It’s been a while since I saw the last episode of Hell’s Kitchen, due to some technical issues (i.e. failure to read a TV program correctly) this end. As far as I remember, Marco hasn’t sacked anybody yet, and nor has anyone walked out in tears. Tonight, though, Claudia is promising that Marco will be asking somebody to leave.
Our celebrities get up to find that Marco has thoughtfully provided them with half a pair of support hose each. Before they have to make that decision we are all dreading – which leg for the varicose veins? – Niomi thinks to read the letter on the bench. Anthea’s initial thought, that they would have to strain something through the sock, is not even half right. Our celebs are to take their “net” and use it to catch an eel. As she completes the instructions (“take them to the kitchen where they’ll be dispatched. You must catch your own eel”) Danielle is retching with horror.
Niomi interviews that she didn’t know that “dispatched” meant finger-across-throat. I’m guessing she figured she was going to attach an address label and courier it to a larger waterway, where it could live out the rest of its life in peace.
To an ominous soundtrack, Marco tells us that “in this day and age, there’s too many people who don’t know where ingredients come from”. I get what he’s saying (we’ve been on this trip many times before, thanks to Hugh F-W, Jamie, Gordon… god, probably even Ainsley) but I think most people would know that eel comes from, well, eel. He mentions the neatly sliced, packaged products in the supermarket, and I’m reminded of the Great British Feast episode a couple of weeks ago where he was absolutely delighting in the discoveries of the wondrous markets-of-superness.
Anyway, back to this show, with no further expectation of narrative consistency…
The eels are in a glass tank in the courtyard and Danielle (bravely? probably because she wants to get it over with) goes first. Bruce makes the obvious observation that they are going to get wet. As Danielle starts to dip her hands into the water, she’s screaming and doing the little retchy thing at the same time. Linda tells her not to scare the eels and she eventually catches one. All the excitement is too much for Niomi, who takes off indoors. Today’s episode must be brought to us by Stating the Bleeding ObviousTM, because Ade’s first comment of the day is that “the eels are slippery”. They’re all having a lot of fun, but it looks a little less lighthearted for the eels. Particularly Grant’s, which looks as though it narrowly escapes being strangled before it even makes it to the kitchen for dispatching.
Jody approaches the task with a gung ho attitude. Ade comments on his approach as being “enthusiastic”, but Danielle sees it as bloodthirstiness and Grant merely observes: “Jody, Jody, Jody. He’s slightly different to the rest of us”. Niomi reappears to tick Jody off for catching “her” eel.
All eels are stockinged up… what could possibly be in store for them? Let’s find out, after the jump…
I’m continuing to blog Reality Food Television (Hell’s Kitchen UK and Top Chef Masters) over at Reality Ravings. Things caught up with me last week, so I was slow to get posting, but I think I’ve caught up now…
Marco still hasn’t sacked anyone over at Hell’s Kitchen and nobody has been driven to quit yet, either. Hopefull this will change shortly, as it needs a bit of spicing up.
The Masters continue to charm and the finale is shaping up to be a love-fest. The only slightly prickly contender so far – Ludo, of Ludo Bites (!) – failed to go through. Despite the lack of drama and sabotage between the contestants, Top Chef Masters is an entertaining way to pass an hour.
When I first saw a poster for District 9, I’d heard nothing about it. The “Peter Jackson presents…” line looked as though it was a sneaky attempt to fool Peter Jackson fans, and I assumed that it was merely coincidental that the name was similar to Cape Town’s District 6. A little bit of investigation revealed that the name was not unintentional; plot summaries made it sound like it would be an embarrassingly clumsy allegory.
It’s not. The film has some weaknesses, but Ienjoyed it immensely (and Sharlto Copley’s performance as Wikus Van De Merwe is amazing). I’m hoping for a District 10 to follow…
The plot was first explored in the short film Alive in Joburg, which is here via Youtube:
It was thanks to Youtube that I discovered that Neill Blomkamp had directed the Citroen C4 transformer ad:
Just to continue the links, Moviefone’s interview with Sharlto Copley led me to some of his other work, Hellweek and 2001: A Space Oddity.
Again, only a smidge of Tom Colicchio in this episode and no Gail, but we got Wylie Dufresne, a great Lost crossover (Dharma Initiative jumpsuits! Food in tins!), a bright red hat and the phrase “avant garde pastry chef”.
Full recap over at Reality Ravings…
Hell’s Kitchen UK is back on and I’m strangely unexcited.
For most Australian viewers, Hell’s Kitchen means Gordon Ramsay giving over-confident American chefs a bollocking, and spray-tanned women desperately flirting their way to screen time. Whoever survives until the end is given a job (or, at least, a flashy title and some publicity for a casino). The original Hell’s Kitchen, whilst it still featured Ramsay and some bollocking, was slightly different.
Arena is screening the Top Chef Masters at the moment and I’m blogging it over at Reality Ravings.
The premise of this version of the Top Chef format is that 24 “celebrated” chefs will battle it out in various heats with the winners of each heat vying for the Top Chef crown and the associated $100,000 donation to their choice of charity. In the first episode, the chefs face the challenge of making sweets for kids and turning out a three-course dinner with… limited facilities.
*featuring the Green Show
I recently received free passes to go to the Organic Expo. Until I was contacted about it, I had not heard of it. My obliviousness might have something to do with the fact that I haven’t been reading much traditional press recently (have given up my regular Age habit due to low levels of tolerance for the whimsical stylings of the current writers) and also by my relative apathy towards “organic”. I buy free range eggs and chickens, and pick up organic fruit and veg at the market when the value is reasonable, but I don’t actively seek out “organic” products/produce.
I managed to misread the press release and thought it was the Organic Food and Wine Expo, so was very surprised by the number of textiles and cosmetics exhibitors. And I didn’t realise that it was also featuring the Green Show, which is why so many of the aforementioned cosmetics exhibitors seemed to have nothing to do with organic at all. My mistake. I probably need to attend some sort of Reading Recovery. Of course, there was food and there was wine. We went early on Sunday, which had its upsides (it wasn’t very crowded) and its downside (too early for wine).
The reason I decided to read Infinite Jest was because I’d never considered doing so before. I’d seen it, sure – it’s hard to miss a book with a spine that thick on a bookshop shelf – but I’d never gone from picking it up to taking it to the cash register. When I stumbled across the Infinite Summer project, I realised that it was probably the only way I’d ever read the book and so I committed myself. Bought the book, signed up to the progress meter and started.
As I read, I checked in at the website and read some of the discussions but never joined in. I realised that I was reading it in a different way to how others seemed to be. I was not jotting, referring, agonising – I just read it. Read it and read it and read it. I don’t think I could have done it any other way; it seemed to require that sort of momentum.
At about 50 pages to go, I started to suspect that certain stories would not be resolved. I started to wonder whether any “plot” lines would be resolved. I started to consider whether resolution would even fit with this type of work.
And then I finished.
Early on in the project I read this post by Marcus Sakey:
Still, I labored through the rough spots, and found more than enough to tickle me and keep me going. But while I don’t want to reveal too much, I will say that when I got to the end, my initial reaction was, “Huh.”
Not in a bad way. There had been moments of such startling brilliance along the way, episodes so hilariously sad and tragically funny, that I knew even at the time that it was something special. But still, at the very end, there was a “Huh” factor.
And so I’ve finished. Huh.
I doubt I’ve finished with it for ever, though.
