Yeah No

Not surprising, but I wonder how the kids are going to react this time. Some of them really like Las Vegas and others still miss Utah. Hopefully they had more warning this time.

That's the 'Cat in the Hat' for ya!

Yep, me too on actually liking seeing Alex lose because she always has to win. I kept imagining what Justin would look like without the beard. He's very good looking and talented. I'm sure we haven't seen the last of him. And me too on liking Susan and Jonathan as judges. I'm glad shows like this keep chefs like them on the air as I feel like I'm following them through my life. They were funny together. I don't always catch every episode of this new incarnation of IC, but it's obvious to me that everyone involved is very happy it's back and missed it a lot. It really shows that this is a labor of love for them. And I'm happy too. By now it feels like tradition. I know I'm old when James Beard award winning chefs say they grew up watching IC. I forget that I first started watching the Japanese version over 20 years ago.

July 21st.

Last week Jess did well. This week she did not. None of the things she did well last week were components of this week's challenges, and I'd still defend her on the basis of those things if they were relevant. Just because I didn't find her pretentious or entitled at any point doesn't mean she didn't deserve to go this week based on performance, because she kinda did. I was referring to all the criticism of her or statements suggesting that she deserved to go based on her being pretentious, entitled, being a food novelist (and that getting old), wearing too bright lipstick, etc., not comments specifically about her performance in this episode.

I'm sure it's no surprise that I'm not unhappy to see Jess go, although it does surprise me to see all the shade on her this week as opposed to all the defense she got last week when I agreed that she was full of herself and bashed her affected pronunciation of "piquant". These cooks are not great with the ideas. Christian should have done eggplant stacks with cheese for stacked food, although at least his dish was good. What Amy was thinking by putting herself up against Manny is beyond me, and then she does a taco for a guilty pleasure? She can pretty much do anything and survive. And him with the chili, where's the tie in to the firehouse? Seriously, he couldn't think of that? And everyone has already mentioned the ridiculousness of rice for "ooey gooey". C'mon cooks, we expect better!

I think you brought up a good point about the writers boxing themselves in with Liza/Josh, but I think there is a way it can still work out for them. If Clare suddenly reappears with a baby she didn't let Josh know about, or he somehow unknowingly impregnates another woman that can take care of his need to have children. When Josh married Clare I never thought it would work out between them, but even last season I thought she may end up pregnant, thus removing Josh's urgency to have kids with Liza. Even as I say that I was never a Josh shipper. I'm not a fan of age differences that big. I tried it once and it wasn't for me. To each his own, though. And Josh is a great guy but as a character he is in my opinion a little dull. Usually the one the heroine ends up with is the guy she can't have that she has always wanted and gives her that longing desire deep in the pit of her gut. And Josh isn't that guy on this show, while Charles is.

OK, but I didn't say it was a trust fund set up for her, but that he left one to her. My best friend is the beneficiary of just this kind of fund, lucky her.

Hahaha, I secretly agree with you on that, and despite not liking the direction the show has taken Charles I always tend to soften on him after a while just because he is so freaking HOT. I'm still hopeful that once he straightens himself out he will become less constipated. Perhaps he can have an awakening of sorts. He would be even hotter!

Well, the point of it is that should he die she reaps the benefits of the way it's structured. I don't think he set it up that way only for his benefit while he was alive.

This from the Daily Mail article on Tony:

I read that while his estate was small, he also left his daughter a sizable trust fund, the amount of which is not included in the estate and not required to be public knowledge. I had read before he died that he was worth several million, so I'm sure he was worth much more than the 1 million reported in the estate. Unfortunately the news and tabloids ran in haste to print that he was relatively "broke" before he died without doing the fact checking to mention the trust fund. Setting one up was the best thing he could have done for his daughter according to some sources in the know about these things. I hate how the "news" these days twists everything around without first getting the full story, but don't get me started!

Speaking of securing fish, how hard is it to do that? Why aren't there any nets this season? At least throw a net over it after you catch it so it can't wiggle away! I thought so too, but the show hasn't exactly made that clear. I can't even imagine how he weathered that rain storm in that flimsy tent. I also didn't understand what Britt thought he was going to do with that deer after he shot it. Wouldn't it either sink or continue to float away from him? I'm actually shocked at the lack of good judgment this season already and we're only a few days in. In the past you could blame advanced hunger for some of that but what's their excuse after just over a week? Yes, until if and when he becomes emaciated. Then, just no.

I guess I just see don't see the point of a rom-com in which the entire series revolves around Liza and her relationships with men making her end up solo in the end. There's plenty of room on TV and in books and movies for heroines that end up alone, but this show in my opinion is not the place for that kind of ending. This show has set us up for the main character to end up with someone. If the show didn't go there after all that anticipation, most of the audience would be pissed off because that's what they're expecting. If the show took a different angle and made it all about a character's growth into not necessarily wanting to end up with someone, that would be different. But so far the show has been all about Liza being in love with someone, and who will she end up with? Will she or won't she end up with this guy or that guy? She would have to do a lot of changing in order for her to free herself from all that, and quite honestly, I didn't sign on to this show for that kind of ending. For me this is a light hearted romp and I think that's what the show is intended to be anyway.

This isn't about anyone else that searches for the perfect word. I do it too. This is about Jess alone. Somehow when I see people use words like that and then mispronounce them like they're trying to appear more cultured or smarter than they really are, I tend to see them as pretentious. If she had a different attitude, I'm sure I wouldn't feel that way. She just comes off to me as a know-it-all food snob in the worst possible way, so almost anything she does appears pretentious to me.

I remember when Matthew Grunwald, who won Comeback Kitchen last year was eliminated from that season's regular FNS, he was not on Star Salvation. So it may be a policy that the Comeback Kitchen winners don't get yet another chance.

I agree with you, but we were talking about our preference for how some characters end up, not real life people.

I agree, besides this is kind of a rom-com of a series so it would feel unsatisfying for her to end up alone. Real life is different. I wouldn't mind seeing her go through an extended time without any love interest, though. At this point I'm almost ready to agree with you about Josh, and I was one of the biggest Charles shippers out there. Thanks a lot, show.

It was her motivation for using the word that was pretentious, not the word itself. She thought she was going to impress everyone with it.

Thank you, I agree, Jess is full of herself and pretentious. It felt like she was just looking for a place to show off her favorite pretentiously uttered word. She has become my least favorite contestant now that Harrison has been eliminated. "The judges didn't understand how my story related to my dish". Well, perhaps that should be rephrased as "I failed to make my dish understandable to the judges", but of course that would involve a certain amount of humility that she doesn't possess. And Palak - I am completely FLOORED that no one caught her mistake about capers. They are not a berry, they are the bud of the flower of a Mediterranean bush. There is such a thing as a caper berry, but it's the berry of the bush, not the bud that she was asked to describe. I can't believe that even Giada didn't catch that one! I failed to understand why they narrowed down the bottom four involving so much emphasis on presentation ability, then chose to base the elimination solely on cooking ability. Unless what I often think about this show is true and it's all engineered in advance to produce their desired result. It's absolutely no surprise to me that Adam was eliminated. Early on this season I said he was the Matthew of this season and guess what? He was eliminated just like Matthew was, when they were good and done with him. And like Matthew, he's completely gone, too.

I hear you. I still think Peter Hermann is very attractive, but the more time goes on and the more he fails to show any depth, the less attractive I find him. I agree, both characters are not developed well past the surface stuff. I also think Josh is a much better developed character. I think Darren Starr thinks these alpha males need to be "men of mystery" in order to make them irresistible to women, but I think he's taken it way too far in Charles' case and it's backfiring. If anything, he's coming off as indecisive and weak spined.

I've known rich and powerful businessmen/suits like Charles and those with a lot more substance and personality, so it depends on the person in my experience. I was a high level executive assistant at big companies in my career so I've met quite a few of them. Unfortunately, the show has written Charles to be very stiff and uninteresting, which he really shouldn't be considering his field. At least Big seemed to have a little more of a personality, although I never much cared for him.

Oh, I don't think the two characters have much in common whatsoever as people, I just think there are several parallels in how their characters have been written with regard to being a love interest of the main character. Like being the "one that keeps getting away". Or the one that always wears a suit, or has a certain mystique that is played up for the supposed romance it brings. I don't think any of that is a coincidence in a Darren Star show. It tells me that the things that floats his boat are similar things as float mine. The Josh's of the world are cute and fun to play with for a while but the real goal is that big, powerful daddy in the corner office that has an aura of mystery, glamour, yet a boyish charm all wrapped into one. Don't tell me I'm the only one that sees this!

I've wondered about both with her for a long time. Speaking as someone that has "medical issues" that' can be considered responsible for my weight, I know how hard it is and what I'd have to do in order to lose weight and it's in a word ridiculous, not to mention unhealthy in the long run to keep up a diet that's that restricted calorie-wise. I was thin before menopause, now forget it. As soon as I restrict calories and lose a few pounds my body ups the ante and makes it even harder to get any more off or keep off what I lost. This is a familial tendency on my mother's mother's side. Now I know why my grandmother ate a healthy diet and weighed 225 lbs. I recently found out from my DNA that I'm "carb sensitive". I fully believe Janelle is too and most people that have a "weight problem". I've done low carb diets and have lost weight on them but can only keep up the severe form of the diet for so long before I start going nuts. Meanwhile my 91 year old father eats cake 3 times a day and his favorite food is grilled cheese with bacon and he's never had a weight problem. He's obviously not carb sensitive, but I'm sure my mother was. And he thinks he eats a "healthy diet", LOL. For him, I guess he does, but most people would have dropped dead long ago on what he eats. He came to stay with me for a couple of months recently and lost 10 lbs. in only a few weeks eating my healthy diet! And he didnt even need to lose 10 lbs.! So now I've had to serve him more fattening food so he doesn't lose any more weight. It's just not fair! I also found out from my DNA that I have a tendency to injure myself pulling muscles and tendons from exercise. While none of this was an issue when I was younger, it is huge now. I have to be careful just getting up and down from a step stool. I tore a ligament last year that way. So these are the ways medical issues and age can conspire to thwart a person's best efforts to lose weight. Janelle irks me because I don't feel like she's ever looked into her medical issues to this extent.

I agree and see a lot of parallels between Charles and "Big" from SATC. Charles being like Big in being the older, more traditional, more established choice that was her true love that she held the torch for even as she dated others (like Carrie did in SATC - Carrie even cheated on some of the others with Big). And Big was definitely the one that kept getting away and fate kept keeping him and Carrie apart like Liza and Charles are being kept apart. I also don't sense that Liza has many misgivings for having split with Josh, although the show could possibly make her have some in the future, I just don't see it sticking. She has had enough contact with him since the breakup, even attended his wedding and nothing so far makes it look like she's still holding much of any torch for him. If she were she would have been throwing up at the wedding and declaring her love for him before it happened.