By Buzz Byrne
While preparing to watch the season premiere of HELL’S KITCHEN, I made a brown rice dish with ground turkey, then I made my 4-year-old daughter cry. I did this with a purpose; to spiritually align myself with celebrity chef and HELL’S KITCHEN host/judge, Gordon Ramsay. This is the start of the show’s third season and the formula is tight: 12 contestants (with varying degrees of experience in food service) compete to please the bad-boy chef with the potty mouth for the chance to win their own restaurant. The show revels in bleeped-out foul language, emotional breakdowns and backstabbing. It is buttery summer nonsense and utterly enjoyable.
Braising is a cooking technique used mostly for tough, cheap cuts of meat. It is slow heat applied through liquid that breaks down the fibrous tissue and renders the meat tender. This process can be sped up with the aide of a pressure cooker and, essentially, that is what this show is. It is the shortcut to success for the culinary set and those who simply don’t mind being part of the FOX reality TV freak show. If you are a serious foodie, TOP CHEF starts next week. HELL’S KITCHEN, on the other hand, is about entertainment.
The episode intro featured snippets from the upcoming season. One of the contestants confesses to wanting to “pee” her pants when Gordon yells, she’s so scared. There’s also a mysterious mistake or attack -- billed as “The most shocking HELL’S KITCHEN ever!” -- which will be revealed next week. Of course, whatever it is, it will never live up to that hype, but it will be fun to see if a severed finger winds up in a vegetable tureen or if someone snaps and takes a hand mixer to Gordon’s hair.
The only thing worse than being a contestant on this show seems to be showing up at the restaurant in which it is set, hoping to be served a meal. Rarely does this happen and never does it happen quickly. The 12 contestants are split into two teams – the men are the Blue, the women Red -- and given the task of filling the night’s dinner orders. After 12 hours of prep work, they are ready to open the restaurant, and Gordon inspects the troops. The women have abandoned their pledge not to fight amongst themselves five minutes into prep and on the men’s side, Aaron, the sumo-looking
nursing-home chef, begins to cry. For no apparent reason. He’ll go on to cry again, walk off the line after over-cooking all of the chicken and somehow survive elimination. He’s also the one who almost gets snot in the overcooked chicken. I say give him the restaurant now and we can just watch that for the rest of the season.
An hour into dinner service, the Red team is stymied by a fried quail egg. Gordon won’t serve it if it’s not prepared right. The Blue team has yet to send out any food because Vinny, the contestant on the appetizers, is a screwup. The subplot to the quail egg fiasco is that contestant Julia is a short-order cook in a waffle house, but because she hasn’t worked fine dining, none of the other women will let her do anything more than chop veggies. By hour two she is weeping and pleading to fry the freaking eggs. She finally gets the job and does it right. The men pull it together and get the team win, which means someone from the Red team has to go home. Some of the “fine dining” snobbery seeps through, and quicker than you can say “waffle house justice,” the satisfying verdict is rendered.
Early favorites to win on the men’s side are Rock and Josh. On the women’s it is Melissa, and Julia as the extreme underdog. The Sanjaya Factor will be Eddie and/or Jen.