caitmcg

Nancy was a pupil midwife during her first season.

This happened to a couple my mother knew (in fact, theirs was possibly the first wedding I attended, when I was around five). Their son was around three when it happened. I don't think he needed a trach long term, but definitely a feeding tube due to the brain damage. He died at a fairly young age. The parents blamed each other for allowing it to happen and it led them to divorce, and eventually the husband committed suicide. It was terrible all around.

Right, I understand that's how it works from a time perspective: Soo came in and started filming LCK, which is like doing a bunch of QFs in a row; whoever comes to LCK after being eliminated may or may not be doing it without much of a break, depending on how close to their elimination is to the filming of LCK. When I mentioned their exhaustion, I wasn't just thinking physical, but also mental/psychological. It's clearly a lot to go from challenge to challenge, always thinking on their feet.

What can't you learn from a YouTube video these days? I wouldn't be too surprised if it were part of his TC prep. We all know by now that he closely studied the show before competing, so he doubtless realized that liquid nitrogen is the only reasonable way to produce ice cream within the competition, and I can imagine him thinking, "Okay, I need to learn to do that."

I'm not that surprised, in that it usually took at least a third or halfway into each season before Padma started getting emotional delivering the PYK verdicts. Like the viewers, it presumably takes some time before the host gets to know and feels invested in the contestants, or sad to let them go. When Kaleena first mentioned it during their planning session, I assumed it was meant to be a savory dish, not a dessert, and it made sense (and sounded potentially good) in that context. I've certainly never heard or thought of putting mushrooms in sweets, with the exception of candy caps.

I liked its look much more than I did his fussier plating complete with fancy-shaped tuiles during his seasons.

I didn't think there was any suspense there; just as it was obvious which pair would win, I thought it was obvious Rasika would come out on top. While the judges complimented the pair and their concept and didn't really have any criticism, it was Rasika's dish they couldn't stop talking about.

The Special Dark is Dutch processed, which generally is darker and richer tasting than natural (like regular Hershey's cocoa).

Honestly, this was true not so long ago. Twenty years ago, my primary care doctor was still charting on paper and would let me know.

But the judges didn't choose the winner this time, only the loser. The win was determined by the crowd and went to the contestant who got the highest score from the diners, who wouldn't know anything about Rasika's immunity.

But apparently he didn't. It was pretty far into the serving period when we saw Kenny say he realized he was running out of his relish and hadn't yet served the judges, so he was setting aside some of what was left. Yet, Tom specifically complained that instead of getting the cherries in the cherry relish, they got the vinegary liquid from the relish, which just made the dish wet, and said he should have known to set enough aside for the judges at the start. Reminds me of how, on GBBO, the chocolate challenge, or anything involving ice cream, is invariably on the hottest day in the tent.

We watched him do the work. He took a few whole tomatoes and roasted them fast at high heat, then puréed them in the powerful blender and seasoned them with yuzu and some umami-rich condiments to make the sauce. He sliced the eggplant fairly thinly and dropped in in the fryer, and melted the cheese in the high-heat wood burning oven before sliding it onto the dish and browning it with a torch. None of what he did was traditional for eggplant parm (no simmering tomato sauce, breading and pan-frying eggplant, or baking the assembled dish), but it was a strategy that allowed him to get it together quickly. I do not see anything sketchy going on here in the actual competition that makes me want to reach for a tinfoil hat. Soo may seem like a ringer, but perhaps he's actually just a very talented chef. He did come into LCK with one major advantage over contestants newly arriving from the main show, which is that he hasn't just gone through the exhausting marathon of the QF and elimination challenges.

Her immunity in this challenge protects her if she's at the bottom, but it doesn't prevent her from winning again. Besides, the top three were selected based on the guest crowd's ratings of the dishes, and they had no idea who had immunity (or even, presumably, that the show changed up how immunity was awarded vs. previous seasons).

I honestly think there's no question that this was planned all along, and has nothing to do with David "Hat Guy" Murphy not appearing (whatever the true reason for that is). I do not believe at all this was a last-minute pivot. They're all about new twists this season.

If World on Fire was any indication, PBS cuts stuff out for Passport. I would be shocked if anything available on Passport were different than what is broadcast on PBS proper at another time.

Any prime minister in a parliamentary system with proportional representation, really.

Aargh. I really hate that they've gone from snipping a second or two here or there to deleting substantial parts of (or entire) scenes. Thank you for your service in letting us know what we're missing, @Badger.

Didn't they do something similar several seasons back in the second half of LCK, bringing a group of past contestants in to compete and have one try to win their way into the main contest? This scenario seems pretty unlikely to me, that the producers would tell him, "you'll probably lose, so if you want to save face you might want to just bail."

Interesting...

If you mean the chefs, the eliminated chefs (main show and LCK) are kept around while the entire season up to the destination for the finale is filmed, sequestered so that no one outside knows who and in what order they were booted.

I did expect to see a three-way contest for the first LCK episode (David, Valentine, Soo), but a) I didn't miss annoying David and b) given how badly he flamed out in the sudden-death cookoff in ep. 1, I don't think he had the headspace for it. If he'd survived a few episodes he might have got the hang of QFs, but you can't slide by in LCK. I don't think that's much shy from the first opportunity to slide (back) into the main show since they started doing the two tiers a couple or three seasons ago.

Well, in addition to not liking the texture, they also said it lacked any flavor of the bar snack he was working with, "toasted corn kernels" (i.e. Corn Nuts). Gail pointedly said, "There's fresh corn and there's toasted corn kernels, and they're not the same."

Every time they show a little clip of Kristen on her TC season, I'm reminded of how long ago it was, because she looks so young, baby face and all. ETA: I did like that the clips they played from the hops QF showed more of Joe and Kristen's commentary about Michelle and Laura's dishes than they presumably had time for in the main episode.

They all had the same amount of prep time, two hours. The pasta group was first in the kitchen, then after a while the soup group joined them, then chicken.

That is way more than the little snips here and there they usually do. Especially the first part. I really hope it does not portend a trend.