Sunday night's episode of The Next Food Network Star was action packed and funny! The episode started with a challenge that involved creating a dish inspired by a film genre. Each contestant was given a genre and had 45 minutes to come up with a fabulous dish. Some of them were funny, cute and creative. Others lacked creativity. They then had to present the dish to the camera and the judges. It was clear from the start that Aarti had a great dish and her presentation to the camera was SPOT on. I knew she'd win and I was glad. Poor Brad was all smiles until he looked at the camera and then he went into his stiff routine. I hope he can work through this because he sure can cook.
The rest of the episode was centered on being thrust into the Hollywood spot light. They had the contestants go down a fake red carpet with paparazzi flashing cameras and a TV host asking questions. I thought this was a lame thing to have the contestants do - it was forced and false and the poor contestants who were already struggling with their identity were shown to further flail about helplessly. I'm glad poor Doreen was gone already, or she might have sunk into the carpet. Dzintra danced up and down the carpet to Guy Fieri's disapproving gaze, Paul tried to come out of his "shell" and was just downright scary and DAS just repeated himself...repeatedly. This culminated in the contestants being paired up in teams with random ingredients (some nicer than others...bananas and cabbage??) and asked to each make an individual dish and one combined dish to serve to a large group at a Hollywood soirée. Herb and Brianna won as Team Sexy, which was an odd title to me, seeing as Brianna scares more people than she attracts (or so it seems, thanks to the editing), but their food seemed to be a big hit and Herb's personality won the day! I thought Bob Tushman was going to run up, pick Herb and Brianna up and put them in his pocket; he was so effusive in his praise of them.
Poor Aria got paired with Dzintra, who was struggling to have a thought that doesn't have hairballs, or dancing, or "I want to have your baby" thrown awkwardly in somewhere. They couldn't collaborate effectively and when it came to presenting, Dzintra actually shushed Aria in front of the judges, prompting embarrassment for everyone but her! She was eventually eliminated - not just because of the shushing, but because she couldn't seem to produce a dish that anyone wanted to eat and because people at the party actually said she'd be a frightening TV personality. Yikes!
Small note on crazy Selena who was stepped on by an apathetic Brianna and paired with Paul who talked down to her because she is a home cook and not professionally trained. (Um...Paul and Dzintra are both professionally trained and seem to have the worst food...not saying a whole lot here.) I felt bad for Serena but she's so frenetic, I have a hard time seeing her succeed on this network. She's too erratic and talks like someone is going to cut her off any second. She'll go further in the show, but won't make it near the top for the above mentioned reasons.
I think Paul is next - his number has been up for a while. Frankly, I thought he should've gone before Doreen, but Bob and Susie couldn't come to grips with someone who couldn't clearly identify her POV. (By the way, don't you think you'd have your POV nailed before you come on this show?)
Well, my favorites are still my favorites: Aria, Aarti, Brad and Herb.
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