Category: Reality TV (Page 103 of 118)

The Next Food Network Star: Bye Bye Bollywood

June 23, 2008 / Mike Farley

Are you on board yet? I’m telling you, this show rocks, despite the fact that the Food Network airs it so late at night on a Sunday (10pm ET).

Anyway, last night Episode 4 began with the remaining seven contestants having to perform a 60-second info-mercial for Food Network personality Tyler Florence about a specific task that they were assigned on the spot. For the second and main challenge, they were asked to come up with a fish dish for possible “syndication” on Red Lobster menus nationwide, and then Iron-chef style, had to make a second fish dish with a strange ingredient. They had 45 minutes to prepare their dishes on a Coast Guard ship to serve members of the Coast Guard along with the judges, including Iron Chef Michael Simon. Here is how it all went down, by chef…..

Kelsey had to “french” a rack of lamb for her video shoot Continue reading »

Reality TV, The Next Food Network Star, TV

Hell’s Kitchen: Final Four Battle

June 18, 2008 / Mike Farley

Last night’s “Hell’s Kitchen” featured a battle of the final four contestants–Jen, Corey, Petrozza and Christina. After last week when Christina put Jen on the chopping block, Jen started acting all sweet and nice, but none of the other three were buying it. They know she wants to win as much as they do.

The first challenge was that each chef had one hour to create a lunch special for 80 customers in Hell’s Kitchen, but it turns out that those customers were pregnant women. The women had to vote on what their favorite dish was, and Christina barely won over Petrozza. As a reward, Christina won a shopping spree in Beverly Hills with Ramsay. The other three had to clean up after the lunch service.
And while Jen and Corey were being catty toward Christina, Petrozza just kept his mouth shut.

At the dinner service, Ramsay singled Jen out as being lazy a couple of times, Corey for under-cooking fish, and Christina for burning Ramsay’s hand TWICE. Petrozza did a decent job overall and is looking like he could possibly win this thing. They had to pick a consensus two teammates for elimination….Jen was an easy choice, because the other three want her gone, and Corey stepped up to the chopping block as well. Ramsay then said Corey’s name, and then to get back in line as he asked Jen to take off her chef’s jacket. We will all miss Jen’s bubbly (read: annoying) personality, won’t we?

So now it’s down to Corey, Christina and Petrozza. I have no idea how this is going to play out, but I have a weird feeling Christina is going to get this dream job. We’ll see what happens…..but it will get interesting now that Jen has gone home. See you next week…

Hell's Kitchen, Reality TV, TV

The Next Food Network Star: Competition Spicing Up

June 16, 2008 / Mike Farley

First of all, thanks to Will Harris for filling in last week while I was on vacation, and I am not surprised that you’re now hooked on this show. I still think it’s one of the best reality shows on television.

On to business. Last night the remaining eight contestants had two challenges. The first was a point of view challenge, where they had to show what they could do with a potato, and then present their dish in one minute of camera time. For the second challenge, they had to come up with a packaged product and then present that product to food buyers and to special guest judge Martha Stewart.

To streamline my summary, I’m going to go through each contestant individually Continue reading »

Reality TV, The Next Food Network Star, TV

The Next Food Network Star: Train in Vain

June 9, 2008 / Will Harris

It’s damned intimidating to step into the shoes of Mike Farley on one of his food-related blog shows, given his long and profound history in writing up the adventures of Gordon Ramsey for Premium Hollywood, but the man has more than earned himself a vacation (as has his wife, for that matter), which is why I’m more than willing to blog both this series and “Hell’s Kitchen” for him in his absence.

First, however, an admission: not only did I miss the premiere episode of this, the fourth season of “The Next Food Network Star,” but I’d also missed every episode of the preceding three seasons. Or, to be more precise, I didn’t even know there was such a show as “The Next Food Network Star.” Fortunately, however, my wife and I are easily suckered into these things if we just sit down and give them a chance, so it was easy to convince her to join me on this viewing experience.

This week’s challenge found Robert Irvine (“Dinner Impossible”) waking the contestants up at 3 AM and sending them on a quest for ingredients at various specialty food shops while testing their culinary knowledge. The guys and gals were divided into three teams of three…

Blue Team: Lisa, Nipa, and Shane
Green Team: Jeffrey, Kelsey, and Kevin
Gray Team: Aaron, Adam, and Jennifer

…and instructed to go on a quest for their ingredients. At each stop – one for bread, one for meat, one for cheese – they would be asked a question, and if they got the question right, they’d be able to pick their ingredient and head off to their next stop. If they got it wrong, however, a member of the team had to earn their ingredient by doing some sort of food prep. So, okay, the delay is is painful, but at least it’s educational, right? Plus, this is a really important challenge because the winner gets to appear in a piece in USA Today’s Weekend Edition.

External Entertainment, External TV, Reality TV, The Next Food Network Star, TV

Hell’s Kitchen: Safe, Literally

June 4, 2008 / Mike Farley

Last night’s “Hell’s Kitchen” featured an elimination that made the five who were “safe” actually feel safe. They began by blindfolding the remaining six chefs and taking them to the roof of the building where Gordon Ramsay’s new restaurant will be, where one of them will be executive chef and earn $250K per year. Ramsay then had each of them take off their blue or red aprons, and put on black ones, signifying that they were no longer competing as teams, but as individuals.

For the opening challenge, each chef was given a type of meat that they had to build a dish around and cook it in 45 minutes. It came down to Christina’s fish and Jen’s steak, and Jen won the challenge. She started crying, showing an emotional side instead of her usual bossy attitude. Jen’s prize was a trip to Vegas and to have dinner with Rock, the Season 3 champ. Jen also was allowed to choose another contestant to travel with her to Vegas, and he surprisingly picked Corey. The rest of them had to unload delivery trucks all day, and while Christina took on a coordinator’s role, Matt was just whining all day.

For the dinner service, Ramsay teamed Christina and Matt up, knowing full well Continue reading »