Masterchef – Where’s the beef?

Well. I’ve had a chance to chillax and regroup for the final installment of this week’s Masterchef reviews. I just cannot bring myself to smush these two hour episodes into one post. There’s too much going on. Plus, I may run the risk of boring you. Or confusing you. Or both. I myself hate being either, so I’d never inflict that on someone else intentionally. Unless I’m hormonal and don’t like the person. Then, well. I might. Hey! At least I can admit my faults, right?

Onward. We left as Faruq was trying not to let the refrigerator door hit his ass on the way out of the Masterchef kitchen. This rolls us right on through to the next challenge, which takes place in the California desert. As my Gordon explains, it’s time for the would-be chefs to feed “the backbone of America!” Or as you and I call them: “truckers.” The remaining ten contestants are split into teams for this burger cook-off.

Jake, having had the best dish in the halibut challenge, gets to pick his own team. I thought he did a good job in choosing Whitney and Tracy. I’m not really sure about his choices of Tony and Lee, as we haven’t seen very much of them so far. Jake seemed sure though. Of a lot of things. In fact, Jake just went on and on throughout this challenge. First of all his team, the Blue, chose to go with a very traditional burger: all beef, with raw onion, lettuce, tomato, Swiss cheese and coleslaw toppings. OK.

The Red Team (Sharone, Mike, Sheetal, Slim, and David) made a burger with sauteed onion, bacon, BBQ sauce and blue cheese. At first. Until they got cooking and realized the blue cheese was burning the burgers. General mayhem ensued for the Red Team for awhile, until they nixed the blue cheese and went with Swiss to get back on track.

I myself never would have thought to serve a trucker a blue cheese burger. I mean, use your noggin people! Why would a big ole hungry trucker like blue cheese? I’m not trying to stereotype here, but really. And with BBQ sauce and bacon? Yuck! What a horrifying combination of flavors! So, it was actually lucky for them it didn’t work out.

Meanwhile, once the Red Team gets their crap in order, they start blowin’ it out da box. The truckers luuuurve their burger. Even more so when they double the meat, cheese and bacon! I had to chuckle as one guy called it an “electric chair burger.” Meaning, if you were going to the electric chair you’d want it as your last meal. I was thinking of it as more of an “electric shock to your heart” burger, if you know what I mean. CLEAR!

The Red Team ends up getting the most votes. And man, Jake is arguing all the way. “The best burger will win” blah dee blah. He even blew off my Gordon, when he suggested the team might want to change their burger up a bit to keep them from losing. And lose they did. Some people never listen.

Now the Red Team has to face a Pressure Challenge. These are fun. They involve guessing and naming ingredients. This time, a huge table is laid out with twenty-five different kinds of bizarre fruits, veggies, nuts, spices and such. Whoever identifies the least amount would be Asta la Taco. Jake got eleven correct, and Tony guessed the least at nine. Farewell Tony, we hardly knew ye. I mean really. He got almost no camera time, so I couldn’t tell you whether I’ll miss him or not.

Next week, we’re down to nine. I hope we see more of Sheetal and Lee. I need to know what’s up with those two. I’m still liking Whitney the best. She’s got spunk. I wish I’d had that much spunk when I was twenty-two. I would have told a lot more people to bite me, and been much happier. Sigh.

Got a favorite so far? Leave a comment!

Clacked by Tara Shrodes
on Aug 26, 2010 @ 16:51 EST5EDT