Totale

On my system (Comcast) it is.

If you watch FNS and especially if you bother to go on the Web or hit On Demand for Salvation, you are square in their demographic. This show is an end unto itself. Its relationship to any other FN programming is tenuous and I would say unimportant.

First ATK disappointment for me. I saw the episode including Cuban-style Picadillo this week and thought it seemed like a good and easy dinner. It took forever and was passable at best at the end - it badly needed salt (Bridget didn't put any in, saying that the olives and capers brought plenty, but I disagree). There are other picadillo recipes online where the meat is actually browned rather than basically boiled/steamed as it was in this recipe, if you want to try making it I'd choose one of those.

<shallow> Alicia Witt </shallow>

Ina is an exception, and there are a couple of others, Ree and the smug neo-hippie chick whose name I can't remember, who bring their shows in as a package and sell them to FN. You don't see them as guest judges on this show, though. I suspect they don't think of themselves as "FN stars",

Here's the basic problem - the producers, contestants and PTB are treating this like there is such a thing as a Food Network Star. Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn were stars. FN has presenters reading scripts and stirring up foods from the test kitchen, and they're interchangeable.

Sadly, I can't unsee that.

It's completely played out, and they should have put a mercy bullet in it at the end of the last season. It would have been better to see no more episodes of these character's lives than it will be to see the weak attempts at catchphrases and running jokes which, in the absence of any fresh areas to explore while hampered by the legacy of weak characterizations and an improbable setting, will oversaturate the next (and final) season like a leaky diaper.

The article above said June 24th, but the first episode of the new season just appeared in my TV listings a week later (July 1).

I think they roped a lot of people in (including myself) who thought it would be a typical Stevie TV adaptation mini-series, with a beginning, middle and end. I was stuck halfway in before I found out they intended this as a continuing series, which was coincidentally right about when it started to go off the rails. Now I'll start hatewatching series 2 in retailiation for the trick they played on me, ready to bail at any time if the amusement side of the teeter-totter spends too much time up in the air, held down by the stoopid side.

I could have warned those guys not to cut through the back parking lot and spark one up with Dana between the press conference and the kitchen, no matter how appealing the idea sounded at the time. You just don't have her kind of tolerance built up.

At least they picked a product whose sales are unlikely to be negatively impacted by these mushmouths trying to spit out a commercial for them.

I think the best Lenny could come up with for FN is being the Pioneer Dude and even though the PW is the #1 with a bullet most popular "cooking" show they have, the real appeal for them is that she produces and pays for it all herself and just drops it off with them, they write one check and it's done. Lenny can't do that, and their track record on developing "characters" is pretty poor - the only ones left eventually fall into the CC pit. Emma being "not energetic enough" gives her something to grow and improve upon over the season to form a story arc, like how Damaris learned to stop shimmying and avoid drinking on camera. Hipster beard is just cannon fodder to me and they're no energy behind Cuban, Nicole is probably too pretty, L'Oreal not pretty enough, Chris is a dick you'll love to hate, Orion can't actually cook, and i forget what others I've already dismissed :).

Oh. So that's what Cutthroat Kitchen is like. I've never seen it because I thought the idea sounded moronic. I wasn't wrong. Just a wasted week to push the house brand and knock off more cannon fodder. It's been a year and I've forgotten, do we go to a "final 3" on this show? If so, my call is whichever of Emma and Nicole has the job, the other one, and cutesmug Chris. Usually it's a woman they set you up to hate (like the chick from last year who couldn't handle the restaurant Daddy bought her even after Impossible stepped in), but I think they're changing it up and making him the goat this year. But I could be wrong - I thought they'd hired Emily Retro, too.

I do believe the asshole Hester on his claim that the lockers are seeded. See how often you can match up a locker "discovery" that they just "have to go get checked out" with the "Thanks To" credits at the end of the show. I first noticed this on the SW:Texas show when Victor found some model helicopter thingy supposedly worth 100s of dollars. The brand name was prominently displayed but Victor and his consultant couldn't get the thing to fly right and crashed it. Oops, not so good product placement right there.

One of the girls, when asked what love is, talks about blue skies and good feelings bubbling up inside or some similar Hallmark card things, then says "and you also have a pizza".

I thought about that, too. It wouldn't surprise me if the admins were supposed to find out about Piper talking to the reporter due to the telephone surveillance, but when they decided to cut that branch back they just dropped it and went with Fig running into the reporter in the visiting area.

New TV season starts June 24 http://splitsider.com/2014/03/drunk-history-returns-to-comedy-central-june-24th/

It's always fun for me in MA to refer to it as Romneycare whenever speaking with a Republican, because yes, Romneycare has been awesome. Somebody said that four years was a long run for an HBO comedy, something I've never thought about. But there will be a fourth season and I'll bet TPTB are really hoping for a fifth, because if they keep to the same schedule of each season starting in April the fifth year will fall right at the height of the primary season for the 2016 Presidential election and there should be much grist for the comic mill, especially if the thought of the first femaile President is high in the public consciousness.

Butter chicken (murgh makhani) is definitely something you can make at home. You can Google up loads of recipes and pick one. I make Indian dishes in the BIR (British Indian Restaurant) fashion by making a base gravy that is used for a lot of different dishes, but that's a big commitment and a lot more time consuming. A standalone recipe should be fine if you can get the spices. Garam Masala is a must and fairly easy to obtain, dried fenugreek leaves (not seeds) are an extra step which puts it over the top, but are harder to obtain and can be considered optional. The rest of the spices (usually stuff like coriander, cumin, tumeric) are straightforward, but if you want it to come out great, throw out the three year old spice bottles in your pantry and start fresh. If you have a "natural foods" type store nearby you can often buy small quantities of fresh spices out of bulk jars. PS: I haven't tried it, but this Gordon Ramsay recipe looks like it hits the salient points with easy to find ingredients. http://www.food.com/recipe/murgh-makhani-moghul-butter-chicken-422848 You'll want to use heavy or whipping cream as a substitute for the UK product "double cream" in the recipe.

That bugged the hell out of me, too - especially since Alex apparently cut a deal for her testimony at the 11th hour. Maybe I've seen too much "Law and Order", but I couldn't figure out why Piper didn't subtly suggest to her attorney that since she'd been told by Alex that A intended to deny all knowledge of the kingpin, she was feeling a bit forgetful herself. Unless, of course, something like the prospect of immediate release magically brought things back into focus, assuming the prosecutor was more interested in putting the big fish away than in worrying about the small fry.

What bothered me is that the subject came up at all, when at no time are any of the women shown using computers of any sort. There are a couple in the background of the shots at the library, but the chairs are always unoccupied. I don't see any evidence that the cartoons were rendered on a computer. It does seem that even the most cursory attempt at prison rehabilitation in the 21st century would include some basic training, and in fact that a newsletter would be an ideal way to teach typing, selecting fonts, etc.

Well, being an admitted BBQ idiot, I grew up (up North) with BBQ=cooking outdoors. My guess is if you stopped 10 people at random in those areas of the country where BBQ is not a religion and ask "Did you cook barbecue last year?" they'd say the same. I was surprised Zach let Chad go through at all, let alone without commenting that his smearing shit on the outside of a bird and rubbing it in dirt would do as much to "season the meat" as what he did, since I always heard chicken skin is impermeable to fluids. Every other show where I've seen cooks treat chicken, they pull the skin up and get some of that goodness underneath where it will do some good.

I'm guessing you two have stumbled onto the story arc for the season. Have you been in the writer's room?

I know from reading an interview with Jenji that she's at least a little bit uncomfortable with the Netflix/bingeing situation. I think she said there was some regret that she spends a year of her life working on something and rather than have people talking about it and anticipating the next chapter over the course of months they will do what I just did, gobble it down over the course of a couple days (in my case, stealing time from work ;)) and they're still left wanting more. That understood, having just finished all I have to say right now is Fuckin' A! Now I'm gonna go make dinner.