Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

For me, it's a tossup.

Perky girl would be fun to watch, but I don't know if I'd care about her recipes. And too much perky is too much. If they fed her good recipes, it might be a decent show, but if it's all about newby cooking, I don't think I'll be too interested for too long. She might draw in a younger audience though. I can see it now: "Cooking in the Dorm: the hotplate chronicles."

Serious guy would probably have good recipes, but if he's not comfortable in front of the camera, he's going to be uncomfortable to watch. I might download his recipes, but unless he really loosens up, I'm not going to be that interested in watching him. And his comment about his kid running away (or whatever that was) did not endear him to my heart. If he's got family issues, the place to be is NOT on a reality show.

Haughty girl might have good recipes, but I don't need her talking down to me because I don't speak French or know obscure cooking terms in foreign languages. It seems to me that she's got the same concept as Amy Finley, but her personality is less warm and accessible. And, seriously, who cooks in those kinds of clothes? Real people splash and splatter in the kitchen, and don't have another $300 to buy a new blouse every time they get a stain. If she wants to appeal to a wide audience, she needs become a person. She reminds me of a robot or funky dress-up fashion doll.

Wacky guy might not have good recipes, but he would probably be interesting to watch, if only to see if he crashes and burns. Of all of them, he might actually be the most entertaining, if given the right kind of venue. As far as his recipes, it's hard to tell. He's made mistakes as far as timing his cooking, but that's really not an issue on a show, where they do the swap-outs to make it all happen correctly. If it's all written in advance and scripted, he might do a lot better.

So, in the end, I guess it depends on what they do with these people when they create show for them. As for previous winners the two guys (whose names I have conveniently forgotten) are in reruns, I guess, but I was never all that interested in their show. Amy Finley, I kind of liked. Her show was watchable, and some of her recipes inspired me to make similar dishes. And I made her freaky good apple tart, and it was indeed good. Very good. I made it three times, which may be a recipe for repetitive desserts in my kitchen.

Guy Fieri seems to have struck gold with the network, but I've never been that interested in watching him. I've seen a few shows, but the recipes didn't seem like anything I wanted to make -- or they seemed like things I could muddle together on my own without his input. What was off-putting about him was how many times he'd use the word "key" in every episode. Sixteen ingredient and/or techniques cannot be the "key" to the success of the recipe.

So now we've got this batch 'o contestants. I think the FN has picked their front runner. What we don't see is probably just as important to FN, and that's how easy these people are to work with. Are they cooperative, cranky, fussy? Do they annoy the camera people and staff? That's going to play a part in the decision making, even though we don't see that. And they've spent enough time with these people to see how their personalities mesh with the folks they'll have to work with. So, unless their front runner does something horribly self destructive, I think the decision is pretty much made, and it's just a matter of editing to make it work out they way they need it to happen.

@Weljwm, I have no objection to learning new words from Lisa or anyone else. My problem is her attitude when she tosses these terms around. In one of the first episodes she used some term in a partner competition, and her partner had never heard the word before. Neither had I. And her comment was along the lines of how could he not know what she was talking about, and she acted like this made him "below her" somehow, because everyone in a kitchen should know this stuff.

She did the same thing with her brownie girl scout where she started asking her about foods she liked, and you could tell from the look on the kid's face that she didn't know what Lisa was saying with some of the stuff.

I'm not saying Lisa should dumb down her word usage, but if you're talking to an 8-year-old, you shouldn't expect the kid to know what couscous or remoulade is without some explanation, and if you're talking to an adult audience that probably hasn't been to culinary school, you might want to define the words that you use, and without being condescending about it.