Hell is for Heroes

Filed under: Hell's Kitchen
06-05-2007

Hell is for Heroes [Cue the Music]…Who Can Get through a Service without Crying, Fighting, or Fainting by Roxanne McDonald

I worked my way through two degrees in kitchens, doing everything from cooking (as a substitute for a no-show) to serving to pot-washing. I used to have actual nightmares…that I was serving tables miles away on a hill I couldn’t get to. You know the anxiety-driven type of horrors…akin to showing up in public without your pants deal.

The first installment of “Hell’s Kitchen” 3 just revives those literal nightmares for me. Damn. Is it me, or is the show getting more chaotic and combative?
In one episode, one cheftestant has almost fainted, five or six have gotten into arguments, and three have cried…more than once. Oh, and already the back-dooring has begun! Wheeeeee!

Signature Dish Critique Session

Vinnie, 29, a night club chef from Milltown, New Jersey, is up first. His signature dish is chorizo-encrusted pink snapper.

Ramsey says he would be surprised if one could eat all that without burning his mouth; Vinnie responds with something contrary; and Ramsey gets instantly pissed by the back-talk, calling him a $%@@ jerk and sending him back in line.

Joanna, 22, a chef’s assistant from Detroit, Michigan, is next. Her signature dish is parmesan-crusted chicken with whole wheat spaghetti and a flute of raspberry Bellini on the side.

Ramsey gives her the drink, and tells her to drink it. He then describes her chicken as dry and salty: salty, salty dry.

Rock, 30, an executive chef from Spotsylvania, Virginia, describes his dish to Ramsey as pan-seared scallops with potato gnocchi. Ramsey is at first excited by the novelty, and says he is surprised Rock had time to do gnocchi. Rock says he didn’t, that the gnocchi is frozen. You KNOW what Ramsey’s expression is going to be as soon as you hear the word “frozen”.

“You served me frozen gnocchi,” he says, and claims it could have been a “mind-blowing” dish based on the idea, but the execution has failed.

Josh, 26, a junior sous chef from Miami Beach, Florida, has interviewed that food is sex. But his signature foi gras is raw and way too salty. So does that mean he gave Ramsey raw and salty sex?

Bonnie, 26, a nanny/personal chef from Los Angeles, California, has already expressed how Ramsey makes her want to pee her pants (even though, she adds, he is still a hottie). She offers a signature dish of what she calls a

“contemporary cheese course”—which I would call a candidate for nouveau cuisine, for sure.
When Ramsey prepares to get more information and suggests they start from, say, end A, Bonnie corrects him that you actually start from the other end, point B. Ramsey is horrified, it appears, and asks that it makes that much of a difference which end they start eating…. Etc. Etc.

He exclaims that it is “Whooo, different,” and comments how she is new at this. She nods and he says that yeah, he can see that.

Eddie, 28, a grill cook from Atlanta, Georgia, is already up for uh-ohs from this viewer. He is 5’2”, having had his growth impeded by a kidney disease, and looks or presents himself a little like the neophyte on American Idol, the one who hadn’t ever seen an ocean and had never, before auditions, flown on a plane.

But Ramsey is not so cruel: he tells Eddie, “How come I look wrinkled and you look so angelic?” and Ramsey fans the world over sigh relief that the four-star chef has a modicum of soft to him.

Eddie’s dish is parmesan-crusted sea scallops with a vermouth cream sauce.

Brad, 25, a sous chef from Scottsdale, Arizona, has also done a scallop dish, so he calls Brad to judge Eddie’s dish while Eddie judges Brad’s, scallops with vanilla (?), prosciutto, and a little lemon crab. Brad is off on his description of Eddie’s dish, which is raw, and while Eddie impresses Ramsey with quite a little palate (identifying how the vanilla wrecks the taste of Brad’s dish), Chef Ramsey says one is raw and both are way under par.

Jen, 26, a pastry chef from Hazleton, Pennsylvania, has prepared a dish that Ramsey now uncovers and asks ownership for. We see the group of hopefuls and see one woman start to buckle, as if she is going to faint before she even hears Ramsey’s slams. [Now this one has done her homework on the man with the fire-breathing façade.]

She finally steps forward, and describes her dish as vanilla crepes with caramelized peaches. Ramsey fires off his disgust: “…too thick.” “…so much alcohol in there.” “I feel drunk.” Jen scurries back in line.
Melissa, 29, a line cook from New York, New York, steps out to claim the next dish. She is so sexy that we can almost see the cartoon eyes and hear the accompanying ayooga alarm sound. Well, we get close enough: Ramsay says something like “Wowee,” and the camera cuts to Melissa in the pantry talking about how she is always under- or over-estimated when she steps into a kitchen, but how once she cooks, she changes the perceivers’ minds.

That she does with Ramsey. Her signature pepper-crusted (is everything better when it’s prefixed by crusty?) steak and roasted asparagus. He announces that finally he has tasted something delicious, but to not appear TOO biased, he snaps for her to get back in line.

Julia, 28, a short-order cook from Atlanta, Georgia, is another we are in for feeling endearing feelings for. She delivers a pile of slop…grey slop…which Ramsey of course holds up for scrutiny (or mockery) and which has the exact aesthetic of the waffle house she works in.

The dish is chicken-fried chicken penne.

Tiffany, 27, a kitchen manager from Scottsdale, Arizona, has not also made chicken-fried chicken anything, but to be kinder, I guess, Ramsey has her tast Julia’s and Julia taste Tiffany’s seafood tostada. Tiffany says Julia’s is “peppery.” Ramsey says the chicken is delicious but ruined with too much pepper. Julia says Tiffany’s is good, and Ramsey says it is cooked perfectly.

Aaron, 48, a retirement home chef from Palos Verdes, California, is the second one who elicits an immediate uh-oh from the viewers. He is big, Asian, and wearing a cowboy hat. Ramsey has a litany of comments–first asking Aaron where his horse is; then saying he has never before met an Asian cowboy; and capping off the fare of critical goodies with a fine “You are one chunky monkey, aren’t you?”

Aaron has prepared what he says is “just finger food.” A lot of it. Chef Ramsey points with his silverware to one side, saying this is good, and pushes the other part away with the silver, saying to throw away the rest. Not sure if that means the rejected part was bad tasting or just too much surplus….

Speech!

Chef Ramsey expresses his overall disappointment, then names the stakes: quarter of a million salary and a share in the profits of the Green Valley Ranch Resort in Vegas restaurant.

Teams are boys versus girls, boys blue and girls pink…I mean, red. The boys are heard saying they are going to demolish the girls, and the girls are agreeing (uh-oh again) to not start the backstabbing each other till the teams merge and there are one-on-one challenges.

[Oh, the foreshadowing!]

First Night “Challenge”

To prepare dinner for the hottest ticket/table in L.A.: re-opening night at Hell’s Kitchen…cooking 15 dishes composed of over 300 ingredients.

Opening Night

Brad takes the lead on the blue team.
Aaron takes to struggling right off.

No one will take the lead on the red team, nor will anyone speak to Julia. [I am putting money down right now, in hopes Julia takes this friggin contest.]

Ramsey asks Julia how it’s going.
Julia says there is absolutely no communication.
Tiffany says there is plenty.

Aaron begins to cry. No, I mean cry—blubbering over frustrations with his position, which is I don’t know what…lettuce-tearing or something.

Ramsey harps to “for God’s sake keep it together, man.”

He is not, he adds, going into service with this level of incompetence. He bolsters with suggestions to be strong and have some balls, and the night begins

Or, Bonnie and Joanna begin arguing.

Tiffany is on appetizers, but can’t fry the quail eggs.
Ramsey says they look like plastic something eggplant?
He yells that a fried egg is stopping the whole kitchen from cooking.

Bonnie starts crying.

Vinnie is on appetizers or entrees, but makes a mess of the spaghetti Chef Ramsey says is rubbish and ruins the veggies by using water instead of stock, and Ramsey says the dish tastes like gnat’s piss.

Vinnie interviews in the pantry that when Ramsey starts looking like a Shar pei it’s bad, but when he uses words like “rubbish”, Vinnie has all he can do to keep from laughing.

While Vinnie takes his role less than seriously, it seems, the customers are now starting to complain. They have now been waiting an hour for appetizers.

Brad is put on appetizers and Vinnie is put on pot-washing duty.

Julia tries to help, but Tiffany interprets the offer as Julia wanting her “two minutes in the spotlight”—forget that they are trying to serve SOMETHING…TWO HOURS after guests have been seated!—and shoves her away.
Julia cries.

Ramsey puts Melissa on appetizers…and/or in charge. Things start to move forward.

Joanna’s on spaghetti.
Melissa’s bringing on the required functionality, but then she pisses her teammates off, especially Joanna, who is so sure of herself that all she can do is yammer when the same spaghetti Melissa said would come back comes back.

Ramsey has to tell them to cool the arguing. Again with the arguing.
Aaron has blackened the chicken (which he says is from the maple syrup).
Ramsey makes him re-do it.

Aaron cries.

Josh takes over the chicken.

Then Aaron decides it’s time for a break. A nervous breakdown, that is. Ramsey has to chase him down and calm him down, etc.

They run out of chicken. (Who shops for the first meal? Do ya think they could supply enough chicken, beef Wellington, lettuce, and stock?)

Tables are leaving.

Joanna and somebody arguing again.
Bonnie crying again.

Elimination
Ramsey has a hard choice, now, as so many were so bad. He does decide that there is no winning team, the blue team having chefs like Vinnie, who Ramsey calls two-faced and lazy (and Vinnie challenges the “lazy” part!?)– but the losing team is the red team, who he is now calling “Hell’s Bitches.”

Since Melissa, he adds, was the “best of the worst,” she is to go back and decide upon two to be up for final elimination #1.

Melissa interviews each woman. Julia is good at team-playing but is “just” a waffle house cook, she tells us.

Tiffany, who does not want to go home, also tells us and Melissa that Julia is “just” a—sniff–waffle house cook, and should definitely go.

Here’s the kicker: already the backstabbing they promised to avoid has begun. Melissa says there is no way Tiffany is going home. [And where oh where on how many reality competition shows have we heard this promise before?]

So…when it is time to announce to Chef Ramsey who should go home…, Melissa names Joanna…and, yep, Tiffany.

And Tiffany so much superior to Julia that she couldn’t even fry an egg and wouldn’t allow Julia to assist says buh-bye.

Oh, if it’s any indication of the amped-up temperatures, “Hell’s Kitchen” is now prefaced by the warning, “Viewer discretion is advised.” Yeeuh. Especially for viewers who are ex-restaurant workers with bad memories.

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