FormerMod-a1

I'm not sure how I would have handled the Ritz challenge - Ritz have a flavor on their own. I did want to try all of them, though! Now, for the elimination challenge - making rice the start of the dish seems like the harder part. I love rice, but it's hardly the star of most dishes. I probably would have gone with a fried rice or a congee. (And I probably would have lost, lol). And the fried rice wouldn't be done in a traditional style - more of an "American" fried rice like a Wisconsin or Midwest fried rice with brats, mustard, kraut, etc.

Original air date: March 16, 2023

I was happy with all the wins tonight. Elizabeth Faulkner did better than I expected and I would have actually been happy if she had won, which is surprising because I'm usually never that impressed with her on these shows. Still glad Sasto won, but it wouldn't have bothered me. It was also a toss up for me on Karen vs Christian. I don't love either of them (don't hate them either, just eh...) Anyway, both their dishes looked and sounded good. Next round should be really interesting.

Oh no, I knew he was in that. But I still watch Reba daily. It's in syndication on a couple of networks and I use it as some of my background noise. So I really, literally, did flip from Reba to this. That's a 20 year difference.

It's weird flipping from Reba to this. :P I will say Steve Howie has aged quite well.

So happy to have the show back. Looks like this will be a good season. I agree with the cut - shrimp poo is a no no.

I love Padma's dress!

You can Live chat while each episode airs here. Once the episode is done, take the discussion to the appropriate episode thread. Note: This thread will be locked in between episode.

It wasn't published yet. That's why I used the future tense. :)

Discuss Last Chance Kitchen here

Last Chance Kitchen has will have its own thread, here. All other spoilers should be discussed in this thread.

Original airdate: March 9, 2023

I'm glad Madison had a good showing, especially considering last year. That said, I love Stephanie and am very happy with her win. Also happy to see Shirley win - love her too! I didn't know what to expect with Nate Appleman and Adam Sobel but that turned out to be the best match, imo. They were both so creative, and I wanted all the food! Felt a little bad for the guy against Maneet, but he would have been cut eventually, I think. I love how happy Scott Conant is to be judging and eating all this food. You do see that with a lot of the judges, but he was so vocal about it. That really tells you the quality of the food. I remember in season 1, when no one involved knew how it was going to be, how a couple of the top tier judges they got were so pleasantly surprised. They were used to judging "normal" cooking shows where you can get some really middling food - even on Top Chef depending on the challenge and competitors.

I like that each chef gets to bring an ingredient they both have to use.

Airs Tuesdays on The Food Network

It came off to me as if they were the "cool kids" and she was the "stick in the mud". I mean how dare she be "professional" and "serious", etc. She should "loosen up", etc. It's fine if you don't gel, you don't need to hang out with your coworkers, but they should have been more polite and civil. They acted like high schoolers, imo (from what I remember learning/hearing about it).

Plus the judges don't even know who "chef A" and "chef B" are. They don't know it's Tiffani and Britt, for example. For all they know it's Jet and Viet, or Christian and Maneet. So they're not going to have a clue as to seeding, or any expected/known styles - which I love! This is what makes this competition so good, imo. AND, the cheftestants not knowing who the judges are is big, too. They can't cater the style, seasonings, or whatever and just have to cook what they think is best.

On a positive note, I am very happy Tiffany D and Mei Lin won! I thought they'd win, but you never know how these things go. Ilan Hall seemed more... mellow? something. Granted it's been many years, so maturing would be expected. That said, I'm still glad Darnell won. Darnell is one of my faves, too.

Wow, Christa was a sore loser. I wasn't expecting that. I also wasn't expecting Tiffani F to lose. I am surprised Brit beat here. Not a huge Brit fan so this really sucks for me. I don't hate her or anything, I'm just "meh" with her. I am a huge Tiffanii F fan, on top of it. So this was a downer of a ending for this episode for me. :-/

Brooke dominated "the west" - she won the whole thing season 1 and won "the west" season 2 and 3 and routinely beat out heavy hitters like Michael Volt and Antonia and Jet. I think having her sit out gives a chance to the others. And, you need others to sit out in order to make space for new competitors, many of which are big names. Add to that many like Brooke and the Volts are now in many other shows and even timing may be an issue.

I hit "play episodes" and let Netflix decide my order (i.e. I didn't go into episode list and pick the top one and play from there). This is the order I ended up with. I think it worked quite well, I don't know if another random order would be better (not that they'd necessarily be worse, though). The 5 days before kind of set the stage and then it was series of flashbacks that filled in the details of the relationships, and then the last 3 were about the heist. Morning after you see it didn't go as planned, 6 months after you see they are all splintered and things aren't going well for any of them, and then the actual heist filling in the details, many of which I had kind of guessed already but it was still a nice capper. I don't think I would like ending on Pink - I found it all so sad, even though they are the bad guys, really. Blue - 5 days before Green - 7 years before Yellow - 6 weeks before Orange - 3 weeks before Violet - 24 years before Red - morning after heist Pink - 6 months after heist White - the heist

I really wanted to taste Rocco's ribs and handheld deep fried apple pie as well as Aaron's buffalo chicken won tons.

The deer urine farm and bottling and to reek. And I'm sure the dolphin necropsy wasn't too pleasant smelling either.

Excited to see Jose Garces! Decidedly NOT excited to see Ilan Hall. Why????? Also happy to see most the other chefs, whether returning or new. Kind of sad at no Brooke but she did dominate and has appeared on a lot of other shows, and I expect that will continue.

I wish they'd take a page from other flipping shows and modify the name for the other crews - Zombie Houston, Zombie Tampa, etc. Unless each of these other teams are one and done, which I doubt. I do think they are like extended auditions, though, and some subset of the alternate teams may become a regular part of the rotation.