Well Fed Network

Posted by Patsy Kreitman on Edible TV

This week, the finalists had some interesting challenges ahead of them. First up, they each had to complete an on-camera promo for their potential shows. Lisa had what seemed to be the most difficult one due to the cables that she was on pulling her into the vertical wine cellar. Adam had to coordinate dance steps with speaking and 2 Vegas showgirls. Aaron’s promo took him through a casino, and his seemed the simplest overall. When the taped promos were shown, they all really performed well and it didn’t appear that anyone lost that challenge, even though there was some criticism of Lisa’s confidence. How confident would most people feel if they were being pulled up on cables and having to speak with authority? Not many people I know.

The cooking part of this week’s show was focused on each finalist preparing an over the top, Vegas style buffet. Each finalist was to prepare something that displayed their culinary point of view and they were given $1000 to purchase the ingredients. They were each given a previously elminated finalist as a sous chef.

Lisa had everything planned out and it seemed to be going well while she was shopping until half of her fish order fell on the floor and she did not notice it. But, as we all know, nothing comes easy in these challenges, and between the shortage of fish and the overcooked pork it was hard to determine if Lisa was going to make it past this week. Her presentation was over the top showstopping! She made up a simple song and sang it out to the audience. What a way to start the evening. Overall, her elegant presentation and “beautiful basics” were well received, in spite of the overcooked pork.

Aaron went with homemade crab cakes, which were a hit, however, with three pasta dishes the judges were under-impressed. The salad he made with the chicken looked like too many things were going on, and based on the presentation, I’m not sure too many people would be digging into it. It was too hard to figure out exactly what the intent was on that one. His presentation was completely the opposite of Lisa - EXTREMELY uncomfortable. As the judges said at the elmination discussion - you really want to like him. Unfortunately, when someone bombs this badly, it’s hard to understand why he’s still hanging in there. Perhaps the editing is done in this way to make the viewers ask these types of questions.

Adam was thrilled that he finally got the chance to really cook his specialty - smoked meats. He called it the Adam Gertler Smoketacular. He created a couple of extra smokers using large woks, which was really thinking outside the box and making the best use of what he had available. Each item on his buffet looked incredible and Adam was knowledgeable about the dishes. This was certainly a strong point for him this week. The only disappointing part of this challenge for Adam was that his performance really was not up to par - his humor was just missing from it. That’s what I had grown to enjoy about him over the last few weeks. He explained his lack of performance was due to his complete focus on the food and wanting to really prove that he can cook well.

The judges were unable to come to a decision on who to send home, so for the first time ever in this series, three finalists will be going back to New York to compete for their own show on Food Network. Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about that decision. I really would have liked to see the judges choose the best 2 to compete, but that would probably not make for great TV. At this point, I’d like to see either Lisa or Adam win it all. I just don’t see Aaron’s on-camera personality coming through without a lot of coaxing. One more week, and we’ll know for sure.

Photo courtesy of Food Network.