Rammchick

I'm with you guys. Personally, I can't stand Robert Irvine. A lying liar who lies. And kids? Not so much. The Fierrification of the Food Network is complete. Ugh.

New Chopped shows coming our way: http://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwtv/article/CHOPPED-IMPOSSIBLE-and-CHOPPED-JUNIOR-Heading-to-Food-Network-20150915

He was very sweet to Salma. I also thought he was going to be a precocious little shithead, and he turned out to be a nice kid.

I saw that, and I assumed that it was from the paint she used, that that purply color had red as an undercoat.

My chortle was the "German liquor", which they named Kräuterlikör (notice the appropriate rock and roll umlauts, which makes that word sound like "kroiter", which is proper). Of course, the stuff is really Jägermeister ;) I want one of those chef coats!

I'm someone who is not and will never get married, and the traditional wedding is even less of interest. So I can definitely see having a TV show make me up as fugly as possible for the big day. How fun! I applaud the spirit of these couples, if not the institution.

Thanks, GaT, me too. Nice to see she's as hyper as ever!

I was thinking the same thing about Amanda being a slightly lower echelon as I watched the episode. I don't think it's a lack of talent, by any means. I think her ambitions in terms of the dishes she creates are not as lofty, which is why you see her on this diner revival show.

I agree with this. A "very special episode" is only fair if everyone has the same advantage going in.

I suspect that the reason the basket ingredient was ghost pepper beef jerky and not the chili itself was so that no one would go too crazy with it. But how interesting and not at all coincidental was it that a guy who makes hot sauce was one of the cheftestants? Surely they would never deliberately "seed" the competition with a subject matter expert. That's like putting a vegetarian chef on an episode featuring vegetarian food... Oh... ;)

Of course, you really have to know what you're doing with alternative flours, since they have very different qualities than wheat. So perhaps from that standpoint, making a gluten-free dessert by just eliminating the use of any flour is the most sensible way to go in a competition setting. I wonder if Duff's lack of enthusiasm about the cakes was the result of the contestants having to use store-bought sponge? I didn't quite understand why they didn't devote the whole episode to that challenge, and give them 8 hours to do it, to really produce an extravaganza.

Anne was shown in TH saying several times that she's never won any of the competitions in which she has participated. That's telegraphing the win right there. And sure enough...

ari333, "all day" means the number of any one item. So if it's 4 beef wellington all day, that means that there are 4 ordered in total, from several tables all together.

It looks like Fox is on the fence about renewing Hell's Kitchen for another season: http://www.ew.com/article/2015/05/08/canceled-shows-list I don't think anyone would particularly miss it if it ended ;)

Agreed, although, despite the weird faces, she was somewhat toned down and palatable tonight.

mlp, I figured I was probably the only one here. I've seen him on a couple of other competition shows and he acted badly in both. I wasn't crazy about him before but that just cemented it. Ann Burrell, however, is someone that I used to love. I never missed her cooking show. But she's both a poor winner and a poor loser, and I've lost my respect for her from watching her on these competitions.

And here we go with the "ooga booga" EW SNAKES! bit again. What is it with Gordon Ramsay? He pulled that on last season's Master Chef Junior too. Some of us love our reptile pets and I'm damned tired of seeing these animals shown as only worthy of being objects of fear.

I'm no lover of Bobby Flay's but I did find it sweet when he said that Joseph was beautiful inside and out. I also thought it should've been a blind tasting for the finale, especially considering who the judge was. I was rooting for Vanessa but with all the talking heads about how much she needed the money, I knew she wasn't going to win. Someone above questioned why both made fish, but I assumed it was because they made burgers for "lunch". That kind of set them up to do anything but meat for "dinner".

Sarah struck me as the pretty girl who gets away with being clueless because of it. And then, when things don't go her way, she assumes her teammates hate her. Seriously, she was bent out of shape because no one helped her find an outlet? Maybe they were simply tired of her shtick.

True, but I always thought it was pretty obvious which offering was Bobby's since it was always "juj-ed" up by comparison to the classic recipe. Re: Vanessa's "lasagna" -- I was convinced Mark Murphy would complain that it was hard to eat, since I imagined it would shatter when you tried to cut it.

And again, we're not seeing the deliberations for the first two rounds. I assume it's because what we generally see is redundant, but it seems jarring to have the show be presented this way. I really liked the theme but to tell the truth, I was almost sure that Ted was going to say, "April Fools!" when the winner was announced. That decision definitely didn't seem right, based on their earlier critiques.

Very interesting concept, but at the risk of sounding like a killjoy, isn't beauty subjective and in the eye of the beholder and all that sort of thing? Then why would a being from a different galaxy be evaluated based on Earthly standards of beauty? Although I didn't like Ben's, maybe she's stunning where she comes from? Ok, I'll slink back to Planet Ramm now *grumble grumble*

What was up with that cross on Chef Sling Blade's hat? To me, that looked like an homage - if such a thing is possible- to the Confederate flag, which created immediate dislike, rightly or wrongly. And if the producers' intentions were to create bad behaviour between these couples, I'm glad they didn't get it.

This challenge in previous seasons was done so well that fellow TWoPers recalled it very fondly. So I was happy to see it reappear if only for that reason. But this time around, the results were anything but memorable. And I don't remember a single contestant who was especially psyched to challenge themselves, even if they'd never done it before. Great concept, mostly poor executions.

It seems to me that $10,000 is a bit of a chintzy prize. I realize that they're just kids, but adults on these shows get the same amount for only one appearance: Chopped, Food Network Challenge, etc. And this is an entire competition.