Has it only been a week?
Well alrighty then…
Our six remaining Padawans trundle down to Chelsea Market (home of the Food Network) to face Lord Flay who announces that this next challenge will be much like their mid-terms where they will need to show their culinary skills and share their personal stories in their first-ever cooking demo ‘to camera.’ Debbie helpfully explains from the OSR that this challenge will be like their mid-term – because that was first explained almost four and a half seconds ago and we probably forgot about it in all the excitement.
Melissa tells us, also from the OSR, that Food Network stars have to cook and talk to the camera at the same time. Huh. I guess I never made that connection.
Then they are forced to turn to their left and watch a video which will explain more.
Rachael Ray appears suddenly to shout at them and talk about her organisation called Yummo, named from one of the lesser talented Marx brothers (after Lepp0 and Gummo), which is dedicated to two of her favourite things other than whiskers on kittens and warm woollen mittens – children and food.
The Padawans are to turn something traditionally thought of as ‘grown-up food’ (finger-quotes) into something more kid-friendly and healthy. Like a nice foie gras and a coq au vin.
Debbie wants to hang out and chat with Rachael Ray and be her friend. That’s nice.
In the interest of making this fun for all, Lord Flay tells the Padawans that they will be cooking with Brussels Sprouts, squid, and tofu. Yea! Kid-friendly!
Jeffrey and Jamika are teamed together and get the tofu (which Jeffrey has never cooked with and has no idea about how to use); Melissa and Michael’s team will get the sprouts, and Katie and Debbie get the squid. They have an hour to prepare their dishes and then will be judged accordingly by what Lord Flay calls ‘a panel of experts.’
On Team KD, Katie will make a calamari fruit salad (sorry, did I just make that noise out loud?) with Quinoa whilst Debbie goes for baked calamari with yams. Oh. There’s that sound again. Sorry.
On Team JJ, Jeffrey decides on a Spaghetti with tofu ‘chicken nuggets.’ He says he does not understand tofu. People say that you can make it taste like anything, so why not just eat the thing it’s supposed to taste like? he ponders. Jamika will do a corn and tofu wrap. There’s a fun surprise in tomorrow’s toilet.
Melissa of Team MM explains that the best way to introduce something unusual or new to children is to attach it to a texture they know and like – such as Marmite and strawberry ice cream – so she is making what she calls ‘smashed potatoes.’ Plated cunningly next to these so-called ‘smashed potatoes’ she places a sliced, raw Brussels Sprout and a sliced cherry tomato. This seems rather like it’s not quite incorporating the desired ingredient in quite the desired fashion. Michael, in the meantime, whose food is ‘funny and cool’ has devised a plan to entertainingly disguise his sprouts in a grilled cheese sandwich and to make deep fried Brussels Sprouts skewers. He also draws happy faces in what looks like a bowl of butterscotch pudding – which I am hoping is not the dipping sauce for the sprout skewers.
The ‘panel of experts,’ (to the great surprise of the Padawans for some reason) turns out to be three children. And also Rachael Ray, fresh from her video appearance just a few minutes before. I’m guessing this was supposed to be a surprise as well. Given the fact that she has been highlighted in this episode, and the fact that the episode is entitled ‘Rachael Ray,’ I would have been more surprised to see Mario Batali, but…
Each Padawan is given two minutes before the panel and the camera to demo their dish. Katie begins and seems to present her dish flawlessly and effortlessly, addressing the children in particular and making squid sound fun. The panel agree, enjoying her dish to the point that one of them can’t stop eating it to give his assessment.
Debbie falters a bit towards the end of her demo, to the wide-eyed disinterest of the panel, but they enjoy her food nevertheless. Melissa, in her somewhat rushed demo, reveals that she pureed some Brussels Sprouts and put them into these so-called ‘smashed potatoes’ as well as putting them raw on the plate – something that Rachael Ray finds ‘a little weird.’
Michael explains in his demo that what appeared to be a butterscotch pudding dip with a smiley face is, in fact, a Brussels Sprout and tomato soup. He also presents his deep-fried sprout ‘puppets’ and then just rambles and stumbles and does his usual nonsense that makes you want to walk out of the room until he’s finished proving Einstein was correct about time being relative because two minutes with Michael seem like two hours in Hell.
Jeffrey pulls off the tofu spaghetti thing without a hitch, making Rachael Ray just a bit jealous it seems, but Jamika is there to bring her back to reality by totally pulling a Michael and just rambling on and on.
In the end, everyone gets kudos for something – even Michael – but Jamika is singled out by Rachael Ray for not cooking in her cooking demo.
After a commercial break we are jettisoned back to Food Network kitchens where Rachael Ray tells the Padawans they the very next day they will be on her show, the Rachael Ray show, she clarifies, where they will be doing the complete reverse of the challenge they just got finished doing – so they will be cooking kid food for adults. The teams will be as before: Katie and Debbie will prepare chicken nuggets and mac and cheese; Melissa and Michael get tomato soup and grilled cheese; Jeffrey and Jamika get hot dogs and baked beans. Oddly, however, they act as though this is the first time they have been paired in this fashion. Jeffrey says he hasn’t worked with Jamika yet, so he doesn’t know what to think.
Did no-one watch their last segment where they all worked in these same pairs?
As always they have forty-five minutes to shop (at West Side Market) and hilarity ensues. Melissa is entirely too organised for Michael, Debbie wants rich and heavy Southern food whilst Katie wants light and healthy, and Jeffrey and Jamika have no clear communication between them.
Back at the Food Network kitchens they have 90 minutes to prep for the next day’s demo. Team MM seem to be working together better in the kitchen than they did at the store. Michael is feeling confident that being in front of a live audience on the Rachael Ray show (with Rachael Ray) will be cake. A big, clumsy, unwatchable and desperately interminable piece of Relativity Cake.
Team KD are figuring things out well enough and Team JJ… well they just aren’t really playing nice. They aren’t really talking, not really collaborating, not really making franks and beans. It’s more like a jambalaya. And neither of them are willing to say anything bad about it, for fear of offending one another, and their hearts really just are not in this dish. Jamika tells us from the OSR that she thinks she’s next on the chopping block.
Once at Rachael Ray’s show, called Rachael Ray, starring Rachael Ray, the Padawans are thrust into the limelight as the Jedi Council watch from the safety of the Green Room. Team MM are up first and Melissa takes control as Michael stands beside her and makes yummy noises because he is like a deer in the headlamps with all of the cameras swirling round him – prompting Lord Flay to shout ‘Cook something, man!’ at the Green Room screen. Bob T says that Team MM are likeable personalities who looked like they weren’t having any fun until the last ten seconds of the five minute demo.
Team KD come out strong, except for Katie who does not look up enough to suit Bob T, and Debbie seems like a natural in front of the camera, except for the annoying part about constantly reiterating that she is Korean. Lord Flay asks, ‘Oh, is she Korean?’ as she beats the dead horse of her Korean heritage once again.
Team JJ make Bob T sad. Susie covers her face and hangs her head and Lord Flay stands up, sighs, and turns away from the television. It was a traffic accident. Jeffrey talked and cooked as Jamika stood statue-like, without a smile, nodding occasionally and then rushed through making beans in less than a minute. She feels that she did not have a second to shine, she tells us from the OSR. And their food is not to the liking of the Jedi Council. ‘Tastes like raw, powdery spices,’ complains Bob T. ‘And a lot of them.’
Rachael Ray, who apparently has a programme called ‘Rachael Ray,’ arrives in the Green Room afterwards to discuss her views of the Padawan’s performance. The general consensus is that Team KD did the best job. Dragging everyone out in front of the live audience again, Rachael Ray tells the gathering that only five of the six Padawans will be moving on to the next challenge – in Miami.
Wow.
At the evaluation (finally), Bob T resumes the mantle of recapping the entire episode for the Attentive Impaired and then Susie Fogelson narrows her focus on ‘the ladies,’ ripping into Katie for presenting her dishes to the kids in a condescending manner (a view which, somewhat surprisingly, Lord Flay strongly disagrees with) and for not looking up during the Rachael Ray demo on the Rachael Ray programme. Strangely these were not comments we saw earlier during the actual demo. Also Susie felt that Katie’s chicken dish was bone dry and flavourless.
Debbie is praised for excellent performance and ease before the camera (at Rachael Ray’s show which apparently called ‘Rachael Ray’ and not at the children’s demo), but Lord Flay slams her for repeatedly explaining that she’s Korean. Debbie cries.
Melissa is told that she needs to the same calm Melissa in front of the camera as she is off and that she needs to share more of her motherly tips. Michael is asked what he sees when he looks into the camera: ‘The depths of Hell,’ he says. And that’s how you win big with television executives.
Next in the firing line is Jamika and Jeffrey, who are told they did not work well together nor did they look as if they were having fun. Jeffrey is told by Bob T that he talked almost non-stop and Jamika did nothing but shut down. Susie does not entirely agree with this assessment, thinking that Jamika could have and should have asserted herself more but chose not to, unfortunate considering this is the half-way point and someone has to go home.
And speaking of which… Debbie is safe for the next round and is told by Susie that if she is going to ‘bring it,’ she best do so quickly. Melissa, told that she has a certain amount of expertise and knowledge that the others do not, is also safe. And Jeffrey is told he can stay in a fairly unvarnished fashion by Lord Flay.
They are sent away leaving Katie, Jamika, and Michael in the final elimination. Then the ‘bottom three,’ as they are called by Bob T are also sent upstairs to wait as the Jedi Council discuss their fates. It is pointed out that Jamika seems to be backpedalling, that Michael’s admission that the camera is not his friend does not bode well for someone who wants to be on television (though this did not stop Aaron from winning last season, with a great deal of assistance and hand-holding from Lord Flay) and that Katie has been in the ‘bottom three’ for three consecutive weeks.
Ultimately, as it was fairly obvious by this point, Katie is shown the Brown Door To Nowhere. Kind of surprising to me given that, apart from some dry chicken, she did everything right this week. So that still leaves Jeffrey (my other projected potential winner) but I have a bad feeling that he may be next if he doesn’t stop being so one-dimensional.
Next time Jamika squeals in Michael’s ear, Ted Allen tells them that they will be cooking for a cocktail party at one of Miami’s hottest nightclubs, Michael tells a guy in a pink shirt to ‘Work it out!’, Bob T will tell someone that they struggled, Lord Flay will tell someone that their food was sloppy, and Melissa is in charge with zero help from anybody!
Oh. There’s that sound again…
