Sunday, July 24, 2011

Food Network Star: Ina Garten & Rachael Ray

Welcome to New York
Rachael Ray, Ina Garten
Corn IS NOT dessert!

On tonight's episode of Food Network Star, the remaining finalists headed to New York and thank goodness without Penny. After being introduced to the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten, the contestants are given the camera challenge where they are asked to "put you into a cupcake."

Vic makes an Italian ice cream ball that has pancetta in it (I love bacon but pancetta IMO would be too fatty for a cupcake). Susie makes a corn cupcake and says that corn is a Mexican staple. I am Mexican and most of the corn we had growing up came from a can, was slathered with mayo and chile powder or had tons of fat mixed in and was stuffed with pork. I have a real issue with corn as a dessert now (this is after eating a corn dessert) so I am worried  - but know she is going for savory and not sweet when she tops it with duck. Jeff stuffs his with 5 Italian meats and tops it with a cantaloupe frosting. So far, I'm a little disgusted.

Whitney brings it back to sweet with a coconut cupcake and Mary Beth makes a delicious sounding roasted strawberry cupcake with a balsamic frosting. Jyll makes a pretty chocolate and orange cupcake.

Challenge time: Susie uses the word "elegancy" and they like her corn cupcake. Mary Beth wows with her cupcake and her personal story about picking strawberries. Vic, whose arms still can't touch the sides of his body, disappoints. Whitney still comes across as a beautiful robot but cooked a delicious cupcake. Jyll is still called out for being fake as shit. Finally, Jeff's meat cupcake/sandwich, gets panned by all the judges. Mary Beth comes out on top! Sweet beats meat.

Read more after the JUMP!

The big challenge this episode is updating a classic dinner, creating an intro and a demo to be shown on The Rachael Ray's show.

Everyone's dish sounds good except Vic's. He decides to wrap lasagna inside a tortilla and deep fry it. The La Changa sounded La Grosso even though I love lasagna, tortillas and deep fried food.

On camera Whitney kills it. Mary Beth ran out of things to talk about in her 3 minutes. Vic just annoyed me, presented his Lachanga and forgot to take questions from the audience. Susie "spice it up" Jimenez also forgot to answer questions and was really boring. Jyll does ok but got thrown by her audience member's question. Jeff totally made me smile and Rachael Ray loved him.

In the end Jeff and his lucky red sweatband win and Jyll ends up going home. She was just too artificial for the judges and her name is spelled J-Y-L-L.  Next week a bunch of comedians show up including Aubrey Plaza! Can't wait.

5 comments:

  1. I <3 Jeff, the chubby Jimmy Fallon!

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  2. Me too. I almost wrote about your nickname for him. Now that you have posted it, I will.

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  3. I liked the elegancy of your post.

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  4. I'm pretty sure I called it that corn was not a dessert two months ago. You argued with the idea, trying to make it ok...but it's not.

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  5. :) my tastebuds reconsidered!

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