dleighg

I just watched the first episode. It moves slowly but is quite good. And as usually I keep recognizing actors from the other Brit stuff I watch :)

I know I'm being petty, but Courtney's little girl voice bugs me, and Megan seems to have an awful lot of "stage presence." Has she competed before? She seemed a bit too "familiar" with Jesse and particularly the judges for my taste.

When they walked in and remarked on how empty it was, I started wondering-- there are no empty tables, so what has changed? I went back and looked at the first episode, and the tables were MUCH closer. Which is non-trivial since they have to provide electricity to the stoves and mixers and all after spreading the work tables apart. Dylan's coconut shells were AMAZING. When Georgie was talking about not liking the texture of currents in the spotted dick, it reminded me of what my father always said in remarking that he didn't like raisins in baked goods. "They are like flies without wings." I tend to agree, and only use golden raisins in cooking! I don't dispute that Sumayah's lemon and coffee confection didn't work, but Paul seemed incredulous that those flavors could possibly go together. Has he never had an espresso in Rome, served with a twist of lemon rind to rub on the rim of the cup? Dylan's "concrete" box looked amazing, but that dessert would never work in an individual plated environment (like a restaurant) as it cracks when served. Minor nit. I'm glad he had such a great week. And he's easy on the eyes :)

Leave room for dessert! The bakers whip up meringue nests with multiple fillings, traditional steamed pudding and tastefully tiered tiramisu.

are you in Britain? I don't think it's arrived here in the US right?

why do people keep trying to make it happen. Lots of people (I'm one of them) think it tastes like grass clippings and that's not going to change. It's all about the color-- but it has to taste good too!

Do you live in the lower Hudson Valley? I put a local station on while I was doing some tedious task in the kitchen on Friday and was dumbfounded. Apparently that's their "thing." Do we really need two months of Christmas music? I just wanted some low key "old people's music" like they usually play.

and following on, since I'm near the end now; I really enjoy the "reuse/save/repurpose" mentality that the show setup requires. It's how I personally cook, so it's fun to see how creative they are.

I keep seeing this ad for Verizon (I think) where a few 20-somethings are dancing around to a loud song (I don't want to go to school). It didn't bother me the first few times but on whatever I'm streaming it shows up EVERY SINGLE COMMERCIAL BREAK.

it's a fun show! I just started it! And it has enough differences from the standard cooking competition to make it interesting.

I thought you were saying they were getting divorced! They seem like a reasonably healthy couple (not that I've watched in a few years) so glad to hear that's not it.

Shetland season 9 will arrive on BBC One on Wednesday, November 6 at 9pm. I haven't been able to learn anything about when it might show up on Britbox. It has also been renewed for a 10th season!

I was offended :) that Aaron didn't even attempt to make the bricks match up at the corner of the pyramid. I mean you're using a template for the bricks; at least TRY to line them up.

She's a good sport. Did you see how awkward it was getting the food past that beak?

Ah, I clearly wasn't paying attention :) I thought it was a terrible pyramid.

I noticed that as well. I also noticed that there just "happened" to be some extremely specific molds of hieroglyphic tablets available to him. So I don't give him special props for being able to put those in his "cakescape." I also thought his pyramids were a bit wonky-- one of them looked more like a listing cube than a pyramid. I thought Manny's looked amazing (complaining about the back of the moon not being decorated seemed like one of those "required nits on the eventual winner.") The other two looked like a bit of a mess, particularly Frankenstein.

and can I say that the painting that the female "joiner" is creating is remarkably ugly?

I agree. And he's so much more fun to watch since they ditched Matt. Those two brought out each other's bad little boy personalities.

As the person who said he is a terrible actor -- in this show--, I stand by my opinion. And even though I'm not particularly young, I have never seen anything he's in. So there. :)

So mean to make them make filo by hand. I find the bought stuff hard enough to handle! (I love Ina Garten's version of spanokopita). What was that sauce they served along side that they never mentioned, or apparently even tasted? I assume it was some sort of yogurt-dill thing. Noel has the WEIRDEST sweaters. I imagine they are not cheap.

was he actually in prison? Or still pre-sentencing? I don't know if it would make a difference. But I think upstream someone said that he wouldn't be eligible because it was a domestic violence charge, under California law.

I noticed that!

Aaron was also kind of obnoxious to Manny, asking him "have you ever made an entremet before?" And proceeding to "mentor" him on how to do it. Manny seemed annoyed.

Those instrumentalists doing his backup must work REALLY cheap LOL.

yeah, they didn't even try, did they? I guess we know it's the same actor, at the current age, so why bother.