show business kids makin' movies of themselves
This week NFNS went out to Vegas, baby. Caesar's, to be exact. Even tho Bobby Flay was hosting, they only had one segment at Mesa Grill (meal w/ Paula Deen, the other FN celeb for this episode). Whenever they intro an FN star now, the contestants all get this look on their faces like "okay... who's left? are there any FN stars we haven't seen yet). The foreshadowing-is-your-guide-to-quality-entertainment moment was Lisagarza saying that Paula reminded her of her grandma. So, of course, you just knew that later on, Paula was gonna smack down her food. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before we roll on with the recap, I should mention that the show had lots of footage of some insane high roller suite at CP.
Okay, so the challenge was a riff on Flay's Throwdown series. The contestants paired off to cook each other's signature dish. Outdoors at the CP pool. They're each cooking two dishes, plus fielding questions from the judges, plus at one point during the 75 minutes, they were interrupted by a reporter doing interviews. Oh, and they're encouraged to "Vegas up" their dishes.
Round one: Adamski v. LisagarzaLisagarza. Doing Ensign Ro's cassoulet vs. Adamski's mac & cheese. Big prob for Adamski -- he's never tasted cassoulet. Which I'd find appalling, if Paula Deen hadn't said the same thing during the show. Lisagarza's problem, it became clear as the cooking went on, is that she didn't take the mac & cheese seriously. She admitted in the final judging interview that she was focused almost wholly on the cassoulet (and who can blame her? 75 minute cassoulet is an insane proposition). She clearly doesn't consider mac & cheese a serious dish and obviously assumed that she could knock out anything and beat Adamski's version. But hers was overloaded and confused. Cheddar, parm & goat cheese in the sauce. Plus sauteed onion in w/ the mac. Sliced tomato and roasted poblano on top. No one liked it. Paula Deen hated it. Hated. It. Adamski won easily w/ his lobster mac & cheese. But his cassoulet was judged amateurish. The beans were overcooked. As a note, porridge is not a description you wanna hear applied to yr cassoulet. And the presentation was just a few steps up from mess hall. Lisagarza's won raves. Flay called it the best he'd ever tasted. Which strikes me as absurd. I'm willing to believe it's the best 75 minute cassoulet he's ever tasted but best evah strikes me as a ridiculous overstatement.
So, what have we learned in round one? They can both cook what they know and don't do so well on unfamiliar ground. I thought they were both weak in the TV reporter segment. Adamski spent too much time looking down and sort of ignoring her. LisagarzaLisagarza was frenetic and babbling.
On to round two below the cut.
Round 2: Kelseybot v. the Artist Formerly Known as Boring Aaron. Kbot's chicken parm v. TAFKAB Aaron's stuffed pork loin. Kbot immediately goes off the rails and decides to do a napoleon w/ roasted pork tenderloin and layers of stuffing. Yes, it's very Vegas-ed up. But it's not very home cook friendly. And it's got nothing to do with her previously expressed POV. She has, as they say, lost the thread. Altho they hardly mention it at all until the tasting, her chicken parm is similarly deconstructed. The chicken is skewered and served on top of the sauce. Again, very fine dining in Vegas. But most home cooks are not looking for ways to deconstruct classic dishes. Nor has Kbot, at least up until tonight's show. Another problem: she's talking about how she wants to show off her mastery of technique but she overcooks her pork tenderloin. Also a problem: she's making dainty, delicate, small plate food and one of the judges is Paula Deen. Also also a problem: she's up against TAFKABA who ended up putting out monster plates worthy of Hash House A Go Go. He's still got issues on camera. He's warming up but he still tends to either cook or talk and as El Tushman pointed out, the whole point of FN is cooking and talking (or more precisely, cooking while talking). TAFKABA's biggest screwup was when he said he was using chipotles in a sauce and they asked him to describe chipotles and he couldn't. The sauce actually turned out well but he got dinged (correctly) by Flay who said that if he wasn't familiar with an ingredient he shouldn't be using it. He also dodged a bullet when, towards the end of the 75 min. he realized (possibly w/ an assist from Ro) that he'd forgotten to cook the chicken parm. But he pounded the chicken and deep-fried it and all the judges loved it. I think that's where his industrial cooking chops really helped. 18 minute chicken parm? No problem!
What we learned in round 2, then, is that TAFKABA can cook his dish and Kbot's dish. Meanwhile Kbot can't cook either of the dishes. So she's going home. No surprise, really. I never thought she had a chance of getting to the final two. FN doesn't need another, less authoritative, more hyper version of Rachael Ray and I'm not surprised she got kicked to the curb before the viewer's got a vote.
Next week: more Vegas (hooray!); Guy Fieri (meh!); the return of the last 3 eliminated contestants to act as sous chefs (okay, your choice of assistants are Kbot, Young Shane and Boring Jen -- wow, you really wanna be the contestant that gets to pick first in that round); a burned crown roast (which might belong to LisagarzaLisagarza or they might be playing voiceover tricks); and a shocking surprise.
My prediction for the shocking surprise: all 3 will go thru and be on the fan ballot .