The contestants on the Next Iron Chef
It's fun to observe how people work under extremely stressful conditions. Some of them really lose their cool and others think on their feet, making the most of the time on their hands. I'm saying this because I was watching the first episode of the second season of The Next Iron Chef the other day and I couldn't help but observe the different personas each chef brought to that extremely competitive environment.
I love reality shows. Bravo Network's Project Runway and TLC's While You Were Out are amongst my favorites. I'm beginning to like the Next Iron Chef too. I've only seen one show so far so I'm going to temper my enthusiasm and reserve my judgment for later.
Of all the contestants I won't be surprised if Appleman loses his cool at some point. This time he seemed to be venting his frustration on kitchen appliances, two of which broke. He seemed to be struggling with his preparation in the second round and almost gave up. He obviously did something right because the judges loved his egg pasta allowing him to win the round.
Brad Farmerie is such a cynic. A very hard to impress sort of guy. He didn't seem to have too many words of encouragement for his fellow chefs in the first round. Is it important to make friends amidst such intense competition? Is it even possible? Eric and Jehangir didn't seem to be having too many problems making friends. In the second test Jehangir even warned Crenn about her preparation getting over cooked and Eric tried to help Farmerie get his bottle of oil open... *Sigh! Don't you just hate it when the nice guys lose?
Jose Garcias gives the impression of being a very talented yet very modest person. Though his on screen personality is not as flamboyant as some of his competitors, he's obviously got some serious talent.
Of the women, Holly Smith seems to have the most balanced personality. Freitag tends to let her emotions show a bit too clearly.
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1 Comment:
So much has changed since the first episode. Chef Holly Smith and Brad Farmerie have left the show and Chef Seamus Mullen and Amanda Freitag have captured the top two spots for two consecutive episodes. Appleman has turned out to be alright and Chef Jehangir Mehta has been handed the villain edit. Every episode, a different chef is portrayed as being villainous. Makes you wonder if any of it is real.
The third episode was definitely one of the hardest for all the contestants. None of them specialize in West Asian cuisine yet they had to re-create cuisine from Thailand, Korea, Vietnam and China. This test was to be a face-off challenge with four victors. Chef Seamus Mullen got to choose the challengers owing to his victory in the previous episode. I wonder why he paired Chef Amanda Freitag with Chef Jehangir Mehta. In the previous episode Freitag was close at his heels in the final round and he also feels Jehangir Mehta is a ‘silent killer’. I suppose he finds both of them to be his biggest challengers.
angela_carol1 at 6:37AM on 10/21/09