do well, but so far today he has had no idea what a plantain is and, in his own words, had more of a spit than a sauce for his chicken marsala.

Red Team Results: Manbun Nick was able to actually diagnose his own mistake.  Good boy!  Chanda is trying to kill Anne with raw chicken, but her sauce is good.  Taylor cooked his chicken well but needs to learn about the Salt Life.  Yo Gabba Gabba Donna ran her steps together like she runs her words together, and nothing cooked properly as a result.  Lazy Latina also needs a dose of salty goodness.  Gospel Ty had his chicken blessed by an angel, but the other ingredients did not have a chance to cook together long enough for their own spiritual awakening.

Blue Team: Maryland boy shows off the rural with his grammar, but he does at least know what he did wrong.  Holgie did better than I expected, but her sauce is floating in a sea of fat from too much butter.  Yes, Holgie found a way to ruin butter.  Lawrence, on the other hand, found a way to make Tyler unable to taste the chicken in the chicken marsala.  Ginny, who I see is from close to where I was in Maryland, apparently was hogging the salt shaker that the red team couldn't find.  Rachel seems like the winner so far, while the best Cindy can say about her dish is that it looks pretty.

Manbun won the red team, and Holgie actually won on the blue side.  Wow, Maryland's really representing, as Ernie and Ginny are sharing the shame of the Blue bottom.  Lazy Latina and Yo Gabba Gabba Donna are told by Anne that they need to calm down because they are on the bottom.  However, this was not an elimination segment, so let's see if any of these four can claw their way out of the dungeon.

So in today's technique tutorial, Anne and Tyler are teaching them to stuff their meat properly.  Oh, baby!  Tyler's team is basically making an Oscar-stuffed filet, but he's not calling it that since most of them couldn't tell Steak Oscar from Oscar the Grouch.  It will have crispy potatoes on the side.  The water for parboiling the potatoes should be as salty as the ocean...I think Ginny can handle that!  Anne's team is making a mushroom and blue cheese-stuffed tenderloin with haricot verts and a potato-celery root puree.  Five bucks says at least half the purees are as thin as the sauce on the meat and all but one of the other half are chunky from the veggies being underdone.  Also, now taking bets on who complains first about haricot verts not just being called green beans.  Yo Gabba Gabba Donna mistakes shiitake for shih-tzu.  No, honey, we're making Western food, not Korean.  Taylor makes me laugh comparing blanching to Golden Girls, but will he be the one to forget the ice bath in his comedy routine?  Going back to the blue team, I fully expect someone to forget to tie the meat and someone to tie it so tightly and badly that everything is squeezed out.  Blue team is lucky that Tyler has them making the Bernaise in a blender rather than by hand, though.  Each team gets a different method for stuffing, with Tyler cutting around his tenderloin to flatten it out and roll it up again and Anne cutting a pocket and piping the stuffing in.  I already said what I think Tyler's team will do to screw up, I think Anne's kids are going to either make the pockets too small or so big they cut the meat in half.

Cooking time.  Lazy Latina and Yo Gabba Gabba Donna are right next to each other.  Because Anne wanted to keep the explosion contained or something?  Either way, they can't even figure out what a quarter cup is when they work together.  Tyler and Anne are snarking between them as they watch.  Holgie cuts her meat properly and then proceeds to put her meat-covered hands to her mouth.  However, they all do it correctly, and without losing any fingers!  Rachel is badly behind, and then she has enough oil in her pan to be deep frying her filet rather than searing it.  So far we don't have any complaints about calling green beans by a fancy French name.  Gospel Ty is the Rachel of his team.  Tyler tells Cindy to run like the wind, Bullseye!  Cindy says cooking is hard.  All right, Asian Barbie, get off the stage.  Chanda looks like she's wearing nothing but a bra under her apron, but that's not why Ty's flustered.  As soon as the clock runs out, Ty is crying on Taylor's shoulder.  At least he doesn't have a taboo about men expressing emotion?  He's got less reason to be crying than Lazy Latina, who didn't get anything on her plate but her meat.

Tasting.  Yo Gabba Gabba Donna recovered and did well.  Taylor has chunky raw potato but good steak.  Chanda is missing her carb, so she also has less on her plate than Ty.  Manbun's beans are shriveled, isn't he too young for that?  Lazy Latina does have good meat and the best stuffing of the day, but that doesn't make more food magically appear on her plate.

Rachel did manage a good plate, but with an asterisk for the help from Tyler.  Holgie can actually follow a recipe when she's sober!  Lawrence needs more salt, but he did well overall.  Tyler freaks Ginny out with his deadpan, but she seems to be the winner so far.  Ernie overdid his meat but redeemed himself with his sauce.  Time for Cindy.  Hold on a sec, I need to grab the popcorn.  She also needs salt, and she didn't sear her meat well enough.

Judgment Day.  Ginny comes back from the first challenge to get the win for the blue team!  Yo Gabba Gabba Donna won for the red, but I feel like that needs an asterisk as well, since Anne needed to fix her putting an extra cup of sherry in the stuffing.  Bottom two for each team are Rachel/Cindy and Ty/Lazy Latina.  Please send Lazy Latina home!!  Darn, she sends Ty home, time for him to start crying again.  And no more Asian Barbie.

Tune in next week to see if Lazy Latina can stay alive.

The Return of Worst Cooks - and how bad will it be?

It's back! The Worst Cooks in America has returned and it has gone back to the concept of finding random, "everyday" folks who couldn't cook a baked potato in a microwave. No more of this celebrity garbage.

In the casting line, we have congealed cement and orgasmic thunder, vomit, and food worse than MREs. We have spam with chocolate and mustard. We have tofu bunnies. We have a gospel singer with cement as a dish. We have a self-described lazy Latina. We have tuna fish mousse that made Anne and Tyler almost puke. We have "eco-friendly beauty lasagna" that looks like it is the remnants of someone's plastic surgery and smells like diapers.

Let's see who Anne and Tyler get stuck dealing with this year. I guess Tyler couldn't convince Bobby to come back to deal with these hopeless yokels:

Five seconds into the "prepare your best dish" and someone's

• Lazy Latina Glenda had fish of the sea. Both judges liked her. Tyler even gave her a dance. 
• Yo Gabba Gabba Donna, the Newport hairdresser who is speaking jibberish to Anne describing her dish. Her dish made Chanda gag quickly. It looked like noodles dipped in egg wash and left out for a week on the counter. 
• Lawrence, Jersey Army vet, who is abusing a steak worse than anything on the battlefield.
• Ernie the truck driver who is better hauling liquid chemicals than using them on the stove. He also thinks there is no thing as bad seafood. I shuddered. Tyler liked it though. 
• Chanda, who's got nice shoes and is too busy checking her hair in the microwave. Probably good, since her cooking may have actually killed someone. Her strategy seems to be boiling a container of bacon bits. This may put her in the top half of the field. 
• Manbun Nick is making a jailhouse burrito. And pouring boiling water into a standing bag. And wrapping it in a paper towel. On the bright side, all of his ingredients may be easily smuggled into a prison to make this dish. Convicts, we have your champion! His final product looks like a hot pocket, which may be how the items got into prison in the first place. 
• Gospel Ty is making a hot mess. His words, not mine. I agree with Anne, that crappy singing would make me want to kill him the first day too. His food is as raw as his singing. 
• Bloody Jeni is going to get the judges drunk with her Bloody Mary chicken. Again, not the worst strategy - until she adds pickle juice. Judges thought it was a crime scene
• David managed to come up from his parents' basement for this series, but is using the wrong end of the knife. Is there a medic around? He's making a BLT but using fried plantains as the bread. Eek. 
• Boston Taylor was swiftly put on the show by his girlfriend/fiancee/dominatrix/boss before his cooking kills her. His accent is so egregiously Boston that I could almost hear the Patriots bleating in his voice. 
• Finger-licking Holgie left her bongos at her geodesic dome. I don't think she left her stash of Maui Wowie behind though. She's more baked than her food. 
• Gini is multicultural! She served Spanish rice, because it had avocados from Spain (which is the same as Mexico) and French onion dip that resembled gremlin vomit. 
• Rachel served a pancake that can double as a hockey puck on Friday and a yarmulke on Saturday. She is talented enough to serve a pancake that was raw and burnt at the same time. 
• Sydney made a shepherds pie that was spit out by Anne in less than a second. It was very consistent, though - so much that it doesn't appear to be cuttable. 

Tyler ended up with Jeni, Sydney, Rachel, Gini, Lawrence, Finger-Licking Holgie, and Ernie.

Anne got Yo Gabba Gabba Donna, David , Manbun Nick (who literally flipped out over his selection), Gospel Ty, Taylor Swift, Chanda, and Glenda.

Time for boot camp. Holgie seems scared of being thrown into the fire. Maybe she'll fire one up before boot camp starts. 

Red team gets to attempt prosciutto-wrapped pork tenderloin with peach chutney and asparagus. Yo Gabba Gabba Donna is wearing two sets of glasses to see because "bifocals don't work for her". Apparently, heating pans doesn't work for her either, and ovens amaze and confuse her. Fire bad for Yo Gabba Gabba Donna! The red team gets excited for the bourbon but no one seems to be taking notes. 

Blue team will try a sticky brick chicken with creamed corn and crispy kale. Tyler tried to teach them how to break down a chicken. Two team members look like they're going to cry, and the rest seem amazed by the sorcery. At least they are taking notes, though Holgie's scared of the food processor and Rachel is confused by doing a reduction. 

Chanda seems unfamiliar what to do with a long piece of meat like that. I wouldn't have guessed that based on her shoes! Lazy Latina Glenda is having trouble reading packages as she tried to wrap pork in something other than prosciutto. David and Taylor Swift forget what "skinny" end means when they wrap their loins wrong - but their girlfriends say it's ok, it happens to all men at some point. First fire of the season goes to Rachel, who stares at it in confusion, or secret pyro adoration - I can't tell which. Manbun Nick is having more trouble with knife skills than with his backflips. Ginny has a smoking - no, fiery - pan and burned her wrist. Chanda is peeling her thumbs along with the peaches. David is having an anxiety attack brought about by peaches, and got a boo-boo with the peeler which caused him to freak out. Bloody Jeni is carrying lots of equipment around the kitchen with no clue on how to use any of them. She's also scattering her trash and knives all over the floor - disgusting.

When it comes to tasting - well, I hope Anne and Tyler took antibiotics beforehand. 

Ernie's dish is good but incomplete because he decided not to serve underdone chicken - good move. Sydney's presentation is good and she gets decent marks. Jeni's dish is as messed up as she is, making Tyler gag with how overdone it is. Ginni gets good reviews. Holgie serves "the best creamed corn so far". Rachel has anemic color, no glaze, and her food tastes like fear. 

Anne reviews her team. David's asparagus is OK but other elements are off, and she calls out his breakdown in seeing "all the dominoes fall". Yo Gabba Gabba Donna is back to one set of glasses, and her presentation is good, but the whole dish is way too spicy. Manbun Nick was out of his element by not using a microwave, but overall does a good plate - and does another backflip. Lazy Latina Glenda's dish was off by using double prosciutto and underdone pork. Gospel Ty gets called out for throwing out the wrong part of asparagus and serving what appears to be scrambled eggs, but the pork is cooked well. Taylor Swift did well on all elements but poorly on knife cuts. Chanda wants to run away and take the chainsaw she used to cut her food with her. 

Time for eliminations! Ginni and Manbun Nick are the best on their teams this week. Taylor Swift, Yo Gabba Gabba Donna, Lazy Latina Glenda and Gospel Ty are also safe on Anne's red team. Lawrence, Sydney, Holgie, and Ernie are all safe for Tyler's blue team. 

Jeni and Rachel are at the bottom for Blue - fire versus trash. Jeni's going home - thank goodness, given her propensity for tossing trash all over the floor and leaving knives on the floor to slip on, fall on, or worse. Chanda and David are at the bottom for Red - and David is done. Anne hopes this is a good jumping off point for David, but given his reaction to a cut earlier I'm just hoping it isn't a jump off a bridge. 

Tune in next week for more disasters and facepalms.....

Worst Cooks in America - 2/19/12

Our competitors awaken to find a big fortune cookie on their table telling them to go to Chinatown.  Dave points out that the music during the trip is a riff on "Turning Japanese."  Serena points out that she's not going to be able to do this just because she's Asian, and Dave wonders whether Serena will start throwing around soy sauce and garlic like Debbie Lee.  Anne informs the contestants that they will be making noodles from scratch.  They do at least get to avoid some steps in the process, but they will be pulling the dough into noodles.  I have a strong feeling that at least half the contestants will not flour their noodles enough to keep them separated.  I'm not sure I would want to try that, especially not as a beginning cook.

The chefs teach knife skills, and Bobby opens a cat food can of red curry paste.  I use red curry paste all the time, but my curry paste comes in a jar, thank you!  Anne teaches smashing garlic, and Dave predicts that someone will end up hurting themselves.  I'm more worried about fingers in the julienne cut on the carrots.  The noodle-pulling begins, and Serena is the first to end up with a gloppy mess.  Tiff is good enough at pulling noodles for Bobby to ask her during evaluation if she has done this before.

Erica, it's not toofoo, and it's not supposed to melt!  Bobby just said it's supposed to heat through.  Sherrill decides to skimp on the curry paste, but Serena uses the extra in her dish.  Bobby tells Sherrill she's a very confident cook, and she replies that she cooks at home.  Yes, honey, but you're on this show for a reason!  Anthony describes his noodles as a fat kid and a skinny kid getting into a fight and leaving their fingers in a bowl.  Bob turns his frown upside down and makes Anne smile as well with his consistent knife cuts.  Rachel thinks Anne is giving her tough love...honey, that wasn't tough love, she was being really nice to you!  As I typed this, though, I kept having the Freudian typo of "touch love"...well, now! Vinnie wins for the blue team, and Sherrill loses.  Bob wins for the red team, and Rachel loses.

The theme of the main dish is comfort foods around the globe, with meatballs. Bobby comes perilously close to quoting Babylon 5 with his comment that every culture has a meatball.  Trust me, that was Dave that noticed that and not me!!  Uh oh, Anne and Bobby are teaching them to assemble the meat grinder?  That's dangerous with this crowd.  Tiffany is grossed out by what meat looks like raw.  Dorothy wins brownie points for being able to correctly answer the question of why an egg is added to the mix.  Bobby's making the meatballs small...how much you wanna bet that someone makes giganto balls that end up raw in the middle?  And with his being pork...  Anne talks about searing the meatballs before adding chicken stock to cook in order to avoid soggy, sad, limp-looking balls while Dorothy snickers. 

Each of the competitors gets a country, but no recipe.  Fortunately, they do get a basket of ingredients appropriate to the country.  Unfortunately, they're encouraged to taste test...before they've developed a sense of taste and palate.   Dave's now taking bets on who will be the one with the raw meatballs.  My money's on Anthony, since he's the one always rushing at the end.  Erica can't figure out that it helps to take the top off of the food processor to remove the contents.  Vinnie hopes that Rachel will make things easier for him by dropping the ball; Rachel can't even make the ball to be able to drop it!  Aside from the hair, David keeps reminding me of Clay Aiken...I guess it shows that I watched Celebrity Apprentice last night.  Sherrill says Sweden is safe and reminds her of the Alps and skiing, since it's part of Switzerland.  You know, Tiff not knowing where Lebanon is doesn't surprise me, but not knowing that Sweden is a separate country??  Wow, Anthony's done early!  OH, NO, Serena should not be given extra time!!!  She decides to garnish her Spanish meatballs with something like $200 worth of saffron!  Sherrill turns out to be the one with big balls, and Bobby hopes they're cooked.  Dave is going nuts as he sees Sherrill's pink sauce, which he says looks like Pepto Bismol. 

Time for tasting and evaluation.  Erica wants to please the four flavors the tongue can experience, which apparently includes "crunchy."  Anthony wins the Indian meatballs.  Bobby listens to Serena describe her Spanish meatballs and decides as he's laughing that he's quitting all the rest of his jobs to just do this.  Serena beats Bennet despite her waste of saffron.  Both Sherrill and Bob have pink sauce, but it's actually lingonberry, so it isn't as frightening as it looks.  Sherrill thinks she is getting a slap in the face from Bobby for him telling her that her tennis balls are raw.  If you want a slap in the face for raw food, honey, try Gordon Ramsay!  Dave points out that Sherrill is frequently wrong but never in doubt.  Score one for Bob.  Dave says that Rachel's meatballs looked sad...someone has to have sadplate now that Bob is no longer sadface.  Vinnie does not look like he will go home on meatballs, so he will eventually be allowed back into Philly.  Tiff and Melissa show their Lebanese meatballs; Melissa has no flavor, and Tiff wins.  Dorothy and David have a close competition on Greece, but Dorothy wins.  Kelli's goat cheese turns out to have been a better move than it looked at the time, adding flavor and moisture, and she beats Benjamin on France.  Red team beats blue by one country, and we approach elimination.

Dave thinks it's not looking good for Rachel, and I think Sherrill's on the chopping block.  Dorothy wins the day on the red team, and Vinnie on the blue team.  Benjamin avoids being among the bottom two by a hair, leaving Erica and Sherrill hanging.  Rachel and Bennet are on the bottom for the red.  Anne foreshadows her choice by pointing out that Bennet has been showing improvement, and she does indeed send Rachel home.  Erica and Sherrill are told they have very different problems, with Erica being a tornado in the kitchen, and Sherrill is reminded that she came here to learn new skills rather than to repeat what she had been doing.  Sherrill is sent home, and she says that she'll continue cooking, you just watch.  Oh, believe me, I'll be watching the headlines. 

Next week we get Food Network Dance Party!

Worst Cooks in America - 2/12/12

Welcome back to SnarkFood, boys and girls!  The snark has been focused elsewhere for a while, but it's coming back to the food arena.  Tonight we start with the season opener, with Bobby Flay as this season's foil to Anne Burrell.  The show begins with "highlights" from the selection process.  We have a culinary student with uncooked food, a woman with pink hair who keeps putting herself (and once her husband) in the ER, and a woman who puts things that individually are good together and makes horrible combinations.  Seriously, woman, you are the right age to have learned from Full House the same as I did!  Michelle only got her cooking badge in Bumblebees once she stopped putting things like tuna fish and ice cream together and just made orange juice popsicles!

One woman considers herself "resourceful" in the kitchen as she dismantles bell peppers with shears and tells Bobby that he's not menopausal.  Oh, no, dishwasher salmon???  Who the hell cooks in the dishwasher??  Jurassic Mark agrees on Facebook: "Dishwasher salmon? You cook the salmon in the dishwasher????? End the show NOW- that guy is clear the worst!"  Someone comments that they've heard of it and that it's like using the appliance as a steamer. Then get a damned steamer!!  Mark replies: "My guess is that if you have a dishwasher, then you probably have an oven. Use it. If you are too lazy to cook in an oven, get out of the kitchen. And never invite me over for a meal. Or anything else. First it's dishwater salmon. Next it will be toilet tank gespacho."  Someone else posts a link to directions.  Still, really??  I agree with Mark: "There is NO WAY I would ever cook it in a dishwasher. EVER."  And Dave lets us know the next day that (until this gets posted) "toilet tank gazpacho" is indeed a GoogleNope.  Thank goodness!!!


I love Anne: "If that's cooking with love, I'd hate to see what she does to something she doesn't like!"  And Bobby: "Bennet's Cheesy Party is not a party I want to go to."  


Now we get to the team picks.  The interesting dynamic this time is that there's not such a stigma to being picked last, since each chef picks a person for themselves and then a person for the other person.  So the real problem is being the second person picked (even though the last person picked does end up getting all angsty over that fact).  Anne takes the one that seems to be frowning as he cooks, describing him as a sad puppy.


"We have only 8 weeks to turn two of you into awesome cooks."  The rest of you don't matter.  I like that as part of teaching breakfast, they're teaching them 4 different ways to make eggs.  "I want to make scrambled, because that's what I usually make accidentally."  Uh oh, Anne's going as far as separating eggs and beating egg whites.  I think I like Bobby's recipe better as a beginner's recipe.  As we continue to watch, Mark comments on his status with, "Did none of these people have parents who taught them to cook? The answer is no."

Tasting and judgment: I'd eat Vinnie's pancakes, they look great!  I love the comment of, "I really thought I could cook, but maybe my husband was right.  I don't want my husband to be right."  "That is the fabulous syrup.  It might also be cement syrup, or a candle, or a weapon."  Bobby: "Was there anything I did in my demonstration that confused you?"  Response: "Everything!" 


Anne's team: Anne tells Richard that he needs to get serious about wanting to learn.  Pink-haired Dorothy decides she's willing to color inside the lines in at least one area of her life.  Other than that, nothing special about evaluation.

Tiffany wins on the blue team and excited to have sucked the least this time.  Kelly wins on the red team with her "beautiful plate," as described by Anne.   Libby becomes the first to turn in her apron and is thinking of just never trying to cook again.  Richard is not given the chance to get serious in this arena but says that he is not going to give up and that he wants to learn to cook well enough that his girlfriend will say yes when he proposes.  Apparently this wake-up call was good for him (at least for as long as he's on camera).


Until next week, ladies and gentlemen.  In the meantime, Iron Chef America just came on with Chef Duff from Ace of Cakes as the challenger.  Oh, this'll be good, especially if it ends up being him against Mike Symon!

I told you...

 by a-sexy-robot on F*ck Yeah Guy Fieri

...that I was here to comment on Guy Fieri's (and Anne Burrell's) hair.

Don't they look like they were separated at birth or something?
Yeah, yeah... easy joke....