Food Network Star S13 Ep 8 Recap - Cooking Live

July 24, 2017

This episode pains me to even think about it, mainly because I wanted to see the chef we worked for back in our college days win the entire competition.


Which lets you basically know who left. Cory.

I'm thinking Amy will stay in now until the finals, with Jason. Or maybe they brought back Matthew because they actually want to see him have a show. Who knows.



The first demo last night was a massive food competition. Most of the options were easy, bread related items aren't so hard to cook in 30 minutes.

Cory and Rusty both had meat related though... Rusty with hamburger & Cory with meatballs.

Rusty came out on top of pregrilling the burgers to an extent and then pressing them together on a baking dish. He managed to get the meat cooked through in the alotted amount of time.

Cory had meatballs... which is make them massive seemed like they wanted someone to fail. In the end of that challenge his meatballs were way under cooked.

Jason made an awesome looking french toast. Matthew came out with grilled cheese that I didn't find appealing, but he presented well. And last but not least, Amy made Dutch Babies in place of pancakes... I thought the judges wouldn't have accepted that as a replacement... but they did.

The next challenge was a cooking live demo, much like you see Food Network Chefs doing pretty frequently these days on their Facebook page.

My only beef with this was that the contestants weren't given the luxury that the FN Chefs get... they had to prep and cook from scratch.

For reference, Giada did one this week (lemon ricotta cookies) and the batter was totally made, she just scooped while someone asked her questions.

Which leads to my second complaint.

They made the contestants read their own questions.

That slowed them down and distracted.

Why not set it up the way it is actually done every week and not try to throw them off like that?

Anyway, Rusty did well, Amy did well, Jason did okay, Matthew cooked too fast, and Cory had issues talking to the camera.

The bottom two were Amy & Cory... Amy since she didn't wash her hands and had the risk of cross contamination with the raw chicken and tomatoes. The judges didn't even taste her dish.

Cory was sent home.

But not because his dish was bad.

Which leads me to believe they are looking for a personality more than great dishes. Cory cooks amazing food but on camera his personality doesn't come across... in real like the Monroe crowd that attends his restaurants are obsessed with him and have been for years.

I was disappointed that he was sent home. I get it though, not about the food, just about the presentation.

Whatever.

So what was y'all's thoughts on this season so far?