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Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Hell’s Kitchen: Does Gordon Ramsey make you hurl?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Hell’s Kitchen” returned last night on Fox with a new season of wannabe chefs ready to endure months of humiliation for a shot at a $250,000 job running British chef Gordon Ramsey’s new L.A. restaurant.
About 20 years ago, when I thought of becoming a chef, line cooks endured months of humiliation for a shot at a job paying barely above minimum wage. We had it easy compared to where our chef had apprenticed, he always told us. He’d worked in France, where they really know how to teach an aspiring chef about his place in the pecking order (as low as you can imagine).
So when Gordon started the usual string of expletives, no big surprise. Every season on Fox, he becomes more and more a caricature of himself (check out BBC America for a more restrained version).
But then, while tasting the contestants’ specialties, he grabbed a trash can and started throwing up. Granted, scallops with caviar, white chocolate and a few other implausible ingredients might make you want to barf, but on a cooking show?
Bad enough, but the cooking and contestants were just plain boring.
Did you see “Hell’s Kitchen” last night? Think Gordon was really sick to his stomach, or just ramping up his naughty boy act?
Bravo’s “Top Chef”, with another episode at 10 tonight, is much more interesting, from the cooking to the drama, with a parade of top-notch chefs as judges. So far this season, along with the usual hosts, judges have included Wylie Dufresne of New York City’s wd-50 and Rick Bayless of Chicago’s Frontera Grill. And, of course, Atlanta chef Richard Blais, who’s hung in through several elimination rounds.
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