rab01

The show is only filmed on the weekend and the bakers go home in between episodes so they just bring the props and special baking gadgets that they want for the particular bakes that are coming up that show. I remember one season where a baker (Ian maybe?) manufactured some of his props and gadgets for each episode.

I'm in NY also and have only watched GBBO this season from the PBS website through a Roku because Channel 13 seems to hate the idea of having actual viewers.

I've listened to Tara and Joe's podcast pretty regularly but this was the first time I've seen an episode in its entirety. I'm going to stick to listening to the podcast, it's more fun than the show.

While I think she's funny at times (though sometimes too aware of the camera), I can certainly see her not being for everyone. Her youtube show is not about how to cook; it's more a parody of that kind of show. I've watched a few episodes of it and I can't remember her ever making anything edible. She's certainly not a "food authority." How that translates into a FN show is anybody's guess.

The extra judge in the first panel was Hannah Hart. She's a comedian whose most famous running youtube show is "My Drunk Kitchen" where she does exactly that - get very drunk and cook a meal (no knives though because she is actually drunk). The first time I saw it, I was just puzzled but the humor kind of snuck up on me. She's smart, nice, and funny but, as far as I know, not a good cook.

God. Matthew is insufferable and Bobby Flay's attitude about it was even worse. Sure, he's not going to win and Flay knows it while Addie is one of the 3 people FN is considering for the winner this thing (along with Jason and Cory) but still Flay should REALLY know that it's unbelievably sexist to tell a woman that she needs to look like she enjoys having a man interrupt her on camera. (And, yes I know that I'm going to be rooting against Matthew until the finals but he's not the kind of villain I enjoy having on screen.)

Matthew intruding on his teammate's presentation was so uncomfortable that I had to fast-forward through that part. It's clear that he did not win this competition or they would have not shown that scene. I absolutely agree that this show is sexist but I don't think the judging on it is quite as overt as not seeing that Matthew this week and Rusty last time were assholes to their female teammates. I think the sexism comes out more in the types of people they cast and what they allow people to do on screen. The role of the sloppy overweight cook who likes "big bold flavors" is always a guy and the stay-at-home cook is always a woman and they usually allow guys to cook outside their nationality/upbringing way more than they allow women. That said, if you look back at the roster of winners, it's a pretty diverse group. Corey is clearly being shown in a very positive light. All of his interviews an other interstitial stuff show him encouraging and rooting for his teammates. They naturally want the winner to be likable so I wouldn't bet against him or Jason. I would guess that the next three to go are Cao, Rusty and Addie (?) (the one who didn't work for Martha and suffered through Matthew this week) There are only two or three contenders each year so they can "waste" some of the early and midpoint bootees to create villains that we root against later in the show. In other words, I expect to be rooting against Matthew up to the finals.

Your picture of baklava from a chain store looks SO much more inviting and tasty than the one she made. She really had to go. I agree with you that baklava doesn't sound all that exotic to me but I live in New York and every deli and even most bodegas sell it here so what do I know. I disagree about Matthew; I think he will go very far because he gives the production good sound bites and interviews to work with but he is not getting a winner's edit.

I kind of like her, crazy lipstick and all. In an attempt to convert you over to not hating her, she was the one who suggested the drizzle cake fix to Salasi ...

I watched this right after an episode of The Great British Baking Show. Oof! That was a mistake. I'm still suffering from the whiplash it gave me. I think the funniest part of the episode was the "experience" being so cheap and underwhelming but they cued the judges to "ooh" at each scene change. Once, it looked like Tyler had just been woken up and forced at gunpoint to marvel at the scene change. As for the contestants, Cao knew before agreeing to be on the show that all the cooking challenges have time limits and had time beforehand to plan out how to represent her cuisine within those time constraints. Is she a dead chef walking? Or did she game it out beforehand and will be switching to the recipes in her toolbox that don't take so long? I like that mini-Martha thought about what would sound good to diners for an appetizer and, in the context of a team challenge, thought immediately in terms of securing the rarest resource - a desert chef.

It's funny but that moment made me like her. It didn't come off as ugly to me, more like the sort of sarcastic comment an overworked mom might say after her spouse had criticized something undone while he had been doing nothing around the house lately.

I read somewhere that the focus by advertisers (and therefore networks) on 18-49 is not because they spend more than an older demographic but because they are more open to establishing and switching brand loyalties. Younger than that, buying decisions are made by parents. Older than that, people either have certain brands that they trust or they value-shop regardless of brand. The article I read didn't have any sourcing or research but the explanation fit too much into my preconceived notions for me to question it ;)

I am amazed that someone would voluntarily look at an altar of peppers and pick Flay; look at an altar of cheese and not pick Morimoto. I can just imagine what Grueneberg would have done with those choices. Those options, however, really felt like producer manipulation. Also, if you asked me which two Iron Chefs would be most willing to play along and be beaten, it would be Symon and Morimoto. All that said, I also think it's perfectly plausible that this competition was on the up-and-up. Symon's dish was very much his style of dish. It also sounded like it would have been absolutely delicious if the pasta had been cooked perfectly. Also, I easily believe that Izard could beat Morimoto -- why not? He's a legend and an awesome cook but he has the lowest winning percentage of any Iron Chef other than Forgione. He only wins about 6 out of 10 of his battles. Honestly, I think he cares much less about winning than does somebody like Bobby Flay. If you want a structural reason why the challenger in a format like this would have an advantage against 3 Iron Chefs -- the challenger gets 3 tries to refine her or his cooking to the palate of the judges. They can course correct after each dish while the Iron Chef is cooking blind. I guess I prefer to think that cooking competitions are judged based on the food in front of them or else it becomes really hard for me to watch.

There were a couple of decent scenes but, on the whole, this episode was really, really dumb. It's also really too bad that the conspiracy lived down to expectations -- undermotivated as all hell and bizarrely incompetent for an organization that supposedly pulled off a decapitation of the government. I'm not sure whether or not to watch next season. So far it's been an amazing waste of acting talent. Somehow, a bunch of these characters managed to interest me over the season even though all of them are written as Blandy McBlandersons. Kal Penn is given crap to work with and somehow makes it tasty, Virginia Madsen owned every scene she was in (even when having to say bland garbage about Kirkman being awesome). They need to map out the next 20 episodes and stop burning through obstacles to Kirkman faster than they can be set up.

Aquarian, agreed that too many Iron Chefs spoil the brand. Also, Wolfgang Puck was briefly an Iron Chef though I had to google it to make sure of that. In that googling I saw the names of the challengers from the early seasons and that's part of the problem too -- there were some really amazing chefs competing against the Iron Chefs in the first few years. It's impossible to maintain that level of competition forever.

Cora called her plating boring but said the dish itself was delicious. All of Nakajima's dishes were traditional dishes so I'm not sure what made them more original than Izzard's. I personally think that liver ice cream is a bit gimmicky but I think you have to give Izzard some originality points for making a dessert starring chicken. I also thought the judge's comments about Nakajima's dishes were harsher than for Izzard but maybe if I rewatch it, I'll see it your way.

If we are supposed to believe there is a really dangerous conspiracy that successfully decapitated the U.S. Government, it can't be run by morons who kill their own Vice President Mole but don't kill an FBI agent just because she's in the opening credits.

Kirkman is a really terrible president, isn't he? Whoever speaks to him last gets him to instantly make that issue his immediate super-priority. I could have sworn he had a hundred-days agenda that he's supposed to be hitting hard. (As if) The show still has no idea what can make for a good plot that lasts longer than two episodes. Kimble fighting for her speakership should be half a season, not something she gives up after two days. On the conspiracy front, why didn't they kill Hannah immediately? Why kidnap her? She doesn't know anything the conspiracy needs to learn; she apparently has no family so they can't use her like Atwood so why keep her alive? Doesn't kidnapping her just give the FBI more leads with which to track them? And, if they actually wanted to lead the FBI on a wild goose chase to save her, they can just grab her, kill her in the cargo container and leave the FBI chasing a corpse. None of it makes sense, right?

I was in suspense during the judging because I was rooting so hard for Stephanie but they really did show some kiss-of-death comments about Nakajima's dishes. Cat Cora did not like how he cooked the skewers - she had textural issues with them. She also thought he made his meatballs too dense. The parts of the scoring that surprised me were that Stephanie somehow managed to not lose plating and that she beat him by such a wide margin. It's amazing to think that she beat him by so much while feeling that she wasn't cooking her best. Related note, I think the judging has been clearer than these shows usually are. Obviously, I can't taste the food but the scores really do seem to follow their comments - or at least, when you rewatch it, you see that they gave you the clues necessary to understand the decision.

I am finally catching up this series after having let it build up on my DVR ever since the mid-season break so please indulge a couple of general points before I get to this episode. The show may suck but it is a huge improvement over the hot garbage served up during first half of the season. Symbolically sending the first family off to heaven was a good first step. Populating the White House with actual people doing actual work is an improvement. Having Kirkman do some occasional governance that almost resembles the real world (rather than mutinous governors) is an improvement and the FBI being less stupid is also a step forward. Unfortunately, the show's main problems of an unbelievable conspiracy and governance dialogue written by fifth graders haven't been fixed yet but at least now there's hope. I hate almost any conspiracy plotline, and particularly this one, but if you're gonna do it, stop burning off conspirators as soon as we meet them. MacLeish should still be alive right now. He could still be on our TV screens if they hadn't made him VP and so obviously part of the conspiracy - that was just unsustainable. As for this episode, travel to Turkey is so not a scandal that I'm stunned they chose it. Also, the White House staff complaining about the "optics" of a congressional trip is beyond stupid. They could have at least said that Kimble needs to prove that she still has pull by beating this rap before we can talk about her as a possible VP. Also, if I were her, I wouldn't want the VP slot unless Kirkman promised not to run for re-election. A sitting VP cannot challenge the President in the primaries so it delays her ambitions by four years.

The original Iron Chef Japan gave each Iron Chef a specialty - Iron Chef Chinese, Iron Chef Italian, etc. It made sense to drop that for American TV but ever since I've kind of liked the chefs who espouse a specialty. Yes, they need to be able to handle all ingredients so Nakajima should be able to do more than seafood but I don't mind that he focuses on Japanese cooking and wouldn't really like seeing him make biscuits and gravy. I am, however, still rooting for Stephanie. I've loved her ever since Top Chef even though I also like Blase (which I know is an unpopular opinion in these parts). I also second the request to lay off the fat-shaming of Gruenwald. I didn't like her much in TC Texas but that was a brutal season messed up by the producers so I'l try to cut her slack here. I think what bothers me here is her false perkiness in everything she says.

The food that these chefs have been cooking looks fascinating to me. I'm much more interested in trying their food than I was in most of the dishes prepared on The Next Iron Chef. Whether that's a credit to the contestants or the straight forward nature of the challenges, I still appreciate it. I developed a theory last night about Chef Nakajima - his style is restrained which can come across as bland while Alton is trying food from a half-dozen people but comes across as elegant and subtle one-on-one. In other words, I don't think it's a fluke that he's crushing it in the head-to-head challenge.

Possibly unpopular opinion here but Iron Chef America is not much more than a perfectly fine time filler for me so this slots right in. Equally unpopular opinion but I find Iron Chef Japan fascinating but much of the food looks unappetizing compared to Iron Chef America because of different national taste preferences. You're right about the problem with the show; they don't have the competitors interact with each other - instead they only interact with Alton and the other judges - so it's hard to get a feel for them as anything other than cooking automatons. Off-topic, if you've tried but not really liked Cutthroat Kitchen, you might want to try an all-stars episode. In general, those episodes are much more good natured, with better food and the chefs take delight in the weird conditions and sticking it to their friends.

If it was the chef I'm thinking about, I think Alton was joking about his setting fire to aromatics under the plate. In retrospect, I think they showed us enough of the judging to know that Sawyer lost. For each of his plates, a judge had a kiss of death comment - I like the idea of a ceviche here, I think this was an artichoke dish, I had issues with your cake. I'm not sure who is going to win this but I think the ones who won't win are the ones who brag about how many techniques they show in each round. That's the kind of comment for chefs on Chopped. Iron Chefs are always talking about highlighting different aspects of the secret ingredient or the balance of flavors on their plate, not whether a particular cooking method is difficult.

Who was the one who tapped out during TC:Texas' stupid barbecue challenge and then reappeared just in time to present "her" dish to the judges?