Food Fighters - General Discussion

[cooksdelight]

Still showing up at it's regular time here in the south... I get NBC from Chattanooga.

[mlp]

I missed last week's show because it got bumped for a totally unnecessary and boring debate between local politicians.  I watched the Aaron McCargo video on line but didn't feel like watching the whole show so I don't know how the contestant did overall.  The program is scheduled in its regular time slot in my area tonight.

[Totale]

Still showing up at it's regular time here in the south... I get NBC from Chattanooga.

 

It's just New England, I guess, where we'll get to see people kicking underinflated footballs around in a pre-season game.

[cooksdelight]

At least the woman won one round so when she won the final one she doubled her money. Nothing she made sounded appetizing to me. Except maybe the pumpkin pie thingys, but I liked the one her competitor did.

[alexa]

I think the other issue with her dishes were that they were too easy for the chefs to make on the spot.  I think the home cook does better when the chef has a bit more of a disadvantage.

[cooksdelight]

I noticed in one round, she was using pre-cooked rice.

[ari333]

I quit watching this show bc of the trash talk. Goldfarb was straight up obnoxious and the sausage with the seafood would have ruined it for me.

[Totale]

I noticed in one round, she was using pre-cooked rice.

 

That's happened several times, they can't realistically cook rice in 20 minutes.  Marcel used wild rice which he fried, I suspect that was precooked also.

Edited September 4, 2015 by Totale

[mlp]

I recognized Stephanie Goldfarb from that Best Home Cooks show the minute I saw her.  I couldn't stand her then and she seems even worse now - ungroomed and obnoxious.  How does she qualify to compete as a professional chef?  She's even worse than "Lovely" - which is saying a lot.

 

I've always thought that Marcel is very cute but he looks awful with that long beard.  Someone somewhere called him a little werewolf which made me laugh.  He does indeed look like he might be with that beard.

 

The amount of time they give the contestants for each dish is ridiculous.  They absolutely have to use a lot of stuff that's already prepped or measured out.  Viewers see only some of the activity anyway so why don't they give them a reasonable length of time and then show the same number of minutes they show now.  I'm sure they can edit.

[cooksdelight]

Five rounds is hard to squeeze in unless it's 20 minutes per round. Imagine being in the audience.... makes my butt hurt just thinking about it.

[jcbrown]

 

I recognized Stephanie Goldfarb from that Best Home Cooks show the minute I saw her.  I couldn't stand her then and she seems even worse now - ungroomed and obnoxious.  How does she qualify to compete as a professional chef?  She's even worse than "Lovely" - which is saying a lot.

Thank you! It was driving me nuts trying to figure out where I had seen her. They are really scraping the bottom of the barrel with some of the "chefs" on this show, aren't they?

[mlp]

 

Five rounds is hard to squeeze in unless it's 20 minutes per round. Imagine being in the audience

 

That's a good point.  I hadn't thought of it that way.  I wonder how they handle the audience on Beat Bobby Flay.  I've read that that show takes 12-14 hours to shoot.  The people in the balcony don't seem to change during a show - or I just haven't noticed changes.

[JMarie99]

I was not impressed with this home cook at all. Except for the pumpkin dessert, everything seemed to involve ginger, garlic, rice vinegar and some kind of spicy Asian chili sauce. Not very creative. Her baked cod looked terrible. And baked fish is really not very hard to do. And cornmeal on chicken wings? Please. For the first time ever while watching a cooking competition, I actually thought I could have done a better job than the contestant. And I am far from being a gourmet cook! She did seem like a nice person, however, and I'm glad she won some money.

[Totale]

To be fair, it was Chris Oh who put cornmeal on the wings, she used cornstarch.  But I agree she was generally less than impressive.

 

With all its faults (including the stupid trashtalk), I still like this better than any of the food competitions FN has come up with, except maybe Chopped way back when it used to be good.  Part of it is no doubt that I find Adam Richman a more engaging host than anyone in the FN stable.  I wish they'd tighten up the rules so the challenger can't stick a ringer like lobster or sausage on a dish unless the home cook does, and improve the judging.  But I'll watch again if they do it next year.

[JMarie99]

That's right, Totale - thank you for correcting me! Chef Oh did the cornmeal - Home cook did milk and cornstarch. Neither sounded very appealing to me. Of course, I'm from Buffalo NY and we are very particular about our wings!

I enjoy Adam Richman also. He has practically the same routine week after week but he manages to make it sound fresh. The way he says "Food Fighters, to your kitchens!" always makes me smile. I just like his personality. His conversations with the home cooks seem very sincere. The trash talk is stupid but it seems to be done all in good fun and the pro chefs are always very nice at the end. This is my first year watching the show and I would definitely watch it again.