Back to Reality

Well, the holidays are over and the shows are back.

The Cake Boss: Next Great Baker challenged his contestants to make a birthday cake for his 6 year old son. First they had a challenge where they had to decorate a cake w/ fondant and include a bow. I'm not sure what the point of the challenge was because I couldn't really see a prize. The southern white milquetoast guy won. Then Buddy brought the judges. They happen to be family. Buddy Jr. was brought in to tell what kind of cake he likes so the cakes had to be chocolate, vanilla and space themed. It turned out to be 2 teams. The teams took the space theme a little literal w/ planets and rockets. For some reason, I kind of thought more alien landscape but oh well. The goatee wearing doofus guy injured himself again but at least the moving parts of the cake he was responsible for worked. In the end, the team of Dana, the loud Italian girl and the goatee doofus guy won. Probably because the other team's cake fondant was falling apart. So in the end, the gay guy w/ the big glasses was sent home. Bye! I love the honesty of the judges. Dana's chocolate cake was deemed the worst cake ever. It was so bad the kid wouldn't eat it. But the cake still won. I'm not sure about that. Isn't this a baking competition? Oh well.

The Fashion Show was back. This time the designers had to work in teams of 2. The designers each pulled a ring out of a bag and whoever had matching rings, were a team. Everybody was praying they wouldn't have to work w/ that loud Philipino guy, Calvin. Poor Cindy, she got stuck w/ Calvin. The challenge was to make wedding looks for gay couples. Oh boy! So it's either 2 dresses or 2 suits. But not really. The lesbian couple wanted a suit for one and a mustard colored dress for the other. Aren't they supposed to be the brides? The other lesbian couple wanted beachy looks. Ohhh...kay. Finally, the gay couple wanted one suit and a Korean wedding gown look for a guy. Hmmm... Calvin was his old diplomatic self; not really. He and Cindy had the gay couple. Calvin managed to offend both guys. Okay, well on to the runway. Dominique won w/ her wrinkly yet cute wedding gown that was passable on a beach. Ceasar made some clown suit for his bride. I don't know why the judges didn't like it since that's what the lady wanted. Calvin and Cindy landed in the bottom due to the fact that Cindy couldn't make men's wear. It truly was a lumpy bumpy suit and really unflattering. So Calvin lives to see another runway show and Cindy was sent home. We get another show w/ Calvin driving everybody nuts. Cool!

On Top Chef Allstars, the quickfire started w/ Chef Colicchio racing around the kitchen and showing the cheftestants how to make a tasty dish in little over 8 minutes. I like that everybody got to taste it to prove it was done right and edible. Then they had to do the same. Somehow, Mike Isabella won. Maybe he's not such a dumbass after all. He not only won immunity, but also a brand new car. Then the chefs went to chinatown and were told they were to serve dim sum in a dim sum restaurant. Oh boy! I don't understand why the chefs had such a hard time shopping in a chinese store. Don't they know food stuffs by the way they look and smell? Have they never eaten in a Chinese restaurant? I couldn't believe the stuff they were planning on making: salads, long beans, rice dishes. Really? Dim Sum is like Chinese Tapas. Small varied finger foods like dumplings, shortribs, buns, and such. Sure they eat them w/ chopsticks but a one item pick up thing. Anyway, it was a disaster. Mike Isabella was the expediter since he had immunity. I expected lots of different dumplings and eggrolls and such but the chefs are so used to being pretentious, they were more into good plating instead of fast and furious food service. I was thinking, just put the food on a plate and get it out. Instead there was saucing and sprinkling: OMG. Colicchio ended up going to the kitchen and asking, "What the hell's going on here?" The chefs just looked at him like cats caught in headlights. Susur Lee was the guest judge. In the end, Dale T. was declared the winner w/ his sticky rice on a leaf dish. Really? Casey was sent home for her totally inedible chicken feet. Why do people do unfamiliar dishes in this kind of competition? She blamed it on the fact that someone else was supposed to finish her dish for her while she helped serve. That's dumb. First, she didn't need to cut the toenails off. I could see the feet had been thoroughly cleaned. That means they were blanched and the outer skin/scales were peeled off and the outer part of the toenail just pops off w/it. Then she could've flash fried the feet and braised them in a good sauce in a wok. All Antonia would've had to do was plop a couple on a plate and they're delicious. Oh well. I'm glad Casey was sent home. She always has that prom queen snootiness about her that says, "I'm cute. Everybody loves me and I can't do any wrong." Whatever. Goodbye. I'm so glad to see Fabio has pulled his finger out and is appearing in the top these days.

This is a really good season of Worst Cooks in America. The cooks were sent to a farm. I loved that they were shaking in their shoes thinking they might have to kill and clean an animal. Nope, they were taught to make omelets. OMG, these poor cooks. Why are they making them do such complicated stuff? These people either are really unfamiliar w/ kitchen and cooking stuff or disasters in the kitchen. So of course, there were a lot of overdone brown omelets. One cook hated eggs and I can totally relate. How do you judge whether something is good if you can't stand it in the first place? At least we got to see every dish being tasted. I love Robert Irvine. When something's really bad, he actually makes gagging noises and it's the funniest thing ever. Funny enough, the 2 worst cooks from last week won this challenge. What did they win? Nothing but a prideful moment. For the elimination, the cooks had to replicate a dish after being shown how to make it. Everybody took notes but the notebooks were taken away. Boy were the cooks lost. They didn't know how much, how hot, how long, how big anything had to be. It's obvious, they still don't know the rules of cooking and are being taught dishes that are way too complicated for them. I like that one cook left out the thyme and Robert Irvine could totally tell. After tasting a burnt dish, Anne said, "I've never had such a burner." Hee hee, yep, these truly are bad cooks. In the end, 2 guys were sent home. They happened to be the student and the engineer.

On Sarah Palin's Alaska, Sarah took her daughter and went logging. I love watching her try all this stuff. She's very gung ho, cheerful and optimistic. She gives a lot of positive reinforcement saying, "That was good Piper." A lot. Also, when things seem to go a little wonky, she never seems to panic and takes everything w/ good humour. Maybe that is a good sign of a leader. I just wouldn't be able to stand hearing that chipper voice coming from the oval office. I'm not sure what else there is to do in Alaska besides smoking meat and carving totems. Maybe she'll do that too. We'll see.

Well, that's it for this week. New shows are coming. The crying fatties aka, The Biggest Loser is back but I don't think I'll watch it until they get new trainers. It's just the same old show w/ different fatties. Showtime is coming out w/ 2 new shows.

See ya next time!