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I was thrilled that Melissa won. I think that if it had been Debbie vs Melissa that Debbie would've won. Jeffrey was always bad to me. I wanted them to kick him off a lot of the time. He was too frenetic. I think that Melissa will do well. I don't understand why they changed the concept of her show though.

Did you notice that one of last year's losers also was part of Chef vs City? Kelsey? She's a "NY Foodie" along with Claire Robinson? Geez, I can think of real foodies that would've been better competition for Aaron Sanchez and the other guy (who I can't pronounce his name). So it seems they do bring back some of the losers. I couldn't believe that they gave Adam his own show. Did you notice though that it was a travel show, not a cooking show. They didn't like him enough to give him a real cooking show.

OK, I'm late to the party, but having watched the series (and hated myself for it) I wanted to chime in. From a marketing standpoint, I completely agree with Melissa's win. She engaged the viewer/the camera in a way that Jeffery simply did not. Despite having the more interesting concept (I know what harissa is, yet I'd never seen it used the way he did!) he just cannot relate to the camera. I found him stiff and uncomfortable, and it may well be, as someone above suggested, that what sutis him is a NO RESERVATIONS-type show on the travel channel, rather than a dumbed-down dump-and-stir show on FN.

Having said that, I'm a working housewife and I cook - a lot. I'm not Melissa's target audience - I prefer Ina Garten, Lidia Bastianich and reruns of Molto Mario - but her value to the network is huge. She's must more likeable than either Rachael Ray or Sandra Lee (less frenetic and phony) and really gives good camera. Her "four-step chicken" is indeed a great idea (albeit a very simplified version of any standard chicken saute) but she puts it into terms that the so-called harried homemaker can remember as they run through the grocery store to pick up dinner. Plus, unlike Sandra Lee - and sadly now Rachael Ray - she seems to use all real ingredients rather than lots of premade stuff loaded with preservatives, which should be a nice change for this network.

Overall, I think FN shoudl get rid of everyone but Bobby Flay (who is annoying, but can really cook), Alton Brown and Ina Garten and start over. But again, as someone above pointed out, I don't think FN is really interested in targeting the Serious Eats audience!

I agree with Remander. We're not the Food Network's market, though I'm not sure that I completely agree with Erica Gruen in the statement that "people don't watch television to learn things."

We're people who like food and like to cook (not to mention eat!). But there are a lot of people out there who don't cook. They either don't like to cook, didn't learn to cook or think that it will take hours of slaving over a hot stove to get dinner on the table every night. If these shows start getting people in the kitchen that's a step in the right direction.

The last two paragraphs of the Pollan article says, "Crusty as a fresh baguette, Harry Balzer insists on dealing with the world, and human nature, as it really is, or at least as he finds it in the survey data he has spent the past three decades poring over. But for a brief moment, I was able to engage him in the project of imagining a slightly different reality. This took a little doing. Many of his clients — which include many of the big chain restaurants and food manufacturers — profit handsomely from the decline and fall of cooking in America; indeed, their marketing has contributed to it. Yet Balzer himself made it clear that he recognizes all that the decline of everyday cooking has cost us. So I asked him how, in an ideal world, Americans might begin to undo the damage that the modern diet of industrially prepared food has done to our health.

'“Easy. You want Americans to eat less? I have the diet for you. It’s short, and it’s simple. Here’s my diet plan: Cook it yourself. That’s it. Eat anything you want — just as long as you’re willing to cook it yourself.”'

I listened to the podcast and Melissa has some good ideas -- and they're ideas that the novice cook will benefit from. I liked her concept recipe for chicken and I can see that this could be done with other quick-cooking cuts of meat or fish. A new cook might not know this.

I read a lot of cooking blogs and I'm constantly amazed how little people know about cooking. They don't know that you can use more or less (or none!) of something, especially seasonings, and still have a recipe that tastes great. Maybe not exactly like the original, but still very good.

I don't like Sandra Lee, but a friend of mine pointed out that the way she "cooks" is not only the way a lot of people cook, but what they think cooking is. If the Food Network can pull people in with Sandra Lee, then maybe they'll move on to Rachael, Giada, Paula, the Neelys, Aaron McCargo, Ina, Alton and others. Maybe after that they'll get interested in Julia, Lidia, Marcella,

And maybe they won't. But if they're inspired to actually cook more, that's a good thing.

Wanna know why they pick people we (people who want to learn to cook) think suck?

Read the NY Times piece from Sunday: Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02cooking-t.html?_r=1&ref=dining

Here's the excerpt that tells it all: "Erica Gruen, the cable executive often credited with putting the Food Network on the map in the late ’90s, recognized early on that, as she told a journalist, “people don’t watch television to learn things.” So she shifted the network’s target audience from people who love to cook to people who love to eat, a considerably larger universe and one that — important for a cable network — happens to contain a great many more men."

We are not their market. Food Network is no more likely to be concerned about teaching us to cook than would be Soap Opera Network. Not their thing.

What brought her to the show?
Her culinary point of view was "stay at home mother (that can cook)".
FN is marketing her as "mom".
Hubby has a new job, and the family relocates to Washington state.

So this stay at home mom, will be leaving the kids to fly across the country to New York City for TV. And it has nothing to do with "supporting the family", it's all about her.
Leaving the nanny to raise the kids...
It won't take long for mom's (stay at home or work out of home) to see through this farce, and those that can afford a nanny don't care about her $10 meals anyway.
I really don't see who her audience is.

I'm not woman bashing, I am a woman - that happened to raise her own kids while working full time.

Melissa tasting her peppers was a really smart thing to do. First of all, heat levels can vary widely, even among the same pepper variety. I recently failed to taste some serranos I was cooking with and the dish turned out way too hot because I had a hotter than usual batch of peppers but I hadn't tasted them so I didn't know. So, rather than a sign of inexperience, tasting the peppers was a sign of cooking savvy. And didn't that dish get great reviews? So it also proved that she can take an ingredient she doesn't have a whole lot of experience with and still produce delicious food.

As for abandoning her family, shows on the FN are filmed in clusters so it probably only takes a couple of weeks to do 6 shows. Lots of FN cooking show hosts live in places that aren't New York. And yes, it's incredibly sexist and irritating that Melissa's parenting decisions are questioned but Jeffrey's aren't.

I agreed with Alton's assessment of Melissa as having "it" and that "it" is not teachable. To me, Jeffrey came across as insincere, especially when along the way he would throw in what came across as made-up stuff about his family, just because the judges wanted a glimpse into his personal life. Maybe what he said was true; his delivery, however, just didn't make me believe it.

I probably won't watch Melissa's show more than once just to see what it's like, and would gladly watch 10 more Alton Brown shows, but I do think the right person won.

And to the person who complained about Melissa "selfishly" leaving her family to do this show: it seems a little sexist since Jeffrey would've been in the exact same position if he had won. I mean, really. Why is it not selfish for a man, but IS selfish for a woman? Geez!

I have no interest whatsoever in watching another perky, ordinary cooking show that will demonstrate how to make healthy easy boring dull food, Melissa.

I am not impressed by the little muffin tin gratins- zzzzzzz or the, what was it? another take on chicken breast? and the other thing: kid-friendly spinach poop?

I do like the idea of the Ingredient Smuggler (thanks to AB) waaaay more. Hmmm, why don't you just let Alton do the show and make us all happy!

Both seemed personable, both seemed knowledgable. In the end, Melissa seems more comfortable in front of the camera, while Jeffrey's bobbing and repetitive gestures felt awkward. As the more camera-friendly person, Melissa will be more pliable in terms of molding her towards opportunites beyond this season.

I really don't believe gender or race had anything to do with the winning OR losing.

@itsworthalook:

I was surprised to see such an anti-woman comment on Serious Eats.

"If she's really interested in "helping" women, she should stay home and raise her family!"

Really? How do you know she's leaving her family, and not moving them with her? And since when is it "self-absorbed" and "selfish" to want to support your family financially by making the most of a skill and passion you've developed?

I understand the critiques by many that Melissa is targeting an audience of novice cooks, while many Serious Eaters are ready to learn something more challenging, but criticizing her for daring to do something other than just stay barefoot in the kitchen seems out of place. After all, presumably Jeffrey would also be spending less time with his children if he got a show.

AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! TVFN you slay me! Next food network star, youshould have a show about monkey juggling! It would be just as interesting and have the same amount of teeth showing!

What amuses me is, they are marketing her as "mom" but here she is leaving her four very young children to "work" half way across the United States! If she's really interested in "helping" women, she should stay home and raise her family!

Seems like another self-absorbed selfish woman to me - I've known too many in real life - no interest in watching one on TV in my free time!

Hey Minstrel, I had the same reaction you did. Melissa has said "my show wouldn't only be for stay-at-home moms, it would also be for working women." So it would include other kinds of women but still leave out all men? You can magine the response from the judges if one of the male contestants said he wanted to do a show aimed only at men. FN is cleary all about the soccer mom demographic, so Melissa was in many ways their dream host. Her lack of formal culinary training or professional food industry background was seen as a big plus, because it increases the identification factor with the audience.

I'm thinking that Melissa was the preselected choice from the beginning. Remember the show where she had to taste all the peppers to know which ones were hot? Anyone else would've been ripped for their lack of basic food knowledge. But they turned her ignorance into a positive, and talked about how clever she'd been to taste before cooking. Where was the "food authority" the judges are always talking about?

Last year there was Lisa Garza (another mom from Texas), but she'd help run her husband's restaurant. Plus there was an edge to her personality that turned some people off. Melissa is all blonde and bubbly and bland. A very safe choice. And FN is all about safe.

I'm wondering too if what worked against Jeffrey was the FN being nervous about having a host with a Middle Eastern name and heritage. I mean, in an incredibly vast and diverse culinary world, FN's idea of ethnic cooking is Rachel Ray demonstrating how to make pot stickers.