TNFNS, Season 6, Ep. 7

SPOILER ALERT!!!


This week The Next Food Network Star featured a Brinner challenge (that’s breakfast for dinner for the unsophisticated), the final six working as a team to impress foodies, and surprisingly limited crying. Overall a mediocre episode, but we’re down to the final five.

So Herb is no longer the energy chef and now has some Spanish phrase as his “point of view”. I think he said it meant cooking with flavor, but my four years of high school Spanish proved insufficient in the translation. I was confused though when Bob claimed he “loved” Herb’s new point of view, which is good since the judges gave him that new point of view just last week. Did they forget that? Herb didn’t come up with that himself, right? Was Bob just patting himself on the back? Why does Herb bother me so much?

Aria had a really weird week. First she leaped over a table like she was a cop chasing a crook. Then out of nowhere she’s in a cat fight with Aarti, a cat fight which apparently Aarti is unaware of. See in all of Aria’s voiceovers she kept talking about Aarti being her biggest competition and that she wanted her to fail. She seemed to think Aarti was the only thing standing in the way of her getting a show on the food network. She still thinks she’s right there at the top, so apparently she hasn’t seen the episodes from the last five weeks, and is still riding the wave of Bob’s praise from week 1. In reality Aria's about as close to the bottom as one can get and what’s really standing in her way are all four of the other contestants and of course, talent.

Let’s speed through the rest here. Brad’s food was good again, but he’s still struggling to have a personality. It was a bad week for Tom. I’m not sure he showers enough to be a food network personality. He’ll duke it out with Aria to make the final four. Aarti was the big winner again this week. A home run in both challenges. Hey, maybe Aria is on to something after all. Perhaps everyone should work together to take down the Aarti Paarti.

Ciao Serena! Wow, she was a disaster this week. Singing in the brinner challenge? Really? Save it for the shower, Pavarotti! The other contestants said she was frantic in the kitchen. Well, that’s called consistency. She’s been that way the whole time. But kudos to her for keeping it together and not breaking down in tears as she left. That’s one thing she’s done better than everyone else.