S11.E04: 4th of July Cookout

[grisgris]

Not understanding the Dom love. I think he's average-looking at best and clearly is not suited to be on camera. Send him back to his Brooklyn food truck.

[Surrealist]

I'm just saying if Eddie had tackled Alex to shut him up, he would have won the entire season.

 

Alex pissed me off when he took over the time. As I mentioned earlier, I think Eddie salvaged his presentation by being friendly, charming, and telling stories about being a former pro-football player when the customers were lined up at their table.

Edited June 30, 2015 by Surrealist

[Madding crowd]

I always think the dial of doom is dumb because it really doesn't predicate what people want to eat. Most people have preferences for the kind of food they like and unless two chefs are cooking the same thing, they are going to either be hungry for a chicken sandwich, or a steak or something spicy. Most of these dishes didn't seem like picnic food and this didn't seem at all like a team challenge. Team challenges usually involved the group presenting a full meal such as a meat, a vegetable dish and a salad or dessert.

 

And as a pretty much lifelong vegetarian, it continues to disgust me that no one can seem to make anything that doesn't involve meat in some way. I get that this is what the judges want, but in the real world people eat a lot of non-meat stuff too. I figured either Rosa or Michelle would go home since Giada was commenting on their lack of 'food authority' whatever that means. Rosa obviously was left with whatever bread someone else picked out and unless she started tearing it apart, it was what it was.

 

None of these people are appealing to me. I liked Eddie at first but his food skills seem limited. Dom is Ok, not sure what the deal is with his rushing off so quickly. Giada's little red skirt hurt my eyes.

[Texasmom1970]

Gee I wonder who sponsored this episode? Could it maybe be a car company? Way to push product placement down our throats!

I will add to everyone's WTH was up with Giada's wardrobe? Was she going to tape an episode of Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" afterwards? That is all I could think of when I saw her in that red skirt. And the boob dress, all that was missing was a sign saying desperate for attention above her head. I am the same age as her and the only way you would get me in either of those is Halloween.

[backformore]

Did anyone else expect the teams to put together and present a menu they all contributed to (instead of individual takes on cookout food)? I didn't see much point in having a team, or insisting they shop together if they were going to cook individually. (well, okay, it made switching the groceries as part of a car ad easier, but still). Maybe it's just me.

 

I didn't worry too much about Dom whining about the meat - I figure they had plenty of footage of the others complaining, but Dom got the whiner edit.

yeah, when they talked about a menu for a cookout, I was thinking of a meat, a salad or veggie, and a dessert.  Maybe a summer beverage.   I was not thinking of three separate meat/protein dishes. 

[cooksdelight]

I always think the dial of doom is dumb because it really doesn't predicate what people want to eat

I think the purpose of that gadget is to judge their personality and presentation, not the food itself. The tokens are what count toward who liked which food the most. But, if they use the tokens to "pay" for the food they are getting, you'd have to already have some idea of which team's food you wanted to try. I wasn't paying attention to whether they were dropping them in the tubes before or after eating. They usually have people try all the food, then vote for which team's food they preferred. Oh wait.... that's Top Chef......

[smiley13]

The product placement of the vehicles did not bother me at all.  This show has been using product tie ins for quite a while.  The one that comes to mind is the cereal challenge.  

 

The judges did not seem to take the dial results into consideration.  They only mentioned the number of tokens each "team" got.

[Snarklepuss]

The whole team challenge thing was stupid as others have said, because it wasn't really a team challenge but a few individuals being judged individually at the same time.  So how fair is it that there is a losing team at all if they didn't work together other than to shop for the food?  And if the main criteria for judging is stuff that is non-team effort-related?  And non-food related too?  It's just confusing.  There might have been another person on a different team who was carried by the rest of the team to being safe from elimination.  And meanwhile someone who might have been better in all categories than that person went home just because their team lost.

[cooksdelight]

I think that this challenge was for the judges to see how well they handle a food mixup (it happens at live shows sometimes), how creative they were with the ingredients, taste and appearance, and how they presented to the audience. I think what killed the losing team was not having food ready fast enough, which made patrons go to the other two teams in order to be fed.

I still think Dom got a free pass, they obviously see something in him that I don't.

[JTMacc99]

Jay sprinkled some seasoning on good meat and slapped it on the grill for a few minutes.  He didn't butcher the meat, he did what that millions of people do on Saturday night.  Then he sliced up some okra pods, dumped in CANNED TOMATOES, probably some seasoning and heated it up. I think he did some strange basil "pesto" with pomegranate molasses  That's it. 

 

That's not a star to me.  That's a whole lot less conception, prep and cooking than almost everybody else.  

 

Ok, I don't like him, he creeps me out.  I can't be unbiased. 

Heh. Lenny creeped me out even before we found out he was an actual creep. I hated his make-believe cowboy crap from day one.  So I get where you are coming from with Jay.

 

I also think you might want to find some peace with him or be ready to hate watch this show for the rest of the season because what you described as "not a star" could also be objectively summed up as "made delicious food that anybody watching Food Network could try and get good results and then presented it in a way that engaged the audience as well as anybody else who took the stage that day and better than most of them."

 

Gee I wonder who sponsored this episode? Could it maybe be a car company? Way to push product placement down our throats!

Better that Volkswagen pays for some of this episode than me.  Always, every day, I will accept in-show advertising because the alternative at Food Network is to raise the monthly per subscriber fee I pay to them through my Time Warner bill.  They only have two material sources of revenue. For Scripps, they get 65% from us through our cable company fees and 35% advertising.  I have very little interest in paying more directly, so bring on the product placements.

Edited June 30, 2015 by JTMacc99

[Clanstarling]

I didn't mind the food mix-up. That was fun. But the "team" part of it didn't work for me - as they weren't really teams, just individuals at the same station. With a team, someone who is in deep weeds because she doesn't know how to pump out food for a crowd, gets helped by the team members who do (because it's their win or loss too, if for no other reason). That's what bothered me about it.

 

I thought Dom should have gone. I do like him, and when he's relaxed I think he does show glimmers of being a possible host. But when he walked off the stage the way he did (and having abandoned every other presentation challenge), it was enough already. Nerves are one thing, standing there hearing crickets is one thing, but running away is just - no. Get off the stage permanently.

[Snarklepuss]

I think Dom is on borrowed time unless he pulls a rabbit out of a hat with his presentations.  I was full-on for him too before this week, now I have my reservations.  Now he's beginning to remind me of a guy I dated in high school who turned out to be a chronic complainer and a big baby/male chauvanist, etc.  And he looks like him when he was young, too.  And he's on my Facebook and watches this show, too!  Not that I talk to him much anymore, but I'm wondering if he's a Dom fan.  He's Italian American from NYC so I'm thinking he probably loves Dom.   I'm hoping Dom seriously turns himself around so at least that chapter of my life can in some way be redeemed!

[rab01]

Rosa was my favorite contestant so I'm disappointed she was knocked out this episode. If only Dom had served bad food, they could have eliminated him this week rather than in a few weeks. I stand by my belief at the outset that some of his early stage fright was a put-on but I think what we saw this week was about what he's got right now - and that won't cut it.  That said, Alex bugged the everlasting crap out of me this time. It's not OK to eat into someone else's time and it's really not OK to not abjectly apologize to him afterwards. At the Judge's Table he kind of gave his usual smiling nod at criticism and didn't jump in to apologize on camera - he's dead to me. Also, I don't think that Bobby Flay actually doesn't know that sandwich or how to pronounce it; I think that was his way of trying to drive home to Alex that his presentation was long, boring, muddled and unrelatable to the audience.   (Also, Bobby Flay seems to be into saying that he doesn't know big words this season; remember him claiming not to know what "parsimonious" meant after GZ said it?)

 

I hated the ingredient switch because it's a trick that I detest every time they do it on Top Chef and it has even less bearing on this show.  The rest of the challenge seemed fine to me. You could save your entire team if the menu choices and team presentation were good enough to snow  the audience (and you could push out enough food to feed them all). The dials of doom and the taste of the food were the deciders for who got sent home from the remainder - a fairer structure than most challenges. The team aspect came into play when Emilia got help breaking down her chicken and it might have mattered elsewhere and we just didn't see it. (Admittedly, there were waaaaay fewer shots of people tasting each others food than last week. Could that have been because the contestants learned last week that the judges weren't all that into awarding team victories?)

[JTMacc99]

I hated the ingredient switch because it's a trick that I detest every time they do it on Top Chef and it has even less bearing on this show.  The rest of the challenge seemed fine to me.

 

I respect that.

 

I think it has a different purpose on this show than it does on Top Chef.  On that show, it can be reasonably tied to the actual competition, which is a legitimate best chef contest in the framework of a competitive reality TV show.  So there the ingredient swap covers the TV portion by adding drama and the chef competition portion by assuming that changing ingredients is a good test of how good a chef a person might be.  The problem is that often it results in a classic French chef getting a bag full of Asian ingredients giving that one particular chef a bigger hurdle than the others, and the judging rarely takes level of difficulty into account as far as I can tell.

 

On this show, it seems like the purpose is 90% drama and 10% to see if they can actually make something out of it.  And I think that totally worked. Dom and Rosa pretty much never recovered mentally from the ingredient swap.  Heck, Dom ended up making good food with what he got, and yet he still couldn't get his act together and present it properly. 

 

My opinion of the ingredient swap here is that of the pure drama creating tools at the producers' disposal, it is one of the less offensive ones.

[Percysowner]

 

Arnold bugs me no end, not sure why he got out of jail free.

 

He got out of jail free because his team took in the most tokens and they were all safe. He also had one of the highest Dial of Doom ratings, so he wasn't going home. He's blown food a couple of times, but not that many and his presentations engage people. I think he's sticking around on his own merits.

 

Dom OTOH, is in trouble. I'm not quite sure it's producer's bias because thus far his food has been good and the people who have gone home really had no chance of winning. Basically he's always been a little  better than the person who got sent home. Barring a sudden breakthrough in presentation, I don't expect him to win, but I'm don't think his sticking around is that awful either.

[rab01]

On this show, it seems like the purpose is 90% drama and 10% to see if they can actually make something out of it.  And I think that totally worked. Dom and Rosa pretty much never recovered mentally from the ingredient swap.  Heck, Dom ended up making good food with what he got, and yet he still couldn't get his act together and present it properly. 

 

My opinion of the ingredient swap here is that of the pure drama creating tools at the producers' disposal, it is one of the less offensive ones.

And, you're right about that. Sure, anything that creates drama through weird competitive constraints is better than creating drama by keeping around obviously unqualified assholes <cough>Penny<cough cough> #douchetag<cough>.  But ... the things I've always hated about ingredient swaps is (1) that I feel like I've wasted time watching the previous buying montage, and (2) the contestants almost never have time to think about what to make with the new ingredients. I might have liked it more here if they had upped the drama by switching their cars before they left Whole Paycheck.  Then we could have b-roll of the contestants bickering in their cars about who gets which protein and what to make with the junk they've been given. That would've given us more drama and better food, a win-win.

 

But again, you're right it's nowhere close to the worst gimmick they can pull.  I guess I'm disappointed that I don't see anyone other than Jay, Arnold or Eddie winning this thing (yes, I know that at least one of them will be sacrificed to the "no-growth" narrative arc they have every season) and that the only woman that might have any chance is Rue. (Emilia might be "improving" but she's still not actually interesting in any way. Seriously, her ceiling is a Melissa D'Arabian level of competency without using a dead family member for backstory.)  That leaves a whole lot less interest for me in the remainder of the season.

Edited June 30, 2015 by rab01

[GoMocs]

I am very new here, used to post elsewhere but it was cancelled in tv terms. There Giada was known as LBH, Little Big Head. Are we allowed to call her that here? If not, sorry. Thanks.

[JTMacc99]

Hell yes. And what took you so long to find us GoMocs?

[cooksdelight]

I am very new here, used to post elsewhere but it was cancelled in tv terms. There Giada was known as LBH, Little Big Head. Are we allowed to call her that here? If not, sorry. Thanks.

Welcome! I remember you from TWoP. Yes, you can call her LBH, Sharky, whatever as long as it's not a derogatory name.

[rab01]

Welcome! I remember you from TWoP. Yes, you can call her LBH, Sharky, whatever as long as it's not a derogatory name.

I love that Sharky and Little Big Head are so self-evidently true that they are not derogatory.

[GoMocs]

and we will be getting more Medusa ( is that permissable?) and Kermit as we get near the end!

[cooksdelight]

Yes, Medusa is fine. :) We're pretty relaxed here.

[leighdear]

 

I might have liked it more here if they had upped the drama by switching their cars before they left Whole Paycheck.  Then we could have b-roll of the contestants bickering in their cars about who gets which protein and what to make with the junk they've been given. That would've given us more drama and better food, a win-win.

This would have been a GREAT way to approach the challenge.  

 

I love Kermit and Medusa, so I hope they pop in soon.  

[Calamity Jane]

I always think the dial of doom is dumb because it really doesn't predicate what people want to eat. Most people have preferences for the kind of food they like and unless two chefs are cooking the same thing, they are going to either be hungry for a chicken sandwich, or a steak or something spicy. Most of these dishes didn't seem like picnic food and this didn't seem at all like a team challenge. Team challenges usually involved the group presenting a full meal such as a meat, a vegetable dish and a salad or dessert.

I thought it would have been a better challenge if each team had to prepare the same dishes and persuade people with descriptions and explanations to pick their teams's offering instead of anybody else's.  This would put the emphasis on presentation skills, which it seems to me was the point of the exercise.  By letting the teams choose what they prepared, it automatically skewed the voting towards what individuals already prefer, rather than on any skill of the competitors, either in cooking or presentation. 

Edited June 30, 2015 by Calamity Jane

[needschocolate]

I am very new here, used to post elsewhere but it was cancelled in tv terms. There Giada was known as LBH, Little Big Head. Are we allowed to call her that here? If not, sorry. Thanks.

 

And on this forum, no one will get mad at you because your post was "boards on boards." 

 

I liked TWoP and mourned its passing, but this place is so much better.  Welcome!

[cooksdelight]

Yes, and it's OK to ask "Am I the only one....?"

[xaxat]

Am I the only one who thinks it's funny when all of the contestants rave about how great it is to be on the stage for the Fourth of July when we know it was filmed in January/March?

[cooksdelight]

Imagine the audience's response to going to a July 4th picnic in weather that might not be so warm. Even in So. Cal, that time of year it's hit or miss.

[Nutjob]

Yes, and it's OK to ask "Am I the only one....?"

 

Am I the only one who's not OK with this? ;)

 

 

(Emilia might be "improving" but she's still not actually interesting in any way. Seriously, her ceiling is a Melissa D'Arabian level of competency without using a dead family member for backstory.)

I was actually wondering if Emilia was going to get the Nicole edit and wind up in 3rd. There's no way she's winning, though.

[cooksdelight]

I can't remember if she wore it this week or last, but since Rosa was eliminated, I'll post it here.

https://www.facebook.com/Rosagrazz/photos/a.338550719685494.1073741829.333957203478179/362299790643920/?type=1&theater

[NikSac]

For the presentation part, it's really unfortunate for Dom that he didn't end up on Alex's team.  Alex could have used up all but the last 10 seconds or so, and Dom could've mumbled something real quick. Time would've been up and they're done, instead of Dom awkwardly rushing off the stage early. Heck Dom might not have had to talk at all.

 

It was unfortunate to me to see Rosa go because she seems interesting and unique as a presenter, but her food never looks that great, and she did seem to be getting extremely overwhelmed by the whole thing.  I think it was time for her to go.

[Calamity Jane]

I can't remember if she wore it this week or last, but since Rosa was eliminated, I'll post it here.

https://www.facebook.com/Rosagrazz/photos/a.338550719685494.1073741829.333957203478179/362299790643920/?type=1&theater

Suzy Wong, hands down.  No contest.  Not even a little. 

[Brookside]

Talking of sponsors, what a slap in the face when Emilia basically said she couldn't find the spices she usually used.  Did she not see the hundreds of Spice Island spices?  And if she knows how to make tandoori, surely she could have come up with a basic curry blend.  And why didn't she just grill the whole drumsticks?

[tobysmom]

I thought it would have been a better challenge if each team had to prepare the same dishes and persuade people with descriptions and explanations to pick their teams's offering instead of anybody else's. 

 

oh this would have been a great idea; especially since this was a 4th of July picnic - why couldn't they all have made their best burgers/ribs/chicken/steak and potato salad/cole slaw and a dessert type thing?    I couldn't figure out what these people were thinking when they said 4th of July and you think of chicken parmigiana and the other things they were thinking of. 

[leighdear]

 

Did she not see the hundreds of Spice Island spices?  And if she knows how to make tandoori, surely she could have come up with a basic curry blend.

Too funny, as the episode of Cutthroat Kitchen immediately following had the contestants make a chicken Tikka Masala dish with a table covered with unlabeled spices.  

 

And marinating and grilling the chicken parts would have been so much easier in prep, though a few minutes longer to grill.  Insisting on the kabobs was a serious time suck. 

[Skyfall]

Gee I wonder who sponsored this episode? Could it maybe be a car company? Way to push product placement down our throats!

I will add to everyone's WTH was up with Giada's wardrobe? Was she going to tape an episode of Dateline's "To Catch a Predator" afterwards? That is all I could think of when I saw her in that red skirt. And the boob dress, all that was missing was a sign saying desperate for attention above her head. I am the same age as her and the only way you would get me in either of those is Halloween.

At this point I think some of the successful but not fully used former contestants should be the judges. They went through the process and knows what it takes. Not to mention I'm worried LBH is going to show up drunk one day and cut her finger off...

[xaxat]

At this point I think some of the successful but not fully used former contestants should be the judges. They went through the process and knows what it takes. Not to mention I'm worried LBH is going to show up drunk one day and cut her finger off...

 

Are you watching Star Salvation? I think Jeff Mauro is doing a good job as a judge there.

[LiveenLetLive]

And on this forum, no one will get mad at you because your post was "boards on boards." 

 

 

I hope this is true, while I don't support incivility on forums, I also disdain what I felt was censorship there.

 

"At this point I think some of the successful but not fully used former contestants should be the judges"

 

Good idea as long as they don't use the odious Melissa d'Arabian, the less I see of her know-it-all mug the better.

[gryphon]

Finally got around to watching this episode--Alex is bugging the crap out of me, hair, sandwiches, voice--everything. 

 

I kind of want Arnold and Eddie to do a show together.  They seem to work well together....Suzy could make some On Location appearances...

[Lura]

Giada.  Oh, Giada.  What are we going to do with her?  Last year, she wore her hemlines waaaaay up to "there," and this year she's lowered them, only to open up her top!  She would probably tell us that some people only watch her shows to peek at her, but I think otherwise.  If she isn't showing something, she isn't happy.  She has to give Bobby something to salivate over.  I picture her at the age of 80, still at the FN, still wearing peek holes, for what it's worth at that age, and she'll still be correcting the pronunciation of "prosciutto" because, as she will tell you, she lived in Italy for seven years.  And, at the age of 80, she'll still grin like the Cheshire cat.  God help us!

 

This last episode was a failure in my book.  Shopping for ingredients, then switching bags, was ridiculous, IMHO.  It proved nothing.  If the contestants hadn't been on camera, I think they would have murdered someone.  Rather than real challenges that test a contestant's cooking and camera abilities, I believe that the FN is going for silly things that might up the ratings.  This episode was a direct steal from "Chopped."  Another problem, as I see it, is that it's already pretty obvious who's going home and who's going to be left standing at the end.  That makes for a boring show.  It's too bad we can't fast forward this show down to the last couple of episodes and save ourselves from watching the disappointment on so many faces.  It amazes me that Emilia and her friend from South Africa/Brooklyn are still there.  No wonder Bobby looks half asleep most of the time -- when he isn't gazing down the peep hole.

Edited July 2, 2015 by Lura

[Clanstarling]

Giada.  Oh, Giada.  What are we going to do with her?  Last year, she wore her hemlines waaaaay up to "there," and this year she's lowered them, only to open up her top! 

On her old show, she wore low cut blouses all the time. Since she's short, her bustline was close to the cutting board and center screen.

[Bella]

And would female cleavage appeal to the predominant demographic of her audience?

 

I think she's just showing it because she can. I support a woman's right to dress herself! OTOH, when a woman is on TV, wardrobe choices might warrant some thought. IMO, Giada usually dresses like she's going to a party. Maybe that's the best choice, maybe it isn't. Regardless, I don't count on FN to provide well-considered advice on these issues.

[BW Manilowe]

Giada. Oh, Giada. What are we going to do with her? Last year, she wore her hemlines waaaaay up to "there," and this year she's lowered them, only to open up her top! She would probably tell us that some people only watch her shows to peek at her, but I think otherwise. If she isn't showing something, she isn't happy. She has to give Bobby something to salivate over. I picture her at the age of 80, still at the FN, still wearing peek holes, for what it's worth at that age, and she'll still be correcting the pronunciation of "prosciutto" because, as she will tell you, she lived in Italy for seven years. And, at the age of 80, she'll still grin like the Cheshire cat. God help us!

This last episode was a failure in my book. Shopping for ingredients, then switching bags, was ridiculous, IMHO. It proved nothing. If the contestants hadn't been on camera, I think they would have murdered someone. Rather than real challenges that test a contestant's cooking and camera abilities, I believe that the FN is going for silly things that might up the ratings. This episode was a direct steal from "Chopped." Another problem, as I see it, is that it's already pretty obvious who's going home and who's going to be left standing at the end. That makes for a boring show. It's too bad we can't fast forward this show down to the last couple of episodes and save ourselves from watching the disappointment on so many faces. It amazes me that Emilia and her friend from South Africa/Brooklyn are still there. No wonder Bobby looks half asleep most of the time -- when he isn't gazing down the peep hole.

The grocery swap is also used on Guy's Grocery Games.

[Snarklepuss]

He got out of jail free because his team took in the most tokens and they were all safe. He also had one of the highest Dial of Doom ratings, so he wasn't going home. He's blown food a couple of times, but not that many and his presentations engage people. I think he's sticking around on his own merits.

 

Arnold's presentation was good but undercooked shrimp would have been a major issue for sure if his team had not been safe from elimination.  What I hated about this episode is that the crowd was told to eat the food of the team whose presentation they overall liked the best.  So really in the end the entire criteria between safe and eliminated was based on presentation alone.  It seemed like the judges had very little bad to say about Dom's team's food, it was the presentation alone that got them there.  So why bother having them cook anything in the first place if that isn't even going to matter?

[iggysaurus]

In addition to calling into question their own "food authority" by repeatedly claiming that they couldn't understand anything he was saying, aren't they always on about how they want to learn something about cuisines they don't know well? Isn't that what they criticized Rue for? Alex could perhaps have chosen a different approach, but he was attempting to educate the audience about Japanese food.

 

Came here to say something very similar. They admonished Rue for not talking about South African food, a foreign cuisine that none of them really knew anything about, and then they chastised Alex for talking about foreign food too much.  Yeah, I know Alex should have explained that his sandwich was fried chicken, but they specifically called him out for using "foreign words" and claimed they couldn't even begin to pronounce the name of his sandwich.  WTF.  I'm not even familiar with a katsu sandwich but seeing it written, I can easily pronounce it.  I bet if Rue had talked about South African cuisine, she might have used an actual African word which would probably be even harder to pronounce than katsu. But somehow the judges would be fine with that, because it's her "POV" and they want her to be constantly pushing it.  

 

On another note, Giada looked absolutely ridiculous in that first outfit.  I did a double take because it was so weird looking.  Her head looked huge in relation to her body.  I think she deliberately forces herself to be extremely thin and it looks unnatural.  She just seems fake from head to toe, including and especially her gigantic white teeth.  I used to think she was really pretty when I first saw her about 10 years ago, but to me she just looks freaky now. 

[peacheslatour]

 

Mercedes Ruehl

That's IT!! Thank you, bluepiano!  That has been driving me nuts.

[Terrafamilia]

I find myself actually missing Matthew.

[proserpina65]

Alex should've just said something like "America is a melting pot, so here's my Japanese twist on the classic 4th of July dinner of fried chicken and cole slaw".  All that word salad he was throwing out there was ridiculous.

 

Dom is an ass.