saltycheese

Some random thoughts: 1. Giada and Bobby are totally mailing it in. They hate this, and they've lost almost all of their authenticity. They don't even seem like they are listening to anyone. 2. Speaking from my own point of view (working New England mom; Ina/Martha obsessed), out of all of the contestants I would only watch shows with Addie (a young Martha) or Amy (home-cook busy mom) because that is what I aspire to be and/or can relate to. Of course I love Jason's personality but that won't translate into my actually watching his show. That said, I may watch a one hour holiday special of his -- like say the premise would be that he has to organize the church pot-luck after the Christmas pageant. I would love watching him interact with everyone, handling chaos, etc. 3. The way Giada takes those tiny little fake bites is so insulting that they should just keep the camera away from her during the tastings. Again, she HATES this.

I still like Nick more than ever, and I am grateful for the few and far between moments where he is actually able to be as funny as I find him to be (the dressing room!). Nevertheless, the "aww" moments are all gone for me now, and my emotions when I am watching Nick with anyone aside from Corinne are snooze, snooze, CRINGE, snooze, snooze, snooze, CRINGE, snooze, snooze, snooze, etc. The one thing that bugs me to the point of distraction about these hometown dates is that the homes almost always seem rented/fake to me. Something about the way the homes are painted and decorated makes me think that we are almost never seeing people in their actual homes. Try and convince me otherwise, though.

Right - we are agreeing here. Technically she was on the group date when she showed it to him. I liked her in the beginning. Just not as much lately. *Nevermind, we aren't agreeing. I disagree and think that the scrapbook would be a tool best saved for a group date (which is how she used it). She doesn't need the scrapbook on a solo date.

Vanessa is beginning to bug me. It's like she's taking on a Head Sister Wife role, where all the younger sister wives complain to her when the husband is acting out and it's her role, as the wife with top status, to speak to him on behalf of all of them. The scrapbook felt incredibly calculated. It makes sense that she'd save it for a group date, when she needed to make more of an impact. On a solo date, the scrapbook would have gotten lost in the shuffle.

I was so taken aback by her story that I tried to convince myself that maybe she was describing a dream that she had after the cheating took place?

Some thoughts on Danielle: She is by far the prettiest gal on the show, but she and Nick really don't seem into each other so far. Nick is pretty quick-witted, and he's most attractive to me when he's being funny and playing off of the person he's with. He's a real "yes, and..." guy -- which kind of showed when he was doing the break-up scenes. Danielle doesn't seem to bring that out in him. Now, she DID bring up a dead fiance, so that obviously dictated the tone of the date, BUT (and this may be a shitty question to ask) why did she bring up the dead fiance on the first date? She complained that the dead fiance has been a showstopper in past relationships, so why not hold off? It happened five years ago, she's obviously had a few relationships since -- does the dead fiance still have to define her? And, it probably doesn't help that she has a tiny, childlike voice and even speaks like a small, shy child might. When I watched her in her intro video, talking about taking care of those babies, I thought of my two year old daughter and the way she talks about all of her baby dolls. Danielle is very sweet, but far too simple and innocent for this show and/or format of dating. But again, she has an extremely pretty face.

Christen reminds me of one of Lloyd Dobbler's best friends in the movie Say Anything

I saw a few episodes of Ben's season, I saw all of Andy the Navy doctor's season, and that is the extent of my Bachelor history. I'm looking at Nick with fresh eyes, and I definitely dig him so far. He seems smart and authentic. I also like how he cares enough and has the social skills/sophistication to diffuse some of the girls' awkwardness. I also think that he's one of the best looking bachelors that I've seen. As for the women, I think that Vanessa and the whispering nurse seem like they might have a good chance with Nick. Inexplicably, since watching the premiere, I've thought about that cucumber "snack" more than I've thought about any of the women.

This all might make me sound very paranoid and conspiracy-theorist, and I'll preemptively extend my apologies if this post is going to waste anyone's time. I first began to feel this way after the Sound of Silence episode, and my feelings solidified after this episode. Here goes: Meredith's face looked like she had some work done over the winter recess (in real life), and I feel like getting beat up in the hospital bought the producers time to get her looking back to normal. She hasn't had any long scenes (post-recovery) with other people, and most of them are with the therapist (which could have easily been filmed later and inserted in). In the flashback scene where she was drinking with friends in her house, her mouth area looked especially like Jack Nicholson's Joker when he put on the tan foundation. I hate myself for even putting so much time into thinking about this. Also, I realize that they would have had to have booked Denzel way in advance (with a solid script) -- so I know that none of this can be right. Still, I wonder. . . Did anyone else notice this?

Maybe it was the delivery of the line that made me uncomfortable, IDK!

Did anyone else find it odd that Arizona compared fires to sick babies? She seemed to imply that she secretly hoped babies would continue to be sick so that she could make money. I liked the episode, overall, but I'm still thinking about that scene several days later. I had expected the firefighter to give her a "HUH?! You're a psycho!" sort of a look but it didn't happen.

This is a great point. I could see Eddie on several networks (and not just talking about food). He's pretty dynamic and I think that FN was smart to "put a ring on it."

Dad dudes are!

I was surprised to see that #FoodNetworkStar is trending on Twitter; I honestly didn't know that the show was so popular!

Is it really dead air? I feel like that's when you're going to get your "dude audience."