The Next Food Network Star-week 2

What a great show this is turning out to be. My initial impression of Lisa was completely wrong and she may turn out to be my favorite player. Other than Adam that is but that’s because he is a babe and I have a huge crush on him.

This week started with the finalists being woken up at 3am by Robert Irvine, the thick necked chef from Dinner Impossible. He makes me nervous. I don’t know whether it is his freakish upper body or his buck teeth. All I know is that I feel like I need to take a shower after I watch him.

The finalists were divided into teams of three and were shuttled to different locations throughout Manhattan. The object was to test their food knowledge. They would get to their first location (a bakery) where they would be asked a question about a particular food item specific to their location. If they answer correctly, they pick an item for their menu. If they answer incorrectly, one member of the team must complete a type of food prep. For example, team #1 got the first question wrong so Kevin had to kneed and roll out a perfect baguette.

Second location was a cheese shop and the third location was butcher. They all missed the question at the butcher and had to cut up 8 chickens.

The second half of the challenge was to create and serve brunch for 30. Sounds easy, no? Well, they had to do it on a train and prepare it all in 45 minutes featuring the 3 ingredients they acquired in the first part of the challenge. This was the part of the show where Lisa won me over. She was preparing French toast crostini with a honey crème fraiche. She was short crème fraiche for 3 orders and whipped up a new batch using a fork to whip it in 3 minutes flat. She is now my hero. Adam’s runny eggs were disgusting but who cares because I am in love with him.

This brings us to Mipa and her diva fit at panel. You see, Mipa clearly comes from a place where everyone has told her she could do no wrong. Welcome to the real world, honey. She didn’t like what Bobby Flay had to say and left the room like a 4 year old. The fact that she was allowed to stay was inexcusable and in the end, Kevin went home. No great loss there, but I can’t help thinking Mipa should have gone that time.

It was a great episode and I count the moments until I get to see my two crushes Lisa and Adam again!