GiandujaPie

I finally saw the wedding episode. Except for a few shots of mask-wearing, you'd never know all of this was planned and held during a pandemic. At least they held it outside, although I have a feeling it had more to do with the fact that there was no indoor venue that could hold that many people rather than because they were trying to be a little more pandemic safe. I don't know what the restrictions were in Oklahoma though when they first started planning it and I would hope that by the time it was actually held, most of the attendees would have been vaccinated.

I don't like this show as it just seems very clique-y to me. The smack-talking that Bobby's celebrity friends engage in just always makes me cringe.

I love dungeness crab. I'd never had it until I moved to northern California more than 10 years ago. I'd only had snow crab and Alaskan King crab before (and usually at Red Lobster LOL) and it was always an expensive treat. Here, in the winter, we have crab feeds as fundraisers, and it's almost always all-you-can-eat steamed crab served cold. No garnishes other than lemon and butter. I've had dungeness crab in restaurants cooked into pasta and on sandwiches, and one of the most popular items at a SF Giants game is a crab sandwich. I always get it when I go to a game. I don't know that I would have loved the way Dawn served the crab as it seems that this kind of crab is so good all by itself it doesn't need all of that heavy seasoned sauce with all of those other things that are present in a boil. However, the judges all seemed to love it, so what do I know? Shota's seemed the most appealing to me, both his hot and cold dishes, even if his sushi only had 1 piece.

I'm disappointed that Aloha is gone, but that location they picked the first day really seemed dead. I know that at the time they filmed this, San Francisco was still mostly closed up, with not many office workers for challenges during the weekday and tourists on the weekends. I wish I had known that they were filming there when they did as I would have tried to go into the city LOL. All of their little beach bites looked really good and actually pricing it at $2.50 each made it more likely that people would buy at least 2 or more since it's easier to just pay $5 or $10 instead of anything with cents. And in San Francisco you can definitely charge a lot more as people will definitely be willing to pay. I think Waffle Love will be the next to go. Their waffles look good initally but I keep thinking that they would get soggy really quickly under the weight of all the sauces and whipped cream.

My husband and I finished the whole season this weekend. Each episode went by very quickly and we're sad that it's done but will definitely be watching the spinoff. I thought it was clever of them to set this in January 2020 to avoid having to deal with any masks or any Covid restrictions onscreen but I'm wondering if they will show post-pandemic L.A. Will they acknowledge that some Covid precautions will still be taken (people walking around with masks etc...) even in a mostly vaccinated and open city? They showed Maddie watching a news report that mentioned the early cases of Covid so clearly they are acknowledging that this exists not just ignoring it as it seems some TV shows are. I imagine with the new show involving Honey Chandler that it would have to be set several months later no matter what anyway so that she would have had time to recover from her injuries. I wonder if Maddie will continue with LAPD application or will Bosch's actions somehow impact her prospects or she will change her mind about wanting to join. Maybe she'll decide to apply for the FBI instead, like her mother.

Yum! The beancurd roll is one of my favorite dim sum dishes! Yes, wish they would have used and shown more variations of tofu.

We were wondering that too. Did he have an accomplice?

I love tofu. A lot of those dishes looked really good. My husband is a vegetarian and so we often cook with it. For anyone who thinks they don't like it, I would recommend trying to order it at a Thai restaurant and choosing it as the protein instead of chicken or pork or whatever you would normally choose. There is a Mexican restaurant down the street from me that also uses fried tofu as a protein option for tacos and burritos, etc... Both of those desserts looked really good and I would have loved to try them. Instead of cooking to not be eliminated, I wish they would have had the tournament be to cook to the win. They could have then picked the eliminated chef from the three who lost in the first round.

I knew the Penny team was going to lose as soon as they decided they were not going to have anyone responsible for FOH duties such as bussing and refilling water glasses and drinks. Maria being tasked to do that for Kokosan also gave her the opportunity to schmooze and play host to the dinner. When Penny decided they would all just monitor stuff like that and take care of it as needed, I knew there was going to be multiple times when the judges/diners would feel neglected and ignored and it would take away from the whole chef's table concept. Kokosan being able to follow a kaiseki menu pattern was also super smart and I liked how many of the dishes were a collaboration among the chefs. I would totally love to go have a meal there.

Also, they've spent a lot of time on the financial aspects of the corporate healthcare industry, and now it's a public hospital that is required to treat everyone, there is never any talk of the fact that the state they live in has refused the Medicaid expansion that was supposed to be a big part of the Affordable Care Act. Who was going to pay for that homeless chef's liver transplant, when they made a point of mentioning that she had no health insurance. I get that they film in Georgia and probably don't want to piss off any state politicians by wading into this, but I think it's dishonest and disingenuous to never mention this as a problem, especially now that it's a public hospital.

So Nic and Conrad took the day off and still ended up back at the hospital working when they had to bring in that guy they were checking on. Are there really people that committed to their jobs that they would do that? Maybe I'm cold, but when I take the day off, I take the day off. Did Nic and Conrad then get their PTO credited back to them or did they get paid? LOL

I get that her son wants to have contact with her but it seems stalker-ish of him to not respect her boundaries and continue to bug her with texts and phone calls. In her discussion with Nic, she absolutely brought up a good point about whether to tell him he was the product of a rape. She still needs time to process that her baby is now an adult and how and if to tell him the circumstances of her birth. He should give her time and not bombard her with texts. The actual baby shower seemed lame. Who was the person who gave them the little Chinese outfit? I didn't recognize him - I thought it was Jake at first but they were at the hospital. I hate it when TV show parties have random people at them when we never see the characters have relationships with people outside of work.

I agree with this. It was ridiculous to sell the hospital and turn it into condos and there was no pushback from the city or the state. I know their world is post-Covid, but you’d think the community would be upset about losing that many hospital beds, since they made a point of showing that the ERs were overflowing and that why there was a crazed person who showed up at a closed hospital looking for help and ended up stabbing Nic who then had nowhere to go after getting emergency surgery performed by her friends. What would she have done if they hadn’t been hanging around? And it’s ridiculous that they were all just hanging around, lamenting the loss of the hospital. We’ve been told that they are the best in their profession and field, so it made no sense for them to be there. They should have all already lined up new jobs since they are so supposedly top of their fields and in high demand. Other than Mina, they were all unemployed. And supposedly Cain made a ton of money so why wasn’t he getting top of the line medical care?

I wish they’d explain this too. There was a throwaway line from Junior about him watching the baby but it wasn’t elaborated on. Too bad they didn’t just explain this away by having Bow take the kid to a daycare for first responders. I think there is still a lot that could be funny about Covid. I feel like it’s the one way to deal with the stress and fatigue of this by poking fun at it. If they didn’t have it be a factor in their stories, it wouldn’t ring true. You can’t just act like it doesn’t exist. I’m still hoping they have an episode where they have someone stressing about the toilet paper shortage. I remember those days and while I remember thinking how absurd it was that I was stressing about it, I really was stressed about it! My husband thought I was crazy.

After watching Black-ish deal with Covid I really wish Modern Family was still on the air. It would have been funny watching how the three households would have dealt with this. Cam and Mitch would have been completely neurotic and sanitized everything in their house. How would Phil and Claire handle working from home and Zoom meetings? Who would be the toilet paper hoarder? I still laugh when I see old episodes of this show but it definitely wasn’t as funny in the later years. However, I think Covid storylines would have been hilarious.

I really liked this episode and felt it captured the feeling of what many families are dealing with during COVID. I think Junior wanting to spend time with his new girlfriend was realistic for a young adult his age but I’m glad Bow let him know why they need to be so careful. I think there’s still a lot of funny situations from the lockdown that can be mined for future episodes - zoom meeting mishaps, distance learning, lack of toilet paper, etc...I’m curious why they didn’t include Zoey considering all colleges especially in California sent the students home in the spring. Maybe we’ll find out in subsequent episodes. All in all, I thought this episode was pretty funny and handled the pandemic well.

I agree with this. Betty absolutely played a big part in Dan’s success and had every right to feel hurt, betrayed, humiliated at the way he treated her. If she had just kept one of her competent attorneys, let Dan go on with his merry life and moved on with hers, she likely would have come out pretty well but she just couldn’t let things go. All of that is on her. At some point, she needed to just move on. Dan and Linda may have been a-holes to her, but she needed to stop reacting to them and stop provoking them.

I totally agree with this assessment. Both Betty and Dan thrived on the fuel that their drama gave them. I was in a relationship with a narcissist and it finally ended when I stopped giving him fuel by completely ignoring him.

I don't know why Conrad has such a loyalty to Chastain, other than that his girlfriend and friends all work there. Why would he take his business back there, knowing the awful work environment, and let Logan Kim get credit for bringing in a big client? Why do they all continue to act like Chastain is the only place they can work? Working for Red Rock and Logan Kim has got to be the worst!

This episode felt more like a Criminal Minds episode. I also didn’t understand why she went to that one woman’s house that she ended up throwing something at the front door.

I don't know why any of the doctors or nurses continue to work at Chastain. We were told that Raptor was a very much in-demand surgeon and that it was a major coup that Bell was able to hire him at Chastain. So why can't Raptor just threaten to leave and get another job? Or not even threaten, just do it! Same with Nic - she's supposedly such a great nurse practitioner, certainly she could get a better job. The interns or residents, I can understand why it wouldn't be that easy to move elsewhere but there's no reason why a very good doctor/nurse wouldn't be able to go to another hospital. I don't know why anyone would want to work under Cain and Logan Kim. Why are the families of the people who Cain put at the vent farm not complaining? Or their insurance companies? It just doesn't seem realistic that Chastain could put that many patients in the vent farm without eventually some insurance company balking at the costs and noticing a pattern.