Masterchef (US) - General Discussion

[mertensia]

I would have been booted because I love a good sourdough and would have spent the hour slathering slices with butter and eating it.

Not sad big-jaw Sam went.

Oh, Renee. Meatloaf works in "home cooking week".  If they have one. And really, plain green beans? 

I wonder what spices Subra used that were so strong?

[displayname]

"Micah, Shari, and Fred, you three are in the top 12, so congratulations. Amazing."

Why is it amazing?

[mertensia]

Because everything is amazing. I'm sure Micah dying of anaphylactic shock would be amazing, too. Also Renee losing her temper and stabbing someone to death. Possibly Nick.

[cameron]

11 hours ago, NowVoyager said:

Juust waiting for somebody to say they're allergic to bread....

Garbage Pasta is making meatloaf? See. No. Don't ever eat meatloaf from someone with questionable hygiene.

Dorian's truffle bread pudding got a spoon drop.

Barbie Bri cried & not from joy. Soup in a bread bowl with no soup. How dreadful. 

Shrugging Subha's mulligatawny in a bread bowl looked pretty dry to me, too. But they loved it. I only remember it from Seinfeld's Soup Nazi. (Googled recipe sounds delicious! Chicken soup with curry, coconut milk, ginger, apples, tomatoes. Yum!)

Subha's soup didn't look anything like a soup to me.  Probably could have turned it upside down.  Again along with his terrible soup, he is just getting by.

[cooksdelight]

Being a Southerner, I’d have gone with some breaded fried chicken. Slice zucchini and dip in egg wash, coat with bread crumbs, roast in the oven until crispy and serve with a side of ranch dipping sauce. Mashed potatoes with gravy. A soft slice of bread to get up the gravy drippings left on the plate.

For dessert, banana pudding. Coat small bread pieces in sugar and toast lightly to caramelize the sugar. You don’t need vanilla wafers! I’d have to start this first to give the pudding time to thicken in the ‘fridge.

I didn’t see anything too impressive except for that pork chop and her dessert.

[mertensia]

1 hour ago, cameron said:

Subha's soup didn't look anything like a soup to me.  Probably could have turned it upside down.  Again along with his terrible soup, he is just getting by.

My guess is, like Bri's, the soup had absorbed by the time they filmed it. They play with time all the time on this show. Just watch as next week people will be frosting cakes "right out of the oven" without the frosting melting.

[joanne3482]

12 minutes ago, mertensia said:

My guess is, like Bri's, the soup had absorbed by the time they filmed it. They play with time all the time on this show. Just watch as next week people will be frosting cakes "right out of the oven" without the frosting melting.

I google image searched for Mulligatawny soup and in some of the photos it almost looks like a stew rather than a soup - very thick.  Bri made french onion soup which, to my recollection, is basically broth with a little onions thrown in and cheese on top. 

I think I would have tried (and possibly failed because I think they take a long time to cook, but maybe mini-ones) a cheesecake for dessert. Toast the bread and grind it up to make the crust and maybe use some for a streusel topping. Most of those desserts were completely unimaginative. 

[zillabreeze]

48 minutes ago, joanne3482 said:

than a soup - very thick.  Bri made french onion soup which, to my recollection, is basically broth with a little onions thrown in and cheese on top.

Every breadbowl type thing I've ever had is a thick chowder.  Regular French onion soup has giant croutons specifically to soak up the broth.  So, Bri's was beyond messed up, IMHO

[Writing Wrongs]

I was confused why they praised Dorian's well cooked pork chop and never mentioned how she used her bread with it, but criticized everyone else's bread entree combo.

[cameron]

1 hour ago, Writing Wrongs said:

I was confused why they praised Dorian's well cooked pork chop and never mentioned how she used her bread with it, but criticized everyone else's bread entree combo.

She made bread stuffing.

[DoctorK]

14 hours ago, preeya said:

And a meatloaf that looked as if it came out of a can of Ken-L-Ration.

When one of the judges looked at the cross section and asked what the "white" meat was, the problem was obvious. She mixed beef and pork (the way most of us do) but didn't work them together nearly enough, the "white" meat was probably a large blob of pork,. If the meats were not mixed in well, then probably the rest of the ingredients were in randomly dispersed lumps instead of being evenly distributed. That is one way to make a bad meatloaf; however I don't think any meatloaf would have been up to expectations of the judges even with black truffle sauce (not that I would ever put that on a nice meatloaf).

[MaryHedwig]

18 hours ago, NowVoyager said:

Don't ever eat meatloaf from someone with questionable hygiene.

We stopped in a diner once while traveling. There was a sign there that said, "Our meatloaf is made fresh everyday, it is not accumulated." I did not order it.

[leocadia]

10 hours ago, mertensia said:

Because everything is amazing.

Not everything is amazing....some things are stunning.  😉

[Rammchick]

6 hours ago, joanne3482 said:

I think I would have tried (and possibly failed because I think they take a long time to cook, but maybe mini-ones) a cheesecake for dessert. Toast the bread and grind it up to make the crust and maybe use some for a streusel topping. Most of those desserts were completely unimaginative. 

The recipe I use for my cheesecake would definitely take too long for the challenge.  The cake cooks in a slow oven for an hour, then cools for several hours after that, then has to go into the refrigerator.  It's basically an overnight process to get it set up right.  Of course, other recipes don't work like this, but you're right, definitely too long overall.  You could, however, make no-bake cheesecake filling, once you've baked the crust.

[mamadrama]

15 hours ago, Samwise979 said:

I can't believe how many of the cooks did soup in a bread bowl and bread pudding... Where's the imagination??  I mean, that's probably what I would have done but I'm not one of the top 12 home cooks in America on the ground breaking season 10 of Master Chef. 

That is exactly the way that I judge their dishes-if it's something I'd make in the same scenario then it is probably not enough.

[bluepiano]

On 7/24/2019 at 6:06 PM, spaceytraci1208 said:

Was anyone else confused about the criticism of one of the cooks using "too much crab"? Was he just supposed to use a claw and waste the rest?

That brings up an interesting question. Are they supposed to be making the best dish they can, or trying to approximate a restaurant dish? Contestants are sometimes criticized because their portions are too big. Too big for who? I can't imagine anyone ever objecting to being served too big a portion, especially if the food is good.

Are they supposed to be emulating the standard in many elite restaurants today, where you are presented a tiny amount of beautifully presented food, but if you have an appetite bigger than a fashion model's, you're likely to be hungry an hour later. My wife and I always joke about the trendy restaurants in our hipster city where you could drop a hundred bucks per person for dinner and feel like you want to stop at Burger King on the way home. 

Edited July 26, 2019 by bluepiano

[Brookside]

Do you think Aaron tries to coordinate his shirts with his hands/arms?

[xcrayon2215x]

Sam deserved to go, Renee should be next. I don't understand why Gordon expects so much more from this season  being the 10th one when there were some pretty good people in the earlier seasons. 

[surreysmum]

12 hours ago, bluepiano said:

I can't imagine anyone ever objecting to being served too big a portion, especially if the food is good.

I congratulate you on your good digestion, and long may it last! As someone who can only eat very small meals without discomfort, and whose every restaurant visit is accompanied with feelings of equal discomfort, guilt (I hate wasting food) and social anxiety (those servers who persistently ask "is something wrong"?) because I can't get through what is always for me just too much food on the plate, I don't mind small portions at all.  But as someone who also remembers healthier days when fancy restaurant meals seemed ludicrously tiny, especially for the inflated price, I totally get where you're coming from. What I wish (and I doubt I'll get that wish) is that there would actually be a guilt-free portion-size option in middle- and high-end dining the exact same way there is at a fast food joint.

As for this latest episode (to keep my post somewhat on-topic), I didn't see anything amongst the bread dishes presented that would have particularly tempted my appetite, but for me one good whiff would be far more inviting than any amount of "elevated plating", so I always keep that in mind when I'm being judgy about the quality of what I'm seeing on my (fortunately smell-o-vision-less) TV.  I am developing a strange sympathy for Subha.  Based on the comments, the man is cooking well, but because he doesn't integrate well socially, there seems to be a nastily dismissive air towards him from both the judges and, to a lesser extent, his peers.  

[potatoradio]

On 7/25/2019 at 7:07 PM, NowVoyager said:

Don't ever eat meatloaf from someone with questionable hygiene.

Or someone who, for some reason, thinks a side ponytail is rockin' adorbs. Renee, Suzanne Somers called. She says, 'oh, hell to the no, bitch, I'm the only blonde legally obligated to put my hair into ponytails like a three year old. If you're not hawking a Thighmaster, you need to put your hair up proper and leave the toddler grand supreme hairstyles to the pros.' 

Seems the producers have decided that shellfish allergies are really great dramatic viewing - season ten is so amazing that it's no longer enough to, say, ask a vegetarian to kill a live crab/lobster and season TEN has far more stunning stunts than asking a blind woman to handle a live crab. Dah-ham. Cue the fireworks exploding over the ambulance next, mebbe? 

If they're looking for someone to consume all that leftover crab? Call me. Too much crab? Da fuq? 

[Brookside]

The sauces on Noah and Jamie's chicken dishes looked like pools of vomit. 

I find Renee and the Harvard kid arrogant and overconfident.  Renee's "elevated" meat loaf looked disgusting, and she was so disrespectful the way she sarcastically dismissed Joe's (negative) comments about her food with a snotty "Thank you Joe."

"Use a spoon, the tools of refinement."  Never change, Aaron.  

Edited July 27, 2019 by Brookside

[Yeah No]

On 7/26/2019 at 2:09 AM, displayname said:

Barbri*

LOL, my husband calls her that too!

[displayname]

1 hour ago, Yeah No said:

LOL, my husband calls her that too!

It also works because she's a cocktail server!

[galaxychaser]

Rene is going home next. Garbage pasta 😱😱😱. And Joe was okay with it! Yikes.

[preeya]

3 minutes ago, galaxychaser said:

Rene is going home next. Garbage pasta 😱😱😱. And Joe was okay with it! Yikes.

Garbage pasta and meatloaf that looked like dog food.

[galaxychaser]

I’m okay with Sam leaving. He was very quiet and his food wasn’t very appealing.

[ML89]

23 hours ago, Brookside said:

The sauces on Noah and Jamie's chicken dishes looked like pools of vomit. 

I thought the same thing about the steak sauces from last week. The stuff that gets marveled over as excellent plating looks like a mess to me most of the time.

[Eolivet]

I wasn't sad that Sam left -- he seemed to be an arrogant ass, and less entertaining than that other arrogant ass, Evan. He ran roughshod over a lot of people in team challenges with wrong decisions. Glad he's gone.

However, when Bri started to cry prettily after Ramsay judged her food, I couldn't help but think of how Joey on Friends described how women sometimes apologize to men:

::squeezes breasts together, leans forward:: I didn't mean it. I'm sooooooo sorry.

[galaxychaser]

Bri looks like a plastic stripper. 

[zibnchy]

I have decided this season's winner will be Micah. I have no idea if he can cook BUT he's Gordon's special project this season. He'll get preferential treatment because of Gordon's massive ego. (He already has because his tarte tatin was crap.) Also he started the season all slouchy and wearing a backward baseball cap. The last couple he's been without the Hat (and his hair looked recently "styled"). Nobody ever gets to get rid of the Hat if they started the season with the Hat. It is Masterchef Law! So they are cleaning him up for the win. That's my 2 cents.

If Septic Gramma Burger wanted to wear regular pants one day production would probably threaten to send him home. What if Renee wanted to wear her hair in a regular bun? Remember the intolerable hair bow sisters on MCJr a couple of years ago (sorry to remind you)?

While I'm here I just want to vent briefly about Bri's shoes. WTF?! Please tell me they don't actually let her teeter about in that crazy kitchen on those heels. I don't care about people's shoes at all in real life but in the context of this ridiculous show, those are very ridiculous.

Edited July 30, 2019 by zibnchy
I know how to spell heels.

[bluepiano]

On 7/27/2019 at 3:45 AM, surreysmum said:

 What I wish (and I doubt I'll get that wish) is that there would actually be a guilt-free portion-size option in middle- and high-end dining the exact same way there is at a fast food joint.  

There's the option to order just an appetizer, though in high end restaurants an appetizer often costs what a full entrée used to. 

"Small plates" restaurants, based on the Spanish tapas concept, were very trendy a few years ago, though not seeing as many now. I like the idea of being able to try a few different things, though the cost adds up. 

[preeya]

10 hours ago, zibnchy said:

I have decided this season's winner will be Micah. I have no idea if he can cook BUT he's Gordon's special project this season. He'll get preferential treatment because of Gordon's massive ego. (He already has because his tarte tatin was crap.) Also he started the season all slouchy and wearing a backward baseball cap. The last couple he's been without the Hat (and his hair looked recently "styled"). Nobody ever gets to get rid of the Hat if they started the season with the Hat. It is Masterchef Law! So they are cleaning him up for the win. That's my 2 cents.

Good thought process; and if he doesn't win, GR will bestow a valuable perk (job, culinary school, etc) on him.

[PhoneCop]

I actually think that's the likelier scenario. To me, Micah reads as the classic "has the chops but not the formal training" contestant who goes out somewhere between sixth and fourth and who gets the offer from Gordon to go to culinary school and/or work in one of his restaurants while one or more of the others stands in the background, holding their clapped hands to their teary-eyed faces as they wish him well...

...or maybe this show will subvert its own tropes this time. It's gotta happen eventually, right?

[preeya]

S10E14 Let Them Eat Cake

Summary:  The Top 12 are in for a sweet treat in this week's immunity challenge. As the home cooks enter the MasterChef kitchen, they are surprised with an array of gorgeous and delectable cakes. In under 75 minutes, the contestants will have to replicate one of the cakes on display for the judges. Discover whose baking skills will reign supreme.

[topanga]

As I sit at home, the judges’ comments are hilarious: it looks like my kids’ Play-Doh. That cake looks like a hamburger. 

But if that were me receiving those critiques, I’d be mortified.

I guess that’s why I’m in here in my living room instead of appearing on a competition reality show. 

Oh, and I really, really want some cake right now. 

ETA: If you didn’t want anyone to make a pineapple upside down cake because it’s too ‘simple,’ why’d you put it out as a choice?

Edited August 1, 2019 by topanga

[Samwise979]

^^^ to trick the contestants. 

Actually I think the reason they got on Subha's case was because he basically admitted he picked it because it was "easy" and he's not a good baker when they asked why he chose it. 

Edited August 1, 2019 by Samwise979

[Maximoose]

Well that was obviously a producer-rigged vote

[preeya]

Did the fish guy (can't remember his name) say "my chili's heel?"

Edited August 1, 2019 by preeya

[whinewithwine]

19 minutes ago, preeya said:

Did the fish guy (can't remember his name) say "my chili's heel?"

Gawd, yes.

[preeya]

Arrrron the wordsmith gave us this gem:  "redolent"  meaning: 1: exuding fragrance: aromatic 2: full of a specified fragrance: scented

Did she put perfume in her cake?

[adhoc]

BRI IS GETTING ON MY LAST NERVE.

Sorry. I just had to get that off my chest. 

Bri vs Renee - neither one is proving to be any great shakes.

But let's see, so who should we boot? The cute little blonde Barbie-warbie who talks with a baby voice and whose eyes well up with big ol' tears when her work is judged harshly? Or the fat chick who's a little defensive and grumbly? 

Tough decision for these 3 men, I know...<eyeroll>

[preeya]

Just walk away Renee, you're not one of the tops

[whinewithwine]

1 hour ago, preeya said:

Arrrron the wordsmith gave us this gem:  "redolent"

I was waiting for him to say "unctuous".

58 minutes ago, preeya said:

Just walk away Renee, you're not one of the tops

OT.  First saw The Four Tops in 1968.  One of my all time favorite groups.  Thanks for the memory.

Edited August 1, 2019 by whinewithwine

[preeya]

6 minutes ago, whinewithwine said:

I was waiting for him to say "unctuous".

OT.  First saw The Four Tops in 1968.  One of my all time favorite groups.  Thanks for the memory.

1

Double OT: Mine too.  Actually my all-time Motown favorite roup.

[Brookside]

1 hour ago, preeya said:

Arrrron the wordsmith gave us this gem:  "redolent"  meaning: 1: exuding fragrance: aromatic 2: full of a specified fragrance: scented

Did she put perfume in her cake?

I haven't even watched yet, but can't wait for another treasure from the chubmeister.

[Aerobicidal]

Pick a stunning cake. Then perfectly replicate that amazing cake. It’s not a piece of cake. It’s season ten, where cooks are cooks and cakes are nervous.

“This is literally like everything I could ever dream of right now. . . . This is a chance for me to prove that I am as good of a baker that I’m proclaiming myself to be.” Nicely stated, Fred Scott Fitzgerald.

Renee is Honey Boo Boo Child as an adult and I’m not sure whether that is stunning.

Noah says his opera cake is singing to him. I believe these are the opening lines of its stunningly septic aria:

Opewa twacks! Opewa hole!

Kill the opewa! Make it septic! Kill the opewa!

I hope Renee has a plan C and threw her original cheesecake in the trash in case she needs to take it back out and serve it to the judges if her second one doesn’t turn out to be stunning.

“This cake tastes like difficulty.” Joe, I think your sentence structure is stunningly rock, paper, fucked up. “This wow tastes like septic.” “This Harvard tastes like contrivance.” “I personally believe that U.S. Masterchefs are unable to do so because, wow, some cakes don't have amazing and, wow, I believe that our septic, like the Iraq, and should help the stunning, and season ten wow amazing stunning septic Harvard big spatula.”

The tasting segments in every episode this season are so long and boring that I’ve been reading War and Peace during them and only have two chapters to go.

Noah: aesthetically unstunning opera

Honey Boo Boo Adult: crumby crumb crying

Bri: unfrosted Barbie realness

Micah: young pot washer

Harvard: unimpressed don’t rememberwhy

The rest: aesthetically, my oh my, wow, stunning

"Visually, there's an amalgamation of layers that have bled into one another." Stop talking dirty to me, E. L. Ramsay!

I think "the most difficult frosting on the planet" only works, as a phrase, if it's referring to NSYNC's hair colors during the group's peak popularity.

This elimination was GARBAGE! Garbage I tell you! Honey Boo Boo Adult 4eva! I'm stunned.

[mlp]

I wonder if all the contestants hadn't already chosen their cakes before the filming and had been given recipes and instructions then acted out choosing for the cameras.  I find it hard to believe that they all just figured out the ingredients and so on by tasting their selections.  They barely had time to get the cakes baked and cooled let alone spend time thinking and maybe experimenting to get flavors right.  

I haven't liked Renée all along because she's so impressed with herself so I was happy to see her go.  Bri probably won't make it much farther but I don't actively dislike her.  

Shari hasn't been given much attention so far but I really like her.  She seems totally real and unpretentious.  Unlike Aaron.  Gad.

[mertensia]

I don't recall anyone "having" to make Swiss meringue by hand on the Great British Baking Show.

I think Bri is trying to look like Daenerys.

They had to have known the recipes if they expect me to believe that Micah or whoever that was made a Victorian sponge. 

[lanter]

1 hour ago, Aerobicidal said:

I think "the most difficult frosting on the planet" only works, as a phrase, if it's referring to NSYNC's hair colors during the group's peak popularity.

LOLOL!

They really should have made tonight a double elimination so we could be rid of both the dumpster diver and the kewpie doll. 

[GaT]

4 hours ago, adhoc said:

BRI IS GETTING ON MY LAST NERVE.

I am so sick of her "poor me" sad face, why wasn't it a double elimination?