New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

I gotta say, though, I'm thrilled to see great chefs lamenting how little money public schools have to feed their students.

The cheftestants head back to the kitchen to cook. The two main points of drama are as follows:

*Kelly is becoming an early candidate for Villain of Season 7 by pompously taking credit for the ideas behind her team's menu. She's rubbing me (and her teammates) the wrong way

*Amanda has decided to braise her chicken in sherry wine, an extremely strange choice for a school lunch

Before we know it, the kids are storming the cafeteria for lunch. The first team serves up grilled apple cider chicken, mac and cheese with whole wheat pasta, plus melon balls with a yogurt foam. The judges love the use of apple cider to sweeten the chicken. Tom also praises the use of the yogurt foam, saying that kids don't like yogurt but they love whipped cream.

Hot Angelo's team puts up a chicken burger with peanut butter celery sticks, plus a sweet potato puree and apple bread pudding. The judges hammer the team for not actually having any vegetables in the dish (save for the piece of celery, which has no nutritional value).

Next up is a black bean cake with sweet potatoes, braised pork carnitas tacos, a roasted corn salsa plus a dessert combining caramelized sweet potatoes and chocolate sherbet. Gail loves all the color in the dish, Tom is happy, but both question the use of the spice in the bean cake, which is a tad overdone.

Lastly, we have Amanda's mess of a braised chicken with sherry wine. It's paired with sweet onion rice, a bean and tomato salad and Jacqueline's banana pudding with strawberries. While the salad was good, the judges question use of the sherry wine and criticize the pudding for being too starchy and WAY too sweet.

The top two teams and the bottom two teams are pretty obvious, but in a strange decision, the judges call in Hot Angelo's team and Sherry Wine Amanda's team. Padma tells them that they both had the worst menus of the challenge.

Amanda's team gets needled first. Stephen points out that they were handcuffed by the budget, but Gail retorts that the budget was the point of the challenge. She and the rest of the judges knock them for the use of the wine and for putting way too much sugar in the pudding.

As for Angelo's team, they had no veggies. Kenny says that he knew that they had no vegetables on their menu, but that with two people with immunity on his team, he didn't get to rectify their menu mistake. Basically, he blames Angelo for the lack of vegetables.

Stephen, on the other team, decides to try and save his own neck by pointing out that it's a major mistake for a chef to recognize a menu error and not do anything about it. Kenny shoots back with a snide remark about the amount of sugar in Jacqueline's pudding. Amanda responds by noting that there's tons of sugar in peanut butter, to which Ed responds with a knock against her use of the sherry wine.

It was a little uncomfortable, to say the least.

The judges discuss further and it's obvious that the two biggest offenders in this challenge was Amanda's sherry wine chicken and Jacqueline's pudding. They seem ready to make a decision to cut a chef when Padma points out that they still need to name a winner.

The other two teams are called in before the judges and almost as an after-thought, Kelly (Villain du Jour) is named the winner for her tasty, oatmeal-infused pork carnitas tacos. I hate her, but I guess she earned this one.

Meanwhile, Kenny, Ed, Amanda and Jacqueline are called out once more. It's time to eliminate one of them. The teams were supposed to make a nutritious, delicious meal, but Kenny and Ed let their team down by not showing any leadership. Amanda's chicken was not appealing, and Jacqueline loaded her pudding up with sugar.

Aaaaaaaand, Jacqueline is going home. Rightfully so, since she was really weak. In her exit interview, she laments the fact that she didn't fight for more of the team's budget, ignoring the fact that she still would have had to use a lot of sugar for her chocolate pudding, but whatever. We won't miss her much.

Continued:       1       2