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I think I found her, by googling Laikynn, the spelling she eventually went for. Seems the names started devolving in the previous generation, as mom is named McKinli, and dad Devan; Laikynn's older brother is named Titan and there's now a younger brother named Tatum. McKinli's sister is named Whitni. (McKinli Hatch). I was only looking to see the ridiculous names, I swear!

It's a King's Hawaiian recipe: http://www.kingshawaiian.com/recipes/hawaiian-ham--swiss-slider/ Slice open a package of the rolls. Spread with mayo, add ham and swiss. Melt some butter and whisk together with dijon, poppy seeds, worcestershire, and onion powder; pour over the top. Bake. She changed the meat, but otherwise it's just the recipe they provided. For quantities etc., see the above, and you can find plenty of very slight variations or just plain copies of it online (i.e., somebody says don't use the honey ham they recommend, use Virginia ham, some say dried onion or onion flakes instead of onion powder). I.e.: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/216756/baked-ham-and-cheese-party-sandwiches/ http://www.food.com/recipe/the-best-ham-sandwiches-ever-358553

14 likes (16 now). At least one is probably from Matthew. I went ahead and clicked on it anyway and watched about 30 seconds of the 7+ minutes (a bit near the beginning, and again about 3 minutes in). He just kept talking about what food he had to eat on his trip or, I guess, in the airport. Heck, my mother does that, too, every time she goes on a trip - or she used to. She's finally realized, I guess, that how many mussels she had is just not that interesting to anybody else. I'm glad you enjoyed your bagel with lox and cream cheese, Matthew - but keep it to yourself, ok? Or, you know, your 16 or so fans. I suppose you'll go home and add some gratuitous poblano chiles and nacho cheese sauce "for that southwestern flavor."

You mean Aarti Sequeira? She had her own season too. Sounds more like "Marty with the Party." Aarti went to college in Chicago (Northwestern), and I don't think would ever have had that attitude about any cuisine. http://www.foodnetwork.com/profiles/contestants/martie-duncan/bio

I believe he said catahoula dogs, as in Catahoula Parish. I couldn't tell if he was from Louisiana or Mississippi as he seemed to reference both. I watched for a few minutes, but it was too many stories for me - hear that, Food Network??? - although i might give him a try some other time. I don't have the patience to listen to people's stories. A personalizing sentence here and there, sure, but unless you're simultaneously showing me something interesting about the food, I probably don't care and almost certainly will click off in fairly short order. I want to like the people, but I can do that if they just carry themselves like a decent person and have some enthusiasm about what they're doing and explain why (which doesn't need to be a story beyond, maybe, how you discovered that you really like this particular food cooked in this particular fashion, or how much fun, or how much easier, it is or something. Something that gets me thinking, I want to try that - the food or the technique, not the recipe - I'm never going to go to FN for recipes - but an idea, or a dish, and I'll get the recipe from someone I trust more, or improvise.

You probably chose more soothing colors, too.

Hmm. This was my top result: http://www.foodnetwork.com/shows/food-network-star/star-salvation and the video was right there. Fwiw.

Grill or roast some slices of a very large sweet potato (his slabs really were toast-sized, and about 1/4-inch or so thick). But, unlike Blake, salt (and perhaps otherwise season) them! Mash avocados with raw red onion and raw garlic. Presumably there were some other seasonings in the (rather chunky) guacamole as well, but the raw onions & garlic were all they mentioned, and the onions were all we saw. Spread the avocado mixture on top of the grilled sweet potato slabs, and top with a "simple tomato salsa," which appeared to be just chopped tomatoes with no other ingredients at all. Maybe some olive oil, lime juice, and salt, but no other visible ingredients, and I'm just guessing that he did something beyond cutting them up, since they didn't specifically complain about them. I am not inspired to copy this. The tip I got from the cashier at Trader Joe's last week was good,, though. I bought some Trader Joe's Yuzu Hot Sauce on a whim, and she suggested toast with avocado and cucumber slices and some of that sauce. Yup! It works. I add a little salt and pepper as well, and sometimes rub the bread with garlic. It doesn't really seem to matter what kind of bread I use - worked well with sourdough and with whole wheat toast. I found the video without difficulty, the same way I usually do: I googled Food Network Star Salvation. That way I get to skip whatever else the FN might want me to see on their site. Jeff Mauro annoyed me much more than I had remembered (smarmy!); Alex G. was fine. Nobody excelled. The pacing was weird - I thought at first I had missed the beginning of the video.

Yup, skinnier than you would be if you weren't doing meth doesn't always mean skinny.

To be fair, not that he deserves it, the drug test was "just over 24 hours" before he was to be with Paislee. I wouldn't put any money on him being clean and sober longer than about 12 hours at a time, though.

"a touch of class"? "#maturnityshoot"?

Actually, this didn't occur to me, maybe because I'm used to this being a "nice" show (the only others I can think of are The Great British Bake Off and Masterchef Australia). But thank god they didn't!

It would probably be doing much worse without him! I just went on the FN website and he had some good videos there. I don't know that his Cuban sandwich would be my exact recipe, but the tips were good and it's a good starting point - I'd probably triangulate between his version and some others. (I'm dubious about the honey mustard/mayo combo, which he doesn't pretend is traditional anyway, just a variation that he likes). It does the job of making you want to make a Cuban sandwich, reminded me how easy it is to roast a pork shoulder like that (I usually do it with kosher salt and chipotle powder, but his seasonings sounded quite good, too), and would prompt me to look for recipes and make something of my own inspired by it. And, remind me that I enjoy watching Eddie Jackson. All in 3 minutes. They've even let him do some stuff related to his original "Fit Chef" persona. I suppose Matthew could do web videos like that just fine. He's usable. Of this year's crowd, I like Cory (still not sure if he's comfortable enough on camera, though) & Amy the best; Addie comes off a little prissy to me, although that's more my issue than hers, but I suppose she's got some strengths that play well on the FN. She needs a more distinct identity than "I worked for Martha Stewart," though, pronto. Everybody else is/was either forgettable or annoying (Jason, Nancy, Suzanne).

And I think the other tables were all full, so maybe they just weren't fast enough to snag a more desirable "reservation."

(Melissa Clark on how to cut up a chicken: https://www.nytimes.com/video/dining/100000002155362/cutting-up-a-whole-chicken.html ). Much more useful than some random instagram on how to hack a salad bar! I only look at instagram if somebody's tipped me off to something good, anyway.

I liked the fighter pilot's wife, too - and she seemed to cook really well. I'm sure they'll bash us over the heads with her husband's profession (and when was the last time someone fought an air battle rather than dropped bombs, anyway? although it's good to have people who can do it just in case), but she seemed to just treat it as a fact about who she is rather than as This is Who I Am, which is fine. She seemed smart, practical, and to have very good taste and, while not a professional, a good level of expertise acquired through the ordinary means rather than culinary school or line cooking (and most of the audience only intends to cook at home, too, so in theory at least, that's good enough). I don't much care for Jason - the shtick seems laid on as heavy as any other they've had. He wasn't bad on the baking show, but I'm tired of him already on this one, although I did like the watermelon shirt, and he's certainly comfortable on camera (after having just done a full season of another FN competition show). Seems like southerners feature heavily in many TV competition shows, not just cooking - whether because these shows get higher ratings in the South, or what, I'm not sure. As for FN and Southerners, I strongly suspect that they've found that shows featuring Southerners get ratings from genuine Southerners and from those around the country who romanticize the South or some idea of country living, whether competition shows or stand and stir. They know that this is a big chunk of their faithful demographic. That, and Guy Fieri wannabes, dessert contestants, BBQ and giant or overindulgent food. If I actually want to watch video of how to cook something, I'd much prefer, say, Melissa Clark at the NY Times, although I usually don't bother with her, generally excellent, videos, but instead just read the article and recipe. I've bookmarked her video on cutting up a chicken, which I could do reasonably well before, but much better now! I hope the guy from New Orleans with the serious professional cred can get more comfortable presenting, just because I prefer competition shows be about people doing stuff they do well and competing on that basis. That's not this show, though. I don't see how Joy (Comeback Kitchen) ever had a chance given that they already had plenty of people competing for the same niche.

There's also a political saying, that Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh in the west, Philadelphia in the east, and Alabama in between. Or, Pennsyltucky. But I don't know where in Pennsylvania she's from anyway (I'm thinking in the orbit of Philly), & southern wouldn't have come to my mind to describe her.

Eddie and Damaris are great together on that kids BBQ show. I'm watching because I liked Eddie when he was on FNS, and I've kept it up because the dynamic between the two of them is fun, so it's a good background thing to have on while doing something else. I like Aarti, too; the rest of them I'm indifferent to, at best. Melissa, fine. Guy, annoying. Mauro, slightly annoying but mostly just forgettable. Lenny, unspeakable. I suppose other people won this show, too, but I couldn't tell you who. Of this group, Danushka bugs me less than in the past, but a little goes a long way. Matthew is better, too, and it seems like he can actually cook very well, so that I might actually trust his tips, but he's still annoying (but so are most of their successful "stars" so I guess my point of view on that is irrelevant). Jamika could be ok if she settles into a little more relaxed version, which could theoretically happen over the course of a season, but more likely they'd push her in the opposite direction). The other two (Joy and whatever the lunch guy's name is) seem to be filler.

Me, too! And then I started wondering what godawful name the other kid has.

I looked up exercise and MD a while ago and it seems like a little bit of exercise actually is encouraged (but not to the point of getting tired). (Per things like WebMD, Mayo, etc - the more reliable types of sites). Obviously the recommendations in any particular case are going to vary somewhat, but it seems like flexibility exercises (to prevent contractures) and mild general exercise (to maintain tone and basic strength, but not to tax someone very hard, which could cause damage) are recommended. So, a little walking etc is probably good - it's just that they also need to use the wheelchair, probably much more than they do, to avoid tiring her unnecessarily, and to enhance her ability to participate in life. I remember the original prediction (well, based on what we see on TV), as being an expectation that as she grew, at about age 7, she would start to go downhill. There was a certain element of uncertainty to that, of course, especially with an unusual variety of MD; but I also remember getting the sense that it simply had to do with her getting bigger, and her body size eventually becoming too much for her muscles to handle. She has stayed quite small compared to her twin so far, though, so perhaps the reason she has done a little better than expected in those conversations is simply related to that. As for prayer, well, I don't believe in anything supernatural, but I do believe that prayer keeps the person utmost in your mind so that when you have something helpful to do for them, it is more likely to come to you; and, that it offers comfort, helping the person feel less alone in their struggles. To the extent that I pray it is not that I think I am praying to something, but that I think the ritual has some value in connecting us to one another and refocusing us on things that matter - and I pray not for outcomes, but for the person affected to have the all the strength, patience, ease, perspective, sense of comfort, etc., that might help them cope with the hard things that face them. I find that I interact differently with others when I do that, and that the interactions between us are better as a result, and it's interesting to wonder why, but to me it's a technique that taps a certain part of the human heart, for the good, rather than something that brings tangible results through any more mysterious power. Obviously, they're looking at it differently, though (she's walking because you all prayed!), and so they may well be pushing things way too far - but maybe it's become a little more in line with the recommendations than they've been getting credit for.

I only see one new one scheduled - this is the summary from TV Guide (indicating two cuts, one from five contestants, and then a final challenge with however many survive the first cut):

[delete]

It started out as a boy's name and a generation or so ago was still more likely to be a man than a woman. [example: Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind]

It started out as a boy's name and a generation or so ago was still more likely to be a man than a woman.

Doesn't count because he wasn't trying. ;)