Totale

Same as me :(. I also said "muslin" for "Gingham" and could think of the name Gregor Samsa but not the name of the story. Not my strongest play at home night. I thought Will looked like Mr. Sulu.

My memory may be failing me, but wasn't Rebeca in 2nd place at FJ, which would make that strategy suspect? We liked her, anyway. At least I know I won't be the most scattered contestant ever, if I ever get on.

I'm eating extra garlic this week to help drive her away if she shows up. Mmmm, garlic.

Hindus don't eat beef, but some Muslims do. Muslims don't eat pork, but some Hindus and Sikhs do. My favorite Indian cookbook explains that there are a couple of states on the west coast of India where religious tolerance is more widespread and both beef and pork are raised and served as food. I think all the participants are cast for type, mostly if not all from casting agencies. I am not surprised or offended by this, they have a show to produce and it goes more smoothly if people are used to working from an outline if not actual scripts. What is offensive is their horrible miscalculation as to what types they should cast, at least if a semi-educated audience comprised of grownups is their target. I mean, who among that target audience isn't going to find the open-mouthed prancing guy repulsive? But maybe it's not. The show does well enough in the ratings, apparently. I thought even the most accomplished chefs threw out the first crepe because it's not going to work? They didn't show that, or the contestants making their freshly pressed tortillas into crispy taco shells by holding one side at a time in hot oil with tongs. I watched Bridget on ATK do the second and said screw that, Ortega is good enough for me.

All true, but also all involving the solo round and taste-offs later on. But where I thought her strategy was sound was in the early weeks and the group rounds. That's where she started saying "I don't give a crap about the guest judge, I'm just going to cook for Anthony" and I could see where that would work for the reasons I gave above.

If they really got what they wanted in the tasting, after the first spoon their palates would all be blown out and they couldn't tell if the other three dishes had enough spice or not. I didn't see any water on the table and editing made the tasting look pretty continuous. I thought production was blowing up Vanessa's Tony obsession but that her basic strategy was sound. Cook something your captain likes, and even if it's not chosen if your team has to cut somebody you're less likely to go home. I see Ludo beating the shit out of a stainless steel refrigerator and think "That's Entertainment". The taste-off is OK in theory, but having Tony mentally check out and just stand there wasn't. I think if any of them have to go up against themselves as he had to in the last two weeks, that mentor should be banned from the kitchen during the taste-off and the cooks should be on their own, asking for help from the other chefs like it went this time if they wish. Have the two battling cooks make just one spoon each, and have their mentor pull the guillotine on the loser blind. That would put some skin in the game.

The show moves fast so we didn't have time to do more than shrug about it and say "Wha??" before the next question was up, but neither Mrs. Totale nor I had the slightest clue about what that question and answer was supposed to be. I forget the question now (something about "just friends"?) but they might as well have been speaking Ukraine for all I knew.

Scraping the floor for b-roll there at Bravo towers, they threw a shot of the Duxbury Town Hall during the shopping montage, even though it's on the wrong shore and a good two hours drive each way away from Gloucester. About all they have in common is that they're both on the water and that there is no Whole Foods anywhere near either one. I was bored senseless during this episode, because I couldn't care less about any of these people or their family stories, and I can just put up a mirror in the kitchen if I want to see an amateur making bad knife cuts and/or burning shit. So I'm just left looking at sloppy production mistakes like the above, and that they screwed up the timing and had to send TC in for the sniff 'n' sneer before Melissa's team was even in the kitchen, so they got left out. But I was always told to think of something nice to say, so it's nice that they held Blaise down to only about a half dozen lines too many, and while I usually avoid drooling Padma looked pretty fit there at the dinner table. I'm sure LCK will play Lucy with the football and not actually say who else will be coming back next week, but I guess I will be.

My takeaway from the start of this season is that the Arts and Entertainment network thinks there is a segment of the population who can turn on a television set and have a cable subscription paid up who will think that Mary is an attractive and endearingly appealing woman and with his bluster and don't give a shit attitude Dave Hester is some kind of kool dude. I can about buy a fat community college student who's moved into his "man" cave in Mom's basement for the first, but am completely blanking on picturing the face of the second. But I know it's not me.

The king explained it was his beloved nanny who raised him, the only person who ever loved him.

Too bad for the other two chefs, since there was no way the Exes weren't going to be in the final. My only surprise was that they gave it to Cyclops after he completely blew the dessert round and skated through the first by serving Essence of Eyeball.

I said "abscond". That was a lousy game overall, though. I always root for librarians, although I call them all "Marion". I thought she had it and couldn't believe she missed the easy FJ.

I'm surprised they haven't slapped her. I remember on the last season of Food Network Star one of the women was commenting weekly in her own blog, somebody asked her there if she would do a Web interview on their site and she replied that they'd have to talk to FN to get permission first. I thought contestants on reality shows were pretty locked down - if even incompetent FN can rein them in I don't see why the more experienced ABC can't.

Drogo, I suspect that (purely due to the talent and cooking skills of the contestants involved and not at all because production can fiddle with it at will, of course) we will never see the Taste-off scenario you try to pre-game just above take place.

I was certainly convinced by Tyler's sincere shock and surprise at what he was confronted with, since he's such a busy guy that I'm sure he didn't have a chance to watch any of the prior seasons of the show or discuss it with TPTB before agreeing to appear.

So far, it has run at the same time as The Walking Dead. It you can find out when the Dead come back, it's a good bet that if CBM comes back that's when it will be.

I saw that too and the DVR didn't kick in, so I checked and the one they had scheduled for last night (with Jacques Pepin) is now set for next week.

The grinch FJ was ridiculously easy to guess, but for the record I have never heard the word grinch used by anyone who was not specifically referring to some representation of the Seuss character. I liked the high school teacher on the right, who seemed positively happy almost to the point of giddyness to be there, even though she got beat like a drum.

That's pretty much strictly a body type definition, though. In almost everything I've seen her on, she actually usually dresses pretty demurely for women on 21st century TV. Her deal comes from a deeper place. If you want to see it in concentrated form, go stick "naughty Nigella" into Youtube sometime.

I think the nature of the competition is a major factor. Jeopardy! or Millionaire is pretty much straight up competition (or game in Millionaire's case) with a minimum of judging. Subjectively judged shows like food or fashion competitions are more like "juried" art shows and allow for a lot more fiddling. Even something like The Taste where the judges supposedly don't have a clue who their judging leave gaps where "you can't dump her, she's good TV" can slip in.

By the by, I notice Jeff Daniels got himself into the final musical numbers for both Colbert and Craig Ferguson this week. Way to get around!

I missed this but just watched the segment online. Rick, or you, can go on the Web and buy one new from the publisher for $1500 this morning. They didn't sell out. http://limitededitionsclub.com/seven-years-in-tibet/ Or buy secondhand for $4500, because Rebecca is right and people will look at the limitation and charge whatever they think will go. It appeared at auction every couple of years through the 90s and early 2000s, in 2009 one auction house sold one for $325 and another for $1300.

TS = Triple Stumper, nobody has the answer. I can't get TJ out of context.

This board is weak on smilies, and I admit to a perverse sense of humor. I meant no slur against LaTasha, just inappropriately suggesting how she could apparently get out from under the worst part of winning HK, ie having to continue to deal with Gordon for another year.

Maybe LaTasha can call Ja'Nel's dealer, and get the 1/4 mil without the year of crap labor for Gordon, followed by the exec chef job in her home town that she actually wanted, the way Ja'Nel did.