By Kim
Quickfire Challenge: Guest judge is Cat Cora, and they divide into three teams of two: Grayson and Chris, Ed and Paul, and Lindsay and Sarah. They have to peel and devein shrimp, shuck corn, and make fettuccine, and then make a dish with those ingredients. Lindsay and Sarah finish early and the other two teams rush to finish in time. Paul and Ed don't manage to get any shrimp on the plate, which Paul admits is his fault. And the winners are Grayson and Chris, who looked like they wouldn't finish at certain points, so it's pretty amazing. The judges just liked their flavors better.
Elimination Challenge: Each pair becomes opponents. They each have to cook the same dish to serve to two hundred people at a block party. Once they have chosen dishes, Padma tells them that they have to make a healthier version.
Paul and Ed wanted to make Korean BBQ, so Paul ends up making turkey kalbi, and eggplant with white peach kimchi and Ed makes open face kalbi (made with beef short ribs), kimchi chipotle puree, and pickled cucumber and daikon. The judges definitely like Paul's flavors better, and they think that he went further trying to make it healthier.
Grayson and Chris wanted to make a chicken salad sandwich (why?), so Grayson ends up making chicken salad sandwich on whole wheat with arugula, pickled red onion, feta watermelon salad with pumpkin seeds. Ugh, the trendiest plate of the season, with the pickling and the feta and the watermelon. Chris makes chicken salad sandwich with tofu "mayo," red lettuce, and watermelon fruit salad with pineapple ice. The judges think Grayson's sandwich is just okay, but they she built it to order, which was good because the bread didn't dry out. They like the flavors in Chris's sandwich better but think his watermelon dish is boring.
Lindsay and Sarah wanted to make meatballs, but each chose different ground meats to make them healthier. Sarah made a Calabrese-style turkey meatball and a vegetable salad. Lindsay made a Mediterranean meatball with veal and lamb, lemon yogurt, black-eyed peas, and quinoa Greek salad. The judges like that Sarah's meatballs aren't dry, and disagree on her salad. Multiple diners say that the meatballs were bland. The judges love Lindsay's meatballs, because they were both tasty and original.
Lindsay, Paul, and Grayson win their respective battles, as voted on by the diners. Tom and Grayson get into it a little bit over whether or not chicken salad sandwiches can be exciting. But the ultimate winner is Paul, of course. When there's money in the prize ($15K in this case), Paul's going to take it.
So that makes Ed, Sarah, and Chris the bottom three. Ed didn't really make much of an effort to make his food healthier. Sarah's sauce wasn't great, and her salad was served differently to different people. Chris's sandwiches were dried out and his watermelon had chunks of ice in it. So ultimately, Chris is eliminated and everyone is sad. Let's hope he shows up on the reunion without the ponytail on top of his head because he saw how dumb it looked on the air.
After Beverly's elimination, the cheftestants are sitting around in the Stew Room waiting to be excused, I guess. Does a bell ring? Anyway, Grayson finds something nice to say about Beverly because she's the only woman on the show who's not terrible. Ed makes a joke about Lindsay blowing up at Beverly about her halibut and Lindsay makes a speech about how she is totally diplomatic most of the time except when Bev screwed up her food. I guess we have to take her word for it. She's been kind of awful behind Bev's back, if not always to her face.
Then Charlize Theron walks in and thanks the cheftestants for the amazing meal and they're all just grinning. And it was nice of her to come back in there. She didn't have to do that. The cheftestants are all fired up.
The morning, the guys drink coffee and talk about how they don't want to do another group challenge. I wish there were no more group challenges. They only have six people! They don't need them! Grayson thinks she needs to step up because she was in the bottom last week. Has anyone on any challenge reality show ever said, "I was in the bottom last week, but no big deal. I'm sure I'll do fine this week. I don't plan to put forth any extra effort."?
The cheftestants enter the kitchen and find Emeril, Padma and Cat Cora, their guest judge this week. Padma divides them into three teams of two based on where they are standing: Grayson and Chris, Paul and Ed, Lindsay and Sarah. She explains that their Elimination Challenge will be about speed and precision. But first, Julie Chen-style, she wants to know how they feel about their teams. As if anyone is going to speak up about hating them, especially before knowing what the challenge is about. Paul interviews that he's nervous about being teamed with Ed, because every time they team up, bad shit happens.
So the challenge is to prepare a dish with the ingredients in front of them. They have to peel, clean and devein two pounds of shrimp, shuck a barrel of corn, and make fettuccine. After each step, the judges have to approve their prep before they can use those ingredients to start cooking. Padma must have done a terrible job explaining all this because the whole set of instructions that we hear is done in voice-over. There's no immunity tonight, but the winning team gets ten grand. Well, I expect Paul to win, then. He wins all the money.
Annnnnd, go! Sarah immediately starts making pasta, and so does Ed, because the pasta needs to dry. Grayson starts making pasta and then lets it dry while she works on the shrimp. Emeril makes a comment about how dirty the shrimp are, and Grayson comments that she heard the male shrimp are dirtier. Lindsay bitches that Grayson talks a lot and it slows her down. Backing up her comment, however, is the fact that Lindsay has finished her shrimp and the judges say it's fine.
Grayson keeps working on her shrimp while Chris shucks and dekernels (is that a word?) his corn. Grayson keeps telling Chris, "Go go go! Go baby go!" That is how I convince my toddlers to walk faster in parking lots; I would not speak to a grown man that way. Chris is annoyed. Paul says that he's done with his corn, but the judges say, "Not so fast, Money Bags." There are still a lot of kernels on the cobs. Meanwhile, Chris finishes and the judges approve. So shut it, Grayson. I like you, but keep your cakehole shut.
Sarah has finished her pasta and the judges say it's good, so all she and Lindsay have left is the corn. Grayson is trying to roll her pasta through the machine but not having much luck; I don't know enough about making fresh pasta to know what the problem is, although Tom tweeted this week that she didn't have the rollers set correctly. Ed finishes his pasta and Paul has fixed the corn issues, and both are fine, so they only have shrimp left.
Meanwhile, Lindsay and Sarah have finished their final component, the corn, and can start cooking with almost seventeen minutes left. Chris finishes the shrimp and gets it checked, but they still have to finish their corn. Seven more minutes pass before Ed and Paul finish, so they now have ten minutes to cook. And Grayson finally works out her pasta issues, so she and Chris have about eight minutes to cook. Good thing fresh pasta cooks quickly.
Sarah and Lindsay are plating while everyone else is done. Ed yells over to Paul something about cilantro shrimp and Paul doesn't hear him. Ed repeats himself but it's not clear if Paul heard. Lindsay and Sarah are all done and plated and just waiting. The other two teams are furiously rushing to get their dishes plated and seasoned. Chris and Grayson actually look like they work well together, as they share the same space and have to season over and around one another. Luckily, everyone finishes as time runs out. And then Paul realizes that they forgot to add the shrimp to the plate. Paul says that it wasn't a question of time; he just forgot to do it. He blames the curse that he and Ed seem to operate under.
Grayson and Chris serve first, and their dish is fettuccine, toasted corn, poached shrimp, chili, bacon and rosemary. That sounds really good although I don't understand if they have any sort of sauce on the pasta. Seems like it would be a little dry?
Lindsay and Sarah made fettuccine with corn milk, shrimp, tarragon and parsley. I was wondering if you could use corn milk as the sauce. Seems like it might be a bit sweet though. I would have tossed a diced tomato or something in there to cut the sweetness.
Ed and Paul forgot the shrimp. Padma can't believe it, and Paul is sweating buckets as he admits that he forgot to sauté it. Padma tells them that they can't win, but Ed is okay with it. We don't even get to hear what their dish was, although Padma says that the flavors were really nice.
Emeril says that overall it was fun to watch the competition, although he's glad he didn't have to participate. Cat thinks Sarah and Lindsay used the corn milk well, but the tarragon was overwhelming. She did like their pasta though. Emeril says that Grayson and Chris came down to the wire, but they pulled it off. Cat wishes they hadn't deep-fried the bacon, though. So who's the winning team? Cat announces that Grayson and Chris have won. Paul is really happy for them. I don't know if he loves them or hates Lindsay and Sarah. Chris is psyched to be able to take that money home to his family. Sarah is all bitter grapes, insisting that her pasta was better and Cat Cora just doesn't like tarragon. Yeah, it couldn't possibly be that the other dish was better, right? Shut up, Sarah. I think we've reached the point in the season where I want everyone to shut up. Except Paul. He's okay.
Padma announces that, for the Elimination Challenge, the former partners will be cooking against one another. Padma gives a commercial for Healthy Choice and then says that they'll be serving two hundred people at a fundraiser for a food bank. Each pair will make the same dish and the guests will determine the losing dish from each pair. Those three people will be up for elimination.
Padma gives them time to confer and decide which dish and side dish they will be making. Doesn't it seem like they've done a lot of catering/outdoor challenges this season? And the one challenge that produced good food was more of a regular dining experience? Take note, producers.
Grayson is pissed that they only have two hours and have to serve two hundred people. She is cursing up a storm. Sarah and Lindsay discuss how they don't want to do burgers or hot dogs. Paul suggests to Ed that they do Korean BBQ. Ed interviews that he wants to compete against the best, and that's Paul. Can we just crown Paul the winner and be done with this season already? Seriously. Lindsay and Sarah decide on meatballs. Chris wants to do something refreshing, and Grayson's thinking chicken. She suggests chicken salad. That sounds terrible. Why would you want to serve something mayonnaise-based at an outdoor party in the Texas heat? Why not just serve food poisoning salad? Chris doesn't like it, but he can't come up with anything else. How about, I don't know, ANYTHING ELSE. That is a terrible idea. Fried chicken. A giant turkey drumstick. Anything!
The teams have to announce their choices to Padma. Grayson seems embarrassed to say chicken salad sandwich with watermelon salad. Ed tells her that they're making Asian beef BBQ with pickled vegetables. Lindsay says they're doing meatballs with a vegetable salad. What boring side dishes. Aren't these people professional chefs? That sounds like the food I'd eat at a church potluck. Will someone be bringing the baked ziti and macaroni and cheese? Angel food cake? No? Jell-O?
Padma thinks their dishes sound a little heavy. Do they? Anyway, the challenge is to make healthier versions of their chosen dishes. Sarah knows that her meatballs are fat bombs, so she's screwed. Ed thinks Asian food is inherently healthy (is it?) so he's got it made.
Shopping! Lindsay is using ground lamb instead of pork, and she has to order it special from the butcher. Sarah is using turkey, which seems way healthier, but is probably harder to make tasty and moist. I make a mean turkey meatball, though. You just have to use more spices to cover up for the lack of fat. Grayson has commandeered a store employee to follow her around with a cart full of watermelons, which must be a sight to see. Ed and Paul meet up at checkout and Paul reveals that he's using turkey instead of short ribs. They try to make it out like Grayson isn't going to make it in time. Has that ever been a problem with shopping? Anyway, it's a false alarm. Chris notices that Grayson is using dark chicken meat and mayonnaise, which don't seem that healthy.
The morning, Ed and Paul talk about how they didn't get much sleep. Apparently, Paul was nervous so he was up and pacing and that woke Ed up. Ed jokes that they just have to do better than chicken salad. Seriously. No worries here. One of the chicken salad duo is going home. Lindsay and Sarah are laughing over their choice of meatballs. I don't think anyone is too committed to his or her dishes, which makes for kind of a lame challenge.
Time to prep! They have two-and-a-half hours, which does seem insane. I mean, just cooking the chickens, taking off the skin, and removing the meat is a huge task. Chris explains that he's making his mayonnaise out of tofu, which sounds awful. I'm not a huge fan of mayonnaise in general, but tofu mayo? No thanks. Lindsay and Sarah seem to be sharing equipment, and Lindsay is barking out orders as usual. Sarah seems a bit peeved. Trouble in paradise?
Ed explains that he's using a kimchi and chipotle pepper puree instead of ketchup to eliminate the sugar, and he's grilling his meat instead of frying, to make it healthier. Okay, but he's still using short ribs while Paul is using turkey, so there's that. Paul explains that he's using turkey meat on a lettuce wrap with peaches, so his sounds much healthier already. Let's hope it tastes good. Sarah is just burning her meatballs. I mean, there's browning, and then there's just burnt, and hers look burnt.
Chris is pre-making all of his sandwiches while Grayson still has to chop her chicken and mix it. Pre-making sandwiches is a terrible idea, as anyone who ever used a lunchbox in elementary school can tell you. They always end up soggy. And warm. Grayson asks Chris for help wrapping her rack of trays, and he does, but they're almost out of time and he gets frustrated and ends up throwing a chair. DAMN! Temper, Chris Jones. But it does all get done, and they head out to the block party.
The cheftestants arrive at the block party location and run to their stations, because they only have forty-five minutes to set up their food. Chris immediately starts cutting up watermelon, which immediately starts attracting bees. Beets? Bees. Beads? Bees. Ed is individually cooking chunks of meat? Or something. Paul explains that Ed made his bread from scratch, which took a lot of time, but of course Paul can't just enjoy being ahead of the game; he's worried that he's missing something important. Well, he did forget the shrimp in the Quickfire.
Prep time is over and the diners start arriving with their donations for the food bank. Sarah and Lindsay have their meatballs ready to serve. Lindsay explains the competition to some guests, and it looks like each cheftestant has a ballot box to receive votes from the guests.
Paul serves some guests and someone asks what the less healthy version of his dish would be, and he jokes that Ed's serving it. Ha ha, but it's true. Ed has set up his stations so the diners build their own sandwich. That seems like a terrible idea, especially since he has to explain that it's open-faced, and then what if the diners really pile on the meat and he runs out? Easier to just build the sandwich for them. Like one lady take two pieces of bread. And then a kid runs up and takes some bread and Ed yells at him but then tells him to take it, probably because who wants to eat a piece of bread that some kid touched with his grubby fingers. Ed explains that he didn't make a lot of extra bread, so he has to conserve.
Grayson has a long line at her booth because she's making her sandwiches to order (using her bare hands? Don't they have gloves?). She keeps apologizing to the diners but telling them it's worth the wait. And we learned from challenges that you shouldn't compromise on flavor to keep the line short. Of course, that wasn't a challenge where the guests were voting for the winner. The guests do seem pretty understanding though, and if the food is good, I'm sure they won't care. They can see that Grayson is going as fast as she can. Sarah's line is also long, and she apparently has apricot and mint in her sauce? Which sounds gross.
Chris Jones is freaking out because there are bees all over his blender. Looks like the watermelon and pineapple juice got on the blender and the bees are really into it. He's worried about being stung because he swells up, and if he gets more than a couple of stings, he could have a bad reaction. That's understandable, but the bees are so not interested in him. They want the watermelon. He should put a cup of watermelon out in back of his tent to draw the bees over there. Also, they shouldn't have set up the tents on top of a beehive, apparently.
The judges show up with their food donations. Former cheftestant Ryan Scott (I don't remember him at all) is working with the charity to get food to kids who need it, which is absolutely a worthwhile cause. Then the judges (including guest judge Dana Cowin from Food and Wine magazine) head over to Paul's table first. Paul serves up turkey kalbi, and eggplant with white peach kimchi. Paul explains that he used no sugar, low-sodium soy sauce, and agave syrup to keep everything healthy. The judges then head over to eat Ed's dish open face kalbi (made with beef short ribs), kimchi chipotle puree, and pickled cucumber, carrots, fennel and daikon.
Ryan the former cheftestant compliments how Paul made his dish healthy without compromising flavor, and various diners compliment both Paul's and Ed's dishes. But what do the judges think? Emeril thinks it's simple but it was brilliant to use ground turkey. Dana notes that the eggplant gives it a "fatty mouth feel," which sounds gross but I guess it would keep it from tasting dried out. Cat likes that he did all the right things to add flavor without using fat. Moving on to Ed's dish, Cat says that she was expecting more, and her meat was a little chewy. Tom doesn't think there was enough meat on the bread. Emeril tries to say something nice about giving Ed credit for making his own bread and trying to make it healthier. Tom totally rolls his eyes and smirks because Ed seriously made zero effort at making his dish healthier. He barely paid it lip service. Padma's bread was dry and she says it like she's informing someone they have cancer. Lighten up, Padma.
The judges are ready for the battle of the chicken salad sandwiches, so they go to Grayson's booth . She serves them a chicken salad sandwich on whole wheat with arugula, pickled red onion, feta watermelon salad with toasted pumpkin seeds. Chris serves chicken salad sandwich with tofu "mayo," red lettuce and watermelon fruit salad with pineapple ice. Emeril starts off by asking why anyone would choose chicken salad, but adds that he likes that Grayson made her sandwiches to order. Cat thinks that the watermelon needs lime or mint or something to freshen it. Grayson just chose the trendiest ingredients. I mean, who wants feta cheese on a hot day? Dana doesn't think the chicken was very tasty either. As for Chris, Tom liked the use of tofu and curry, but wishes Chris had built his sandwiches to order because the bread was starting to dry out. Padma liked Chris's watermelon dish better, but Emeril calls it "watermelon with two ice cubes."
And finally, the judges are ready for some tasty meatballs. Sarah made a Calabrese-style turkey meatball and a vegetable salad with shaved fennel, shaved squash, squash blossoms and arugula. I don't think it has any dressing; it kind of looks like lawn trimmings. Lindsay made a Mediterranean meatball with veal and lamb, lemon yogurt, black-eyed peas and quinoa Greek salad. Lindsay's salad doesn't seem like the agreed-upon vegetable salad. I'm just saying. It seems more like a bean salad.
Emeril likes Sarah's meatball, and notes that it's not dry, even though it's healthier. He also likes the sauce. Tom is a big fan of the salad, but Dana points out that they got different ingredients, because all she had in her cup was zucchini and arugula. Cat thought that Lindsay's meatball looked heavy, probably because of the creamy sauce, but when she ate it, she was pleasantly surprised by the flavors and the crunch of the pita bread. Tom loved the lemon-y flavors. I don't know that I've ever had meatball with lemon. Sounds...interesting? Dana also has a lot of praise for it, especially the originality.
The diners come up and drop cards in various ballot boxes. We see votes going into each box. Lindsay and Sarah and Paul and Ed all think their contests will be close. I guess Chris and Grayson's contest isn't close. Dana is pleased that the two healthiest dishes were also the two tastiest dishes.
Weird interstitial. Paul wears crazy socks, and the other cheftestants think that they are lucky socks. Paul explains that all of his socks are weird, so all of his socks are lucky by their criteria.
The cheftestants sit in the Stew Room, waiting to hear from the judges and reminiscing about their day, and the huge lines. Padma walks in and asks to see Grayson, Paul and Lindsay. Once they are in front of the judges, Padma tells them that they are the winners from each group. Tom asks Paul what his strategy was to keep the flavor while making a healthy dish. Paul says that he used eggplant and spices. Tom thinks Paul should bottle and sell his hot sauce, and that his peaches were one of the best dishes of the day. So Paul's got this one wrapped up, then.
Cat tells Grayson that she did the right thing by making the sandwiches to order instead of pre-making them as Chris did. Tom liked the flavors, but brings up the idea that chicken salad wasn't the best choice. Grayson thought it was fine, but seeing Tom's reaction, she realizes he disagrees. Tom says that she's up against more exciting food, and Grayson retorts, "Like a meatball?" Tom, ya burnt! Grayson adds that she thought she could elevate the chicken salad sandwich and Tom seems to agree with her line of thinking, but Grayson won't drop it. Look, chicken salad is boring, but if she had made an awesome dish, it wouldn't matter. But she didn't, and that's the bottom line here. I'm not sure what she's arguing about. She's not going home and everyone knows Paul will win. And she's annoying Padma. Moving on! Lindsay made great choices according to Emeril and Cat, from the yogurt to the lemon to the chickpea flour. But she's not winning. Paul is the winner, of course. And he gets another $15,000.
The top three walk back into the Stew Room and send in the bottom three. Grayson says that she feels like she "just got brutalized" over chicken salad, and she's all kinds of bitter about it. She wonders if she should be in the bottom three. Settle down, Grayson. Shake it off, girl.
Time to talk to the bottom three. Padma wants to know how Ed tried to make his dish healthier. Ed says that he tried to make a light bread instead of rice, and Padma reminds him that bread is empty calories. Well, white bread is. Tom says that Ed used short rib and trimmed all the fat out to make it healthier, but that also got rid of all the flavor and he did nothing to add it back in, and Paul did. Moving on to Chris, he runs down all the ways he made his dish healthier. Tom agrees that Chris's dish was healthier than Grayson's, but he pre-made his sandwiches, so his bread was dried out by the time he served them. And Grayson didn't pre-make her sandwiches. Emeril says he was excited about the watermelon, but his had chunks of ice in it. Chris has no excuse for that.
What about Sarah's meatballs? She explains that she used turkey, which she thought would be healthier than Lindsay's veal/lamb mixture. Cat says that she was fine with the apricot in the sauce, but she didn't think Sarah needed cheese because it added fat but no real flavor. Tom brings up how Dana got ripped off with her salad and Sarah is horrified. Dude, it's a salad. It's not going to lose you the competition, all other things being equal.
The judges excuse the bottom three, and they head back to the Stew Room. They're pretty confident that Sarah's not going home, and Chris starts cursing up a storm about how it would be a bitch move to go home because he pre-made his sandwiches and didn't blend his smoothie. Do you think it was supposed to be blended but he was scared to use the blender because of the bees? Is that what happened? That was not made clear AT ALL. Ed says that Chris always thinks he's going home and then he stays, and Chris pats Ed's leg like, "Welp, guess it's you then." Everyone laughs and laughs.
Back to the judges. Padma talks about what a difficult challenge it was, between the sheer amount of people and the intense heat. Tom thinks Sarah just had the bad luck of going up against Lindsay's awesome dish, and if not for the stupid structure imposed by the challenge, she'd be in the top three. Tom was impressed by how much Chris took the healthy part of the challenge to heart, but Emeril says that the chicken and bread were dry and the tofu didn't add any flavor either. All he did was take flavor out of the standard dish, and didn't add any back in. Tom thinks Chris is full of ideas but just can't execute them. Cat thinks Ed's dish was underwhelming with "a tiny little crouton of dry bread, a tiny piece of short rib that was chewy, and pickles!" Tom also points out that Ed tried to BS them about the healthiness of the dish, and they weren't buying it. Yeah, Ed. They're NOT buying it! Take THAT!
The bottom three are back to find out their fates. Tom reminds them that the guests found their dishes the least favorite. He tells Sarah that she met the challenge and made a good dish but went up against a top dish, so it was the luck of the draw that put her in the bottom. Chris put in a lot of effort towards making his dish healthier but he let his sandwiches sit out in the sun, which wasn't good. Ed trimmed some fat, which wasn't enough, and he needs to be more serious about the challenge. So who's going home? Chris Jones and his ponytail, as featured in the Sunday Times recently in a story on man buns. No, seriously. Google it. Chris interviews that he knew he made stupid mistakes, and he'll miss being there. Back in the Stew Room, Sarah hugs Chris and tells him that he's really talented. Ed thinks it should have been him. Chris gives a nice speech about how he'll always remember this. Grayson feels like it's her fault because she chose chicken salad. Well, yes, but he didn't have anything better, which is his own fault. Before leaving, Chris tells them that they have to take out Paul before he wins a record-breaking amount of money. The only person who can beat Paul right now is Paul. If he avoids mistakes, he's got this sewn up.