At the Townhouse, all is not well. The total back-stabbing of Melissa by Teddy and the now-departed Brett is causing unrest amongst the Padawan Learners. Michael, in the meantime, is missing his home and friends and says it’s hard. Missing his friends.
Piling like apparent hostages into nondescript white vans, they are taken to, as Debbie describes it, ‘This gigantic supermarket’ called Stew Leonard’s (obviously there are no Super Wal-Marts near her) whereupon they discover Tyler Florence awaiting their arrival. Eddie says this is ‘Very, very cool’ at which Tyler tells them to settle down. See? That ties into the teaser from last week. Jamika is all aglow, as meeting Tyler Florence was one of her goals. You go, Jamika! Lower that bar!
One would think, explains Tyler, that the challenge here will be shopping. One would be half right. The actual goal is to shop – on a budget! Which ought to be interesting, as their first attempt at a similar situation was a complete fiasco. They will have $60 to spend on a dinner for twelve people, Tyler tells them, and then he explains that this breaks down to $5 per person. Debbie says ‘That’s quite a budget for a dinner party.’ I agree. Hell, that’s half my monthly food budget all in one go. She will have to be more creative, she says, offering no basis of comparison by which to weigh her comment.
Tyler also tells them that one of the marks of being a Food Network Star is to provide real tips that people can use, and so each of the Padawans will be required to stop by the Tip Station and record a thirty second clip (or ten seconds with twenty seconds of painful fumbling for Michael) explaining how to stretch your food dollars. The winner of Best Tip Clip will, of course, have an advantage in the Main Challenge which he has not explained yet. Melissa believes she has this one nailed. Without Teddy’s help. Because he is a turd burglar.
And it is ever so evident when young Teddy explains that usually if you go over budget you just charge the customer more. Hmmm. Charge someone else for your inability to shop within reason. That’s nice. And then when he arrives at the Tip Clip Station, he bursts into a some seemingly coke-fuelled Rachael Ray-inspired wild-eyed tirade which Tyler calls a stop to after he only gets about a dozen words vomited out.
‘Is that you?’ Tyler asks. ‘Are you that over the top?’
This stings Teddy Boy and he tells us from the confines of the OSR that he’s ‘a little bit dramatic’ in case no-one noticed. ‘A little bit dramatic’ in the same way that Olympus Mons is a kind of a pile of sand and rock. His second take – called ‘cartoonish’ by Tyler (for whom I now have a much better respect) – is just a rapid-fire load of bullshit that hardly made a bit of sense. Quite hilariously, Tyler tells him later that he is ‘doing an impersonation of somebody hosting a cooking show’ and that it’s very insincere. Man. That is pee-your-pants funny!
By stark contrast, Jeffrey thoroughly knocked his Tip Clip out of the park.
Melissa, who does okay with her tip, confesses to being very anal about clipping and organising coupons and about being very budget conscious. Michael, on the other hand, admits to dropping ‘about a grand’ on his dinner parties. Obviously Michael is not entirely in touch with our level of reality. His clip is largely delivered face-down to his shopping cart (until Tyler indicates fairly sharply with a pointed finger that he needs to turn and address the camera) and, when complete, is pronounced by Tyler to be ‘Utter nonsense.’
Debbie ‘didn’t really have a message’ Tyler tells her after her lifelessly dull attempt at explaining whatever it was she was trying to explain about squash and gratins and Jamika, blinking wildly throughout her Tip Clip, babbles on about how you can re-use a marinade – ‘Is that after you make somebody sick?’ asks Tyler.
Eddie, looking eerily like the love-child of Pee Wee Herman and Ed Grimley, talks about using herbs as a garnish to salad – because who would have ever though to use greens to garnish greens!? – and Katie, though she stumbled at first, made a good show of explaining how to eat healthy on a budget.
Speaking of budgets… everyone went over their allocated $60 except for Eddie, at $59.69, Teddy, who saved $5, and Jeffrey who came in at $48 and ‘some change.’ Jeffrey, it is no surprise, won this part of the challenge – to the muddled drone of completely unenthusiastic cheers of ‘Hey. Congratulations.’ And there was much rejoicing. Yea.
The bombshell here is that the Padawans now have to take the food they just bought and cook dinner with it – for twelve people! Oh my god tha—okay, wait. That’s what was explained at the very beginning. Are we missing some footage here?
The next day, again hostage-like in their nondescript white vans, the Padawans are driven to East Hampton. There is some discussion amongst them as to where they are being taken. Not to spoil it or anything, but I’m thinking Ina Garten’s house. Unless I’m mistaken she’s the only Food Network Star who lives in, and does her show like an agoraphobic from, the Hamptons; an uh-floo-unt area, we are told. Is it also not an ‘affluent’ area? Also the episode is entitled Dinner at Ina’s, so…
To little or no surprise we discover that we are going to Ina Garten’s house, where our ogling contestants are going to make dinner for Ina Garten, her rich friends who live in the Hamptons, and the Jedi Council. All with the food they bought yesterday – on a budget! Dark Lord of the Sith, Bobby Flay, is on hand to snicker at this idea of serving $60 worth of food to people for whom $60 often buys toilet paper, if the maid knows what’s good for her, and then to twist the indignity in a just a little bit farther by explaining that the group are going to be divided up into teams and will make an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert. Each Padawan is responsible for one of the dishes and they will collaborate on ‘the third one’ which isn’t exactly clear.
Ina says ‘Wow’ just like in the teaser from last week and Lord Flay starts to make that weird noise with his mouth again like he did last season with Paula Deen.
As winner of the previous challenge, Jeffrey picks Michael as his partner. Lord Flay then announces who the rest of the teams will be. First up Teddy and…
Oh gods, not me! Not me! Debbie pleads. Sweet precious Hello Kitty not me!
…Debbie. Then it’s Melissa and Eddie (who feels he will have to pick up the slack) and Katie and Jamika. They will have one hour total to cook the food and two minutes to present it to the table but, out of respect for ‘Ina’s beautiful kitchen’ only two teams at a time will work. Debbie and Teddy’s whirlwind romance begins along side Melissa and Eddie. For Team Love, Debbie will do the starter of vegetable linguini with an Asian marinara, they will collaborate on a Pan-Asian Meatloaf (because as anyone knows it should only take about an hour to prep and fully cook a meatloaf for twelve people) and the Tedster will do the dessert of Strawberry Shortcake trifle – and then from the OSR he bemoans the fact that he is not a ‘dessert guy’ and got stuck with it by default because he is a crybaby pussy with no accountability.
On Team Grimley, Eddie will take on the onion, watermelon and feta salad, Melissa goes for lemon-thyme chicken with a port sauce, and together they will create Nutella quesadillas and Bananas Foster.
Things seem to go well enough. On Team Love, Debbie is cautiously optimistic with Teddy and, on Team Grimley, Eddie feels that he is fighting for his life. His antagonism towards Melisssa is palpable and she notes from the OSR that he speaks to her as if she were five. Teddy is flitting about, moving nowhere nearly as quickly as he ought to be (but he is fairly self-congratulatory from the OSR about ‘his’ meatloaf – sorry ‘their’ meatloaf) and then with about five minutes remaining it occurs to him that he might want to make the dessert.
During the presentation, Eddie takes on the role of Lead Snob to the Twelve Disciples at Ina’s table and Melissa’s rambling about this quaint notion of something called ‘grocery shopping’ and how she couldn’t afford to do it after buying clothing for her daughters raises a bemused sneer from some haughty blonde woman seated at the table. She has possibly read about these small people who, curiously, struggle for money by doing a thing called ‘work.’
The verdict on the Eddie’s salad is that it was the right idea with the wrong execution. The haughty blonde determines it to be ‘inedible’ just like she did in last week’s teaser. Melissa’s chicken didn’t have flavour all the way through it, and the dessert was good enough. Melissa herself gets mixed reviews. Ina found her able to ‘glow in the dark’ whilst others found her too desperate. They appear to be silent on Eddie.
Team Love present their dishes – in a much less frenetic delivery than usual for Teddy – and are praised for a great collaboration and two really outstanding plates. And then there is Teddy’s dessert which tastes and looks ‘store bought,’ leaving Susie Fogelson to wonder why he ‘wouldn’t go the extra mile’ to make something better.
In the next round, Team XY of Michael and Jeffrey, and Team XX of Jamika and Katie are off to a reasonably smooth start, even with Michael’s uncomfortable curiosity regarding Jeffrey’s proteins. Both teams seem to have a mixed theme. XY have what Michael calls a ‘Tomexican’ fusion of Italian and Mexican whilst XX are a clash of Italian and Asian. Jamika’s starter will be an Asian-marinated Salmon with a seaweed and pepper slaw; Katie tackles the main of whole wheat pasta with chicken sausage and broccolini; and the two will collaborate on the dessert of fruit salad and grilled pineapple. For Team XY, the collaborative dish will be the starter of roasted tomato and red chili soup, Michael’s main will be pesto rubbed chicken with broccoli rabe, and Jeffrey will finish with his chocolate-filled crepes.
Michael seems to be having a rough time, cutting his finger, mascara dripping in his eyes and, as he says, ‘running around the kitchen like a mad woman.’ Jeffrey offers him some last minute advice about offering his culinary point of view (CPOV) and hopes that he can pull himself together in time for their presentation. Team XX appear to have everything under control.
At the presentation, Jeffrey controls the situation, trying to balance Michael’s idiotic ‘Global-A-Go-Go’ nonsense but everything comes to a screeching halt as one of the women asks Michael what’s on top of the soup. He crashes. He stares at the woman like she is from another world. He furrows his brow at her as if he cannot wrap his brain around such an outlandish query. The standard editing technique of showing everyone fidgeting and looking bored and uneasy heightens the lingering sense of doom.
It’s a quesadilla crouton, Jeffrey explains as he leaps in for the save, with cilantro, lime, and sour cream. The verdict from the Twelve Disciples is that Michael is ‘all over the place’ in his presentation and that Jeffrey was very confident and connected well with his audience. Their food was quite a hit.
As for Team XX (with whom we spend little time) The Twelve did not feel that their dishes went well together, though individually they were nice, and Katie is once again criticised by Bob T for discussing the more healthful aspects of her food which, as Ina laughs, makes you want to ‘run in the other direction.’ I somehow get the impression that Ina doesn’t do much running, much less running away from food.
After the endless commercial break (and with one more likely remaining) we are transported to the Jedi Council Chamber where Bob T does his usual recap for the Viewing Retention Impaired and then tells the gathered Padawans that Dinner at Ina’s (oh, see, that’s where they got the name) is ‘every food lover’s dream.’ I cannot personally vouch for this. As a food lover and amateur cook, my dream would be to hang out with Alton Brown. Maybe even Sandra Lee because she does enjoy her cocktails…
Team XX are given average marks because their dishes did not suit each other. Jamika keeps impressing Bob T for some reason and Katie is told by Lord Flay to try to make her lessons on health a more natural part of her delivery and, as Bob T says, to ‘lead with the food.’
Team XY are praised for making a set of budget dishes that were not at all like a set of budget dishes and ones which were completely worthy of being put on Ina Garten’s table. Jeffrey is told by Lord Flay that his chili soup was good but ‘timid.’ Bob T in turn tells Jeffrey that he needs to go deeper with personal stories as we have now heard twice that he and his daughter make crepes every Saturday. Michael is told that he seemed ‘lost’ in his presentations. He explains that it has been difficult without his support group (well, that explains a lot) from back home. Lord Flay counters this by explaining that, when you’re on camera, all that baggage is set aside.
Team Grimley are told that they didn’t appear to have worked well as a team. Melissa says that she felt a lot of tension towards her from Eddie and Lord Flay admits that he watched the video tape of the team at work and was displeased to have seen Eddie rolling his eyes ‘and stuff.’ ‘It just kind of drove me nuts,’ says Lord Flay. ‘A little chivalry in the kitchen goes a long way.’
And then Eddie is told that his watermelon-onion-feta salad lacked finesse and was 1) over-powered by the onions and 2) seemed like something he had done before – to which he says ‘It’s actually from…’ wait for it… ‘a Paula Deen cookbook.’
As Emeril would say: BAM!
Bob T looks like someone just told him eating paste is a bad thing; Lord Flay turns away with a shake of his head and a roll of his eyes (which he just got done telling Eddie was unprofessional); and Susie claws at the desk whilst scolding Eddie for not using his own recipes. I just don’t see this as being good in any possible way.
From Team Love, Debbie is credited for a smooth performance and for tickling Bob T’s brain (eee-oooo) with her Asian Marinara. Teddy is told by Susie that his dessert was an abomination. ‘The pudding was so sweet and so artificial and just embarrassing,’ she tells him. This edict comes with the requisite single funerary bass drum soundtrack and Teddy closes his eyes to deflect the blow. To lighten the mood, however, Lord Flay tells a sad-faced Teddy that he felt there was no effort put into the dessert because the effort was simply ‘slicing strawberries, making caramel sauce and that was it.’ Backpedalling from her former severity, Susie then tells Teddy that ‘Not serving it would have been better than the reaction it got.’
And then comes the meatloaf – the collaborative dish – which the Jedi Council agree was awesome. Teddy steps forwards and says he feels that the meatloaf was ‘his dish’ and that the dessert was the collaboration, which flatly contradicts everything seen in the previous forty-eight minutes and well documented on tape. Lord Flay clearly sees that Debbie wishes to argue this point and allows her to explain that she made the sauce (the part that knocked the socks off of everyone) and that Teddy molded the loaf. Teddy keeps digging himself a deeper pit of despair as he claims ownership of the meatloaf and lies like a little bitch about what was the collaboration and what was solely his – again contradicting what is documented on tape.
‘This whole thing that’s going on here,’ says Lord Flay, ‘is driving me crazy.’
Teddy apologises and in a comforting gesture he rubs Debbies shoulder and says how sorry he is for being a liar and a twat. Debbie visibly cringes and deflects his apology and says that she is just taken aback by his attitude. ‘Nobody was comfortable in working with you,’ she tells him. ‘We feel like you’re gonna just, you know, not be a team player.’ She goes on to explain that she is having a really hard time with his honesty (or lack thereof) and his integrity (or lack thereof). The clip of this in the teaser last week made it seem as though this attack was aimed at Jamika. Misdirection for purposes of suspense, I suppose.
Teddy cries as we go to commercial…
And in the final segment, it is decided that the winning team was Team XY and both Jeffrey and Michael are safe to continue. Once out of the Jedi Council Chambers, Michael breathes a sigh of relief that he’s ‘finally a bride’ and not a bride’s maid any more. Oh dear.
To the dramatic bongo drum rhythm, we are told that Debbie is safe to move to the next round as well. All eyes are on the Jedi Council – and on the floor, the walls, the ceiling, each other – as the next names are pondered for safety: Jamika (big shock), Melissa, and Katie. They are asked to step out, leaving Teddy and Eddie to face the final curtain together.
In the Town House, Jeffrey tells everyone that Teddy has just self-destructed and that it is the weirdest thing to watch. I think it’s stranger to watch John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing with the soundtrack to Good-Bye, Columbus (which I have done because I once got a defective video of it). Everyone agrees that Teddy is a douche-nozzle and can’t believe that he wouldn’t take accountability for his shitty dessert and then try to make up for it by backstabbing Debbie.
In the Council Chamber, Teddy and Eddie plea for their continued survival but are sent away for the Council to deliberate. As they enter the Townhouse there are blank and unfriendly gazes all round. Eddie offers an olive branch though, by telling the others that he doesn’t want to go home. ‘No offence’ he tells them, ‘but I want to kick the shit out of all of you.’
Some people just really ought to self-edit…
In their Chambers, the Jedi Council concede that Eddie continues to show what a rank amateur he is and that he lacks the necessary skills but, ultimately, it is much more of a difficult idea to give Teddy a second chance after his recent ‘performance.’ Bob T feels that Teddy lacks the character to be shoulder to shoulder with the other Food Network Stars
‘I am a gentleman,’ Teddy cries in the Townhouse to generally deaf ears. ‘I need to show that in all aspects. I didn’t. And I’m truly sorry.’
Debbie is basically having none of it and tells him that he probably should have done this self-examination much earlier.
In the Council Chambers, Bob T is eager to see Teddy go, which comes as something of a surprise to Lord Flay. Bob explains that he hasn’t liked what he sees in Teddy. Susie wants to see them both go. Lord Flay feels that Eddie hasn’t enough knowledge to be an authority figure and must go.
As the boys are called back, Susie launches right into Eddie about his lack of culinary expertise and how it has been glaring from week to week. Lord Flay tells Teddy that they are still trying to figure out who he is and that, whomever he is, he needs to be welcoming. But, in the end, Eddie is shown the door. From the OSR he says he made some bad decisions along the way – like talking.
Teddy, wiping tears from his eyes as the reality of being saved sinks in, says ‘Wow.’ Everyone else just looks at him. Debbie confides from the OSR that she hopes he has learnt something from this.
We shall see…
Next week, Guy Fieri wears a western-style shirt; Jamika starts to panic; Jeffrey begins to wonder if he’s not the chef he thinks he is; Debbie is in so much pain and holds an ice bag to her face; Katie is, like, embarrassed; everyone cries; nobody’s grabbin it, Lord Flay will tell them; Susie explains that time is running out; and Teddy what…? That’s right. Teddy will look sad. Again…
Oy.
