Quote Originally Posted by cassiesmom View Post
I missed it last night :-( What did I miss?

My mom had the whole family over for my dad's birthday, and my dad decided he wanted us all to look at old family slides from about 1965-1975. So much plaid and polyester! My dad enjoyed having the whole family around, especially his grandchildren. They're good about calling or sending him an e-mail to say hello from time to time, which is nice.
They sent two people home, basically the first camera challenge they had to make and demonstrate their signature dish, and they had two minutes. Bob Tuschman gave each contestant some specific aspect of their on-screen presence to work on, and some people did better than others. Vick Vegas, sadly took so much time giving a thorough description that he never demonstrated any cooking, Penny did great food, but even though she tried to be more likeable, didn't pull it off at all, Mary Beth did great on camera, of course, but her food was poorly seasoned, Jyll was told to "surprise" them, but came of as too rehearsed in her "surprising' line, Chris, as usual, had a much, much too complicated dish and ran pout of time, Jeff tried not to be too crazy, and be warm, but just came off as slow and kinda lackluster, Susie was a little scattered in her presentation, but pretty good ... Whitney worked on likeability and was happier and friendlier and talked about making gazpacho for her sorority sisters, and won that one.

When they cooked for Wolfgang Puck ion the dinner party, it was pretty obvious where the flaws were. Jeff did a salad - not a sandwich, for the first course, and presented it well, Mary Beth, reacting to being told her previous dish was underseasoned, put so much cayenne in her butternut squash soup that the judges couldn't taste anything else, everybody else did well, but the worst two were Jyll and Chris. Jyll's "Risotto" was "too stiff" - in other words, it just looked like a pile of rice with stuff in it. As soon as she presented it, too everyone's surprise, Wolfgang Puck said "this is not a risotto," and took her by the arm into the kitchen to show her how to make a real rissotto, and what it should look like in terms of consistency. Bobby Flay was appalled, Jyll was mortified but managed not to dissolve into tears, and the show went on. But Chris, who ended up with dessert (Whitney got to assign courses) apologized three times, said he was not comfortable making dessert, etc., before they even got to try his food.

So it was obvious he was going home. Susie won the evening, and most of them were told they were safe. At the end, it was Mary Beth, Jyll, and Penny standing, and then MB - to her shock was told she was safe, an they sent Penny home, as her food was still great, but she just was never getting any better on camera.