Does Anyone Want to Win This Thing?

by Chef Back Burner

There was a glimmer of hope last week...a moment of spontaneously skilled cooking, mixed in with teenaged behavior yes, but still....Last week I believed that we had some good cheftestants. Like Tom, I was thinking “Now, they want to win!” Man, were we wrong.

It seems, from the blogs and the boards, that these chefs are working harder for the “Fan Favorite” than they did to actually win the competition. What happened? Was it just too hard to come up with and execute good food? And have any of you worked in a restaurant before? One would think that you all would know how to keep food warm in the kitchen and burgers from overcooking while they wait to be plated and that wine in a necessity in an Italian restaurant. Maybe what they should have learned was that without their wait staff no one would ever get to eat their supposedly well made food while it still tastes good. Maybe chef’s need to learn to appreciate them better instead of sniping at them the way Cliff was....I felt badly for his waiter.

So , they get done with their challenge and they’re standing there in front of the judges, who are obviously not happy, and they let the BIG boys ride. What? They all suddenly have morals...

Sam as a team leader last night made bad choices for his team...Watermelon gnocchi? Hello people watermelon is watermelon. It’s good, it’s refreshing stop trying to turn it into something else. And I know I mentioned it before but it bears repeating...NO WINE IN AN ITALIAN RESTAURANT! You might as well not bother making the food...Italian food flourishes with the appropriate wine accompaniment. It’s like the key that unlocks flavors in the meat and the sauces. If he had spent the time that he wasted griping at Mikey and doing everything he could have done....Hello, he just won two in a row!...focusing on the menu and the overview of the situation then he maybe could have...um...I don’t know....WON! But no, all this weirdness in his choices and nobody stood in front of the judges and pointed out the obvious...did they all feel like too close of friends...come on people we’re down to six...stop singing “Cum-by-ah” and starting singing the “Sammy Sucked Tonight” blues!

Moving on...

Cliff on the other hand forcibly takes control of the Front of House because he would like the challenge and then typically pulls the “I know more than you do” on the waiter. When I start trying to accomplish a task that I’ve never done before I have a tendency to find the “cheat sheet” whether its an instruction manual or advice from a person who has done that particular task before, I find that type of thing invaluable. But no Cliff pull what is become an “expected” where he raises his voice, became confrontational and over rules everyone around him. And you would have thought that Marcel and Elia would have learned from the speed bump formerly known as Mia. But again, no! They stood there when he was asked who should go home and he said “Not me, pick one of them.” and they said nothing.

So now I know what you are thinking...

Would the judges have respected the underling cheftestants opinions
about the BIG boys? ............who knows but it would have been interesting to see.

Would the producers really let the two that remind them the most of Harold go leaving Elia and the two squabbling 8th graders for Hawaii? ..............maybe not, but wouldn’t that be a conclusion, if not for the cooking, then for the slap fights.

Anyway....I think I’ll make my final word on the subject this. If everyone wasn’t so worried about how annoying Marcel is (and he is annoying) they might take a page from his book....not the one with the rap written on it...the one where he came to win and is still trying to win at all costs.