I am a tiny bit obsessed with Food Network. (Can anyone relate??)
From Chopped, to Cupcake Wars, to Food Network Star.
The premise of this show is to find the next, well, Food Network Star.
Three mentors are selected, this year it was Giada De Laurentis (LOVE her! She actually tweeted me back last week so we are pretty much BFFs), Alton Brown (I like watching his show Good Eats), and Bobby Flay. Each of these stars selected a team of their own to mentor. Week after week the teams were wittled away, eliminating one contestant each week.
It was interesting because, as someone described towards the middle of the season, it was a little like high school. There were the jocks (team Bobby), the cheerleaders (team Giada) and the nerds (team Alton). Personally, I adored the nerds. Although Giada and I are BFFs, I was team Alton all the way.
 |
| Team Alton: the nerds (Source) |
One of my favorite nerds got voted off a couple of weeks ago because she was unable to dig deep enough to reveal what made her tick. Emily is a lovely and charming girl who lives in the 50s. She dresses it, she cooks it, and the network (and viewers) all wanted to know…why?? Now we will never know. I totally cried when she had to leave.
 |
| Source |
She’s adorable right? And a very smart chef. In the last episode all of the potential stars were chatting about the season and they revealed that she was picked on by the other teams. Seriously, did it really have to be like high school? Not cool.
The last week was EPIC! There were 6 contestants left and they were eliminating not one, but THREE of the potential stars. One was eliminated from Bobby’s team (Nikki-never really liked her…she seemed either fake or mean the entire time), one from Giada’s team (Ippy…liked him, he was a nice guy from Hawaii, but he really never had the star quality they were looking for), and then, it was down to two.
Marty-with the party and Justin-a rebel with a culinary cause. These were actually two of my favorite final contestants. The two had also developed a close bond over the couple of months and in each of their interviews seemed to be very torn on whether themselves or the other person should win.
 |
| Source |
Marty won me over after she stopped talking about her age (seriously, don’t do that.) and she revealed that her love for throwing parties actually came at a young age. She had a prank pulled on her when she was only 13. Some girls told her they were going to pick her up for a fun party and they never showed up…this led her to want to create her own parties so she would never feel left out. My heart hurt for the little 13 year old and was also proud of her for not wallowing but actually doing something about it.
 |
| Source |
She continued to win me over when I saw how emotional she got when she met Paula Deen, who Marty had been compared to because of her ability to be warm with the camera and tell stories. It was a dream for her to meet Paula. She cried, I cried.
She is also a blogger. Like me…maybe one day I will be competing to be the next star. Well, if I ever learn to talk in front of people. 😉
Justin had intrigued me ever since the Chopped episode of Food Network Stars. He is like a mad scientist. I couldn’t stop watching him look like he was epically going to fail, whipping a towel at his creation to get the extra powder sugar off, then give an amazing presentation and have the judges tell him how wonderful his food tasted. Intrigued.
 |
| Source |
Then he revealed why he was the rebel with a culinary cause. He was taken after his late father who didn’t care what others thought and cooked anyway. Justin also said that his father taught him that there is no use to being just a rebel, that’s like being a bad kid. A rebel has to have a cause. He won me over with the talk about his dad. Justin has a culinary cause and proceeded to wow me with the crazy things he came up with like fish bones and a checkered take on beef stroganauf.
 |
| All of the potential stars had notebooks to write their ideas in and his are the only notes that are readable. And HILARIOUSLY awesome. (Source) |
I was on the edge of my seat to see which of the two they would choose from team Alton. They did one of those “and the winner is” and cut to a commercial. Ugh!!
They came back and told us that Justin was selected to go on. It was emotional, there was hugging and crying and then….
……..
……..
……..
“Marty we want you too.” What the what?!
 |
| Source |
More crying. More hugging. I could. not. wait. to watch the next episode! Good thing I watched last week’s episode yesterday afternoon on Hulu, the day of the final episode.
The other two final contestants were pretty cool too. I would have loved to have a show from any of them.
Yvan is from Venezuela and had never really made an impression on me until the moment when he revealed his background. He came with his family to America when he was 12 or 13 and their family was very very poor. He told a story of digging through trashcans to find food. Talk about a terrible childhood. It was interesting though because I think his family was so close and so loving that he talked about how he didn’t even know they were poor. He thought hunting for food was a game. This is why the family style cooking was so important to him.
 |
| source |
Michele is from New England where seafood is abundant. She came out of the gate winning over everyone by calling her oysters “sexy.” I, however was not impressed because it just seemed like a shocking thing to say to get people to remember you…this didn’t really mean she was a good cook or would be a winning television personality. Watching her more, she grew on me. I thought she was hilarious when she was talking to Guy on one of the cooking challenges (they have the same hair haha!). I thought she definitely had potential to win because of her charming “what’s up guys” personality and I don’t think Food Network has a New England point of view yet.
 |
| Source |
Well, during the final episode, everyone basically rehashed the season and gossiped a bit for the first 45 minutes of the show. Not exactly what I thought would happen, but it was interesting. I was on Twitter the whole time, tweeting about the show like the crazy Food Network-aholic that I am. (If you follow me, I apologize if your feeds get taken over during certain Food Network shows every once in awhile. This certainly happened last night!!)
They finally eliminated someone, Marty, I guess to make the teams even? I couldn’t hear a lot of the episode since my crazy sisters were over. I kept saying “SHHHH” like a librarian, but with little effect. I was sad to see her go, and I really don’t think she came in fourth…but after another 10 minutes we found out that America voted for…
Justin! The rebel with a culinary cause.
 |
| Source |
I finally found his twitter page (@EatFellowHumans…weird name right?) and sorry ladies, he is in a committed relationship (it says so right on Twitter). And someone said he is 27 years old, but at times, he looks much younger. (Like me. I am 25 and I often get carded and even asked if I am old enough to serve alcohol. Rude!)
I will definitely be watching his show to see what kinds of crazy concoctions he comes up with. And to hear more of his story. It’s inspiring that he is so young and has had so much success! I mean he owns his own restaurant and just won Food Network Stars over many other older and experienced chefs for crying out loud!
—–
And this, my friends, shows you just how much of a Food Network nerd I am. Oh summer I wish you would stay forever so I could continue to fill my days with this kind of awesomeness.
Have a lovely Monday everyone!
Do you watch Food Network? What’s your favorite show?
Did you watch Star? Who did YOU want to win??
P.S. Check out my guest post over at Meals and Moves!! So honored to be able to take over her blog for a day! 🙂
