Episode Report Card Mr. Sobell: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Go Fish
By Mr. Sobell | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 08.25.2010
So Guy Fieri and the AFLAC duck are making commercials together now. I'm not sure who I'd rather see cooked and served up with a nice orange sauce.
Back from the commercial break, and Sharone has vowed to try his level best to out-cook Cat Cora. I mean, just in case you were worried about his response. And I have to say, I hope he pulls it off. It will be one less person I have to pay attention to for the next couple of episodes. As for the rest of you, please watch how Cat Cora cooks this halibut dish so that you can mimic her exact movements and recipe. Because aping your betters is what being a great chef is all about, right?
There's an all-too-brief rundown of technique -- Cat shows us how to sample oil in a pan and warns us of the dangers of overcooking halibut -- but after Cat completes the dish in about 18 minutes, it's time to get to cooking. The contestants have one hour to either avoid elimination or, if you're lucky enough to be Sharone, vault into the finals. And just to further the divide between Sharone and his fellow wannabes, Gordon orders a wall be rolled in to separate everyone else from Sharone and Cat. Little known fact: the Berlin Wall was also erected as the result of a televised cooking competition. I read that on the Internet.
Sharone ponders how he's going to beat Cat Cora. He's apparently decided to use the miracle ingredient of butter, which he will turn to in lieu of olive oil to sauté the corn and red onions. Oh, and he's gonna swap out that red onion for some shallots. Earlier, Joe and the other judges wondered if Sharone would try to simply copy Cat Cora or "be stupid enough" to try and go his own way, and I guess we're getting our answer to that question.
On the opposite side of the Great Wall of Ramsay, the other 10 contestants are struggling just to stay alive. Faruq has already forgotten Cat's sage advice about getting his pan nice and hot -- it's not even fired up yet. Jake seems to have mastered the concept of mise en place. David has managed to make his pan smoke. "This isn't a competition about creativity," Graham says. You're telling me.
As Hat-Wearing Mike puts his fish in the pan under the watchful fussy eyes of Graham and Joe and Whitney hopelessly bungles her corn purée, Cat Cora is busy taunting Sharone. "I must have made this dish a thousand times," she says nonchalantly, as Sharone struggles to keep up. I must say, the trash talk amuses me, though not nearly so much as Cat's utter indifference to Sharone's shallots-for-red-onion swap. Back on the other side of the wall, David is telling Joe and Graham that his sauce probably tastes better than what Cat Cora whipped up. They let him enjoy his delusions.