Out of all the shows I watch that make me seem like a sissy instead of the manly hunk that I am, The Next Food Network Star might be the worst of them. Every time I watch it it makes me want to shake everyone involved in it. If you’ve never seen or heard of the show, you are definitely in the majority, but as a nationally accredited recapper, it is part of my duties to explain the show.
If you have ever watched any show on the Food Network other than Good Eats (which is science!) or Iron Chef (which is sports!) then you know the drill. Talk, cook, talk and cook, cook and talk and then take a big bite at the end and say that it’s delicious. This show is about 15 people who want nothing more than to be one of those people. Why I don’t know but who am I to judge? I’m the recapper, that’s who. And I’ll judge all I want!
Here are my initial thoughts. I’m not going to talk much about most of the contestants because honestly when you start out with 15 there is no way you can keep track of them. And since it’s Food Network they are almost exclusively white which makes it pretty much impossible. I’ll just point some highlights out.
- Middle Eastern fat lady with the giant face – please stop talking about how sexy you are. You aren’t. You have a giant face and you make me ill.
- Good looking black guy – I want you to win cuz you look like black Clark Kent, but you are a fumblebutt and you will probably lose.
- Sort of hot blonde chick in the banner picture, you need to stop crying. Nobody is going to let you win if you keep blubbering. And your accent is not Missouri. You sound like a weird alien. So be hot and don’t make your food shitty and you can make it fairly far. If you keep crying it’s not going to go well for you.
- Big bald muscle dude, stop walking around like an ape. Nobody like that.
They eliminated some guy who had a job in radio. He figured that he would have the TV part down but admitted he was a “novice” cook. Strange that he got eliminated the first week. A guy who can’t cook in a competition to win your own cooking show? Crazy. Sort of makes me feel like I should have followed my dream and tried out for “So You Think You Can Dance?”. I don’t really think that but whatever. Apparently if I really believe it I can achieve anything. So if i don’t achieve it, it is because I must not really believe it.
Howie the radio guy must not have believed he could be The Next Food Network Star. He went home. Now there are 14. I hope horse face gets kicked out!
This is the worst show I’ve watched all season. In the midst of all the preschool antics and the self-absorbing attitudes is a group that is mostly here for the theatrics. I haven’t learned a technique or suggestion that I’d want to try at home. This is a mimic of all the worst nighttime reality drama that is on tv. You need to send them all home and choose a mature group. Shame on you for airing this bumbling group of misfits.
Anthony Bourdain: “It’s an interesting window into the cynical and terrifying real criteria of how they grow their own talent on Food Network. I mean, they’re pretty straight-forward about what you’ve got to do and who you’ve got to please and what the real priorities are to get a show there. You see the shear naked ambition of these often minimally talented cooks with the maximum ambitions of being television. You really see the process though: Media training trumps cooking every time. I used to be on the Food Network, but I think I slipped under the wire. The network at that point used to be run by a cabal of people getting bored with their own programming. For whatever reason, they gave me two years of traveling wherever I wanted, doing pretty much what I’ve been doing on “No Reservations.” After two years, they wanted me riding around on a pony in a parking lot doing chili cook-offs instead of going to foreign countries. My feeling was, “Let someone else do that.”
I don’t give a crap about how crappy it is, I’m gonna watch it! I loves me a good train wreck.
Aloha FSSF!