Last night on episode 3 of “The Next Food Network Star” Season 5, the theme was entertaining on a budget, and in my humble opinion, one contestant was lucky that the judges didn’t issue a double elimination when they had every reason to. But more on that shortly. The show began with all 8 remaining chefs meeting up with Food Network star Tyler Florence at Stew Leonard’s grocery store, which looked sort of like a Whole Foods. The first part of their challenge was to pick out ingredients to serve a dinner party of 12, but with only $60 to spend. In addition, they each had to offer a budget-conscious tip on camera for Florence, who would judge them and declare a winner, with that person to have an advantage in the main challenge.
Jeffrey won the challenge with a brief but very effective tip on how to use Nutella to make crepes for both dessert and breakfast with his family. Melissa and Debbie also did a nice job with their tips. Teddy (who Florence referred to as a cartoon character of himself), Jamika (who advised to re-use marinade) and Michael (just a complete mess) all bombed in the budget tip portion of the challenge.
“If you’ve got any silver on you, now would be the time to reveal it.”
So sayeth Sheriff Eric to Lafayette, and given that he preceded the comment by throwing a redneck’s severed arm in his general direction, you can imagine that it’s a suggestion that Lafayette would’ve been quite willing to take, if only he had any on him. He doesn’t, though, assuring Eric that, even if he did have any, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to try and use it. Eric disagrees, but he hustles Lafayette off nonetheless, taking him on a trip to meet Pam. Lovely girl, that Pam. First, she gives Eric a serious “tsk-tsk” for all the blood he’s gotten in his hair, then does the same thing to Lafayette for immediately offering to give up the names of every single one of his clients in order to save himself. His response to her attitude results in the first glimpse of the real Lafayette that we’ve seen this season, and it was so funny that I’m going to quote it verbatim for your enjoyment:
“Oh, don’t get it twisted, honeycone: I’m a survivor first, a capitalist second, and a whole bunch of other shit after that, but a hookerdead last. So if I got even a Jew in an Al-Queda pep rally’s shot of getting my black ass up out of this motherfucker, I’m taking it. Now, what you wanna know?”
Awesome.
Give Lafayette credit for being embarrassed to give up Jason Stackhouse (though he did it, anyway, and it still didn’t do him a lick of good), and Eric for having the sense not to go after Jason. Once Lafayette’s back in the clink, though, he makes a move that’s damned near ingenious…although, if I’m to be honest, I first thought he was starving and resorting to cannibalism. But, no, he used the materials available to him – ewwwwwww – and made a break for it. And it looked like he was going to get away with it, too, until Ginger the Trigger-Happy Waitress took him down for the count with one shot. So do you think Eric’s going to turn Lafayette? Do fish swim…?
You’ve got to respect a show where a pair of character post-coitally discuss the merits of break-up sex versus you-thought-I-was-dead sex (according to Sookie, they’re both pretty good), then drift into a discussion about the surprising lack of differences between being a vampire and being a teenage girl. Sookie’s sympathetic about Jessica’s plight as a newly-turned vamp who’s just lost forever the chance to grow up, and when she sees the plea from her parents, it only gets worse. The two of them bond, possibly over their mutual ability to not laugh at Jessica’s pitch-perfect Bill impression, and the next thing you know, Sookie’s driving Jessica over to her parents’ house. C’mon, is there anyone who didn’t think this was going to end badly?
Three years ago, I did a piece for Bullz-Eye entitled “TV (No-)Shows On DVD,” where I took a look at the top 15 shows that the Bullz-Eye staff had wanted to see released onto home video in full-season or complete-series sets. From the series cited on that list, we’ve gotten “Newhart: The Complete First Season,” five seasons of “Family Ties,” seven seasons of “Beverly Hills 90210,” and “WKRP: The Complete First Season” (a laughable title, given how much was excised from the original episodes), with “The State: The Complete Series” scheduled for release on July 14. We’ve also been pleased to see that a couple of the kids shows we cited – “Groovie Goolies” and “Josie and the Pussycats” – have made it into stores, and we were beside ourselves at the emergence of a couple of our pipe-dream series, including “Quark,” “Fastlane,” and “Andy Richter Controls the Universe.”
I’ve got to be honest with you: I loved that show with a passion when I was seven years old, but not in a million years would I have bet on that series ever coming out on DVD, and yet you can order a copy from Amazon at this very moment. That’s what led me to compile this A-to-Z list of shows that I’d like to be able to experience again…or, in some cases, for the first time. Yes, some of the series on this list are obscure, and it’s likely that almost none of them will ever make their way to home video, but I felt the same way about “Quark” three years ago, and…well, look what happened there. I’m sure you’ve got your own favorites, and I’d love to know what they are, so please feel free to leave your picks below. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my list…and the accompanying YouTube clips, too.
A. “AfterM*A*S*H”(1983 – 1985): Given that all of the seasons of the original “M*A*S*H” series have long since made it to DVD and proved to be a rousing success, it’s a little surprising that we haven’t seen the release of the post-war exploits of Sherman Potter, Max Klinger, and Father Francis Mulcahy. Few would claim that the show ever lived up to its predecessor, but there were only 31 episodes produced; you’d think that a complete-series set would be a no-brainer, since the diehards would surely snap it up, what with the additional guest appearances by Col. Flagg and Radar O’Reilly. Indeed, should such a collection ever come to pass, let’s hope someone also thinks to tack on the failed pilot for “W*A*L*T*E*R,” where Radar moves from Ottumwa, Iowa, to St. Louis, MO, in order to become a police officer. And, yes, I’mserious.
B. “BJ and the Bear” (1979 – 1981): Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I just can’t imagine that there’s not a connection between the fact that, in December 1978, a movie about a trucker with a monkey (“Every Which Way But Loose”) was a huge success, and in February 1979 this series – which is about a trucker with a monkey – premiered. Some may say that Greg Evigan’s most lasting pop culture footnote is co-starring with Paul Reiser on “My Two Dads,” but he’ll always be B.J. McKay to me.
C. “CPO Sharkey”(1976 – 1978): With the amount of appreciation Don Rickles has gotten in recent years, most notably with “Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project,” it’s hard to believe that no-one’s tried to make a buck or two by offering up the release of this series. Maybe it’s because Rickles’ comedy in the series wouldn’t exactly come across as politically correct nowadays. Sharkey’s company consists of an African-American, a Polish-American, a Jewish-American, an Italian-American, and a Hispanic-American, and…well, suffice to say that he probably didn’t need nearly as many hyphens within his preferred choice of terms for them. Frankly, though, I just want to see the episode which features a guest appearance by the Dickies!
Last night on Bravo’s “Top Chef Masters,” four more talented chefs squared off in Round 2–Graham Elliot Bowles of Graham Elliot Restaurant in Chicago; Wylie Dufresne of WD-50 in New York City; Suzanne Tracht of Jar in Los Angeles; and Elizabeth Falkner of Citizen Cake in San Francisco.
Host Kelly Choi announced that their initial “quickfire” challenge would be one of the favorite Top Chef challenges–the vending machine challenge. They had to use a roll of quarters to buy a few vending machine items and then make a small tasting dish out of them–and the judges would be Ilan, Betty and Michael from Season 2 of “Top Chef,” three contestants who had experience with the vending machine fun. They also called these tastings something like “moot vooch,” another of those French culinary terms that flies straight over my head.
