Hell's Kitchen

We start off with everyone sound asleep, and then a loud alarm goes off at 5 am. This is so we can feel their pain as they stumble to their feet and downstairs for their first test. So sad for them. But why does everyone look so surprised?

Have any of these people ever seen this show before? This is a recurring question. It’s as if they’ve wandered off the street into an experimental prescreening of a cartoon and were expecting to be given prizes just for showing up.

Ramsay has decided, since he appears to have a group of dunderheads on his hands, to start with the basics, and teams of two are formed in order to prepare eggs in four ways. Eggs, people. What kind of chef can’t make eggs? Unfortunately, these people aren’t chefs, and some of them, indeed, can’t make eggs.

And Siobhan is set to the task alone, since there’s an uneven number of people (so claims Ramsay, but I think he just wants to test her).

These are not complicated egg preparations. Scrambled, soft boiled, poached, fried (also known as sunnyside up), and not a mention of a sabayon anywhere.

The first red team, also known as the women, pass their egg tests. But the first blue team? Salvatore made a hash of the scrambled eggs (not literally, but hash, as in, mess), and mumbles something incoherent as some sort of an excuse. Their soft boiled egg attempt is also a disaster.

Siobhan’s up next. Earlier we saw Autumn preparing eggs for Siobhan, so it’s not all Siobhan’s work, and when Ramsay asks her how long to cook a soft boiled egg she says that she just knows because she makes them all the time. But Ramsay wants an answer! Turns out she doesn’t know, and she must admit that she didn’t cook her own eggs, except for the poached, which she did two of, one for her, and one for another team.

Basic rule of working for Ramsay: Follow direction. He really hates it when people don’t do what he says. Sure, he’s a bit of a control freak, but he gets to make the rules, what with it being his show and all. So he gets a chance to rant and rave, and everyone is sufficiently cowed. Siobhan’s one poached egg passes, but her second poached egg, when it comes around from the other team, doesn’t. Consistency, Siobhan, consistency.

The next blue team can’t pass their scrambled egg test either. What is so hard about scrambled eggs? You mix them up, put them in a pan, stir them around, and voila! Maybe Hollywood (or wherever this taping is) has weird atmospheric issues going on that prevent the successful cooking of eggs.

This goes on until everyone has presented their eggs, with some bad, some good, some with no salt, and the tension mounts! Who will have the most points? Who will get the reward, and who will fail? And then it’s down to one egg, one last soft boiled egg, and everyone is holding their collective breath, just waiting . . . and it’s a win for the blue team!

It’s an egg, people, an egg.

But for the blue team it means a ride in a helicopter, and for the red team it means cleaning a giant tuna that takes all of them to carry in to the kitchen. I buy my tuna in the little cans and it works just fine for me, but I guess chefs have to have it fresh.

Andrew the Farmer delivers a memorable line in the helicopter, one which I must repeat here for your amusement: “I’ve seen Los Angeles like I’ve never seen Los Angeles, and I’ve never seen Los Angeles.”

Meanwhile, as the men lunch on a rooftop with champagne and engage in witty banter on the level of, “How many women have you had sex with?” the women argue over how to clean a fish. There’s some sort of disagreement about whether the skin comes off or not, but, since it doesn’t rise to the level of fisticuffs, we become bored and move on quickly.

Later we see Siobhan in the kitchen asking about the consistency of mashed potatoes. She doesn’t want to get them wrong, so she needs advice.

Really? So far we’ve dealt with eggs and mashed potatoes, and it’s been an uphill battle all the way?

Before dinner service Ramsay asks Salvatore to list the desserts, and Salvatore is speechless. He doesn’t have a clue. I gather knowing what’s on the menu is an important thing to know for a chef, so Ramsay sends him upstairs to study the menu some more.

Does it seem like I’m picking on Siobhan and Salvatore today? I can’t help it. I just like saying Siobhan because it’s not pronounced like it’s spelled, and Salvatore? He’s just asking for it.

During dinner prep we see Autumn salting a pot of water, and I’m thinking, “Whoa! That’s a lot of salt.” Ramsay stops by to taste the water (I assume he saw the film footage too) and then has everyone taste it. They all make the appropriate gagging noises. Autumn asks, “Did someone else season it too?” Really? That’s the best excuse she’s got?

Tonight’s plan is to serve tuna tartare tableside, so one member of each team heads into the dining room with their little cart of raw fish.

Salvatore is brought back to list the desserts for Ramsay, but embarrasses himself by first stumbling, then missing the last one, which is Italian. We’re starting to doubt Salvatore.

Autumn helps Siobhan with her risotto, which is a big mistake as we’ve all realized Autumn has a seasoning disorder.  

Fran stumbles around the dining room with her tuna tartare, unable to find the right table, though she does have a map with directions.

Mikey can’t make risotto. RISOTTO. Here’s a recurring theme. Anyone who goes on this show should have made risotto a million times before taping begins, unless they’ve never seen the show before. It’s like me, an accountant, sitting for the CPA and not studying first. And yet they’ve seen, if they’ve been paying attention, the importance of getting the risotto right. And yet… the risotto takes forever (43 minutes, which in hungry diner time is forever) and is then sent back for being undercooked.

Ramsay yells and slams things because people don’t talk to him. I think they’re just hoping to avoid the brunt of his annoyance, though it could be they’ve been struck dumb now that the enormity of their mistake (signing on for this show) has occurred to them.

Surprisingly, Salvatore’s first Wellington is actually, according to Ramsay, cooked perfectly. Just when we were getting ready to consign Salvatore to the dustbin of history.

Then we have the requisite disappointments. Temper tantrums! More throwing!

JP announces missing chicken. Where has the chicken gone? It’s still in the kitchen, raw. Salmon is crispy on the bottom. Overcooked, undercooked, the food is in every stage of disaster.

Andrew, on garnishes, has taken to verbalizing his wishes to his charges, the garnishes. Apparently garnishes respond to verbal commands. Who knew? Maybe it’s a farmer thing. His face is bright red, and I’m worried the poor guy is going to explode. Can a person be that red? Andrew can’t make mashed potatoes. And then, he DISAGREES with Ramsay! “That’s not true,” he says to Ramsay, when Ramsay dares to tell him that adding soggy potatoes to thick potatoes won’t work. Suddenly Andrew’s the expert. So, of course, Ramsay calls him a joke to the industry where the audience/customers can overhear and appear shocked. I picture large cue cards up saying, “Look shocked!”

Andrew has been ejected from the kitchen, which usually means the rejected one will stomp off upstairs, there to think about his mistakes and ponder a new career. But not Andrew — he walks out of Hell’s kitchen — all the way out. He quits in the middle of dinner service, he doesn’t just escape to come back later, he leaves, even though JP tries to talk to him and stop him.

Seriously? Has he ever seen the show? Did he think he would be spared the harassment? Did he really think that he would be the one favored chef who would not get yelled at? Not get humiliated?

Ramsay proceeds to tell everyone everything they did wrong. The list is extensive, and no team wins.

The women vote for Autumn to leave, since she’s bossy, has a seasoning disorder, and isn’t a team player.

The men vote for Jason. Surprisingly. We thought it’d be Salvatore! Maybe that was just wishful thinking.

Autumn defends herself, and Ramsay asks everyone if Autumn is the worst cook on the team. They say, no, shamefaced, and he asks, “Who is it?” while they all stand and look as if they’re sworn to secrecy. Everyone knows you keep the worst cook around on the team, because you can always get rid of her later and meanwhile, she makes everyone else look good. Basic reality show strategy.

Jamie is called up after someone blurts out her name, in a fit of “time to save myself.”

Mikey is then called up to stand next to Jason, and Ramsay fires him. Now he’s got that Hell’s Kitchen tattoo to live with, as a constant reminder that he didn’t make it past the second dinner service.

Next week: Jason threatens to break things, and the women attack each other. We’re promised much excitement and mayhem, along with the requisite yelling and screaming, and will Salvatore walk off the show also?

One can only hope.

If only that was all there was to it, cutting mustard, but, alas, risotto seems to be a major sticking point for many of them, and that’s just the beginning.

We begin, as usual, with previews of fighting, screaming, temper tantrums, and one aspiring chef saying, “I like winning,” as if that’s news. Really? Because I’m pretty sure that no one else there does. The contestants are often quite enlightening that way. “I love to cook,” one of them will say, because we might not have known that otherwise. Still, what else would they say? What would you say?

I would say nothing because I’m not going to be on the show, which solves that problem nicely.

“I’m here to win ‘Hell’s Kitchen,’” one says, because, y’know, a lot of people are there to lose.

One contestant, who is quite taken with herself, announces, “I’ll look better doing it” (assuming she has to look good to make it) and then she falls down. How … cute. This is what happens when one wears heels in the kitchen, so one can look good when one falls down.

We start off with a signature dishes — I like signature dishes. There’s no telling what we’ll be subjected to here, and surprises are always fun, aren’t they? This time, the first contestant, a homemaker who’s written a cookbook and has never worked in a restaurant, goes up alone, which should have been our first clue, since they always go up in pairs (one boy, one girl). Chef Ramsay says the veal scallopini she presents looks bad, then tastes it, acting as if he’s going to say it’s bad, and instead pronounces it quite good. He then hugs the contestant and gives her a kiss on the mouth.

This is unusual. She returns to the line and he follows her, and they kiss some more. Rather unprofessional, wouldn’t you say? But (surprise, surprise) it’s his wife, disguised with a mousy brown wig. She’s not really going to compete, which I think would be really fun, and then she leaves.

The guy who speaks with a heavy Italian accent because he thinks women like it, despite having been in the U.S. for 20 years, does not make his own pasta. What the? Premade pasta? It is not a hit.

Benjamin comes after the Italian guy, and he makes his own pasta. Ha! Take that, Italian guy!

Northern India food? Northern? A disaster!

Jamie had a toothpick in her food and Ramsay declined to try it.

The guy who has a large Hells’ Kitchen tattoo on his torso (suck up!) comes up with brie stuffed with lobster, and, surprisingly, Ramsay says it’s delicious. I don’t care who you are, but when you have to show how much you want to win by getting a tattoo, there’s a pretty good chance you’re a lousy cook.

Based on my somewhat limited experience, of course. I myself have no tattoos.

Again surprisingly, seared ahi in mint leaves works. Who would have ever guessed?

The chicken wings with a half bottle of Tabasco does not, perhaps not as surprisingly, make much of an impact, other than that made when one is desperate for a drink to wash it down with.

Sadly for the women (the red team), the men win. Could this be the start of another season of the men proclaiming their superiority? Men love to do that. So do women.

The aspiring chefs go upstairs to study their recipes. They need to know how to prepare whatever’s on the menu in Hell’s Kitchen, and they need to know by the next day.

Then the alarms start to go off. Each time, everyone must go downstairs to watch a video Ramsay has made of how to prepare [fill in the blank]. Lobster risotto first, which is always the high point of the show. “You’ve burned the risotto!” “This risotto is hard!” It’s fun to see how many different ways it can be screwed up.

The video lessons continue through the night. This is new — let’s see how they do with no sleep! People with sharp knives and no sleep are bound to make an impact.

The red team (aka, women) have to serve breakfast in bed for the guys just because the red team lost the signature dish challenge. They are unhappy about this and the men are quite happy.

And then Hell’s Kitchen opens. The lights! The cameras!

Raw scallops, seasoned badly. Stacey thought it was going to be easy, as aspiring chefs so often do. I’m sure she cooks just fine at home, in her own kitchen.

Meanwhile, the Italian guy keeps burning the starters. Repeatedly.

The “perfect” potatoes are either undercooked or overcooked.

Crab in the lobster risotto!

So far, we’re having nothing but disasters in the kitchen. Is nothing coming out right?

And Ramsay does his first ejections of the new season! “You, you, you out!” Such authority! There was too much laughing going on, and how can someone not know the difference between crab and lobster?

Mikey serves raw halibut. Again and again. Does the halibut trick him by whispering, “I’m done, I’m done,” in the sort of hypnotic, entranced voice only halibut can do? It appears so, for Mikey just can’t get the hang of actually cooking the halibut.

Does anyone really want to eat in this “restaurant”?

Two guys are thrown out of the kitchen next.

And then another from the red team is ejected.

And more raw halibut. Halibut apparently presents quite a challenge and Mikey too is sent away.

One important lesson to keep in mind should you dine at Hell’s Kitchen: Eat first, and eat well, because it may be your only chance to eat. Unless you eat afterward — you can always stop off somewhere on your way home. McDonald’s is bound to be open.

Finally food is leaving the kitchen. Only by sending half the aspiring chefs away were they able to finish service.

The losing team is, of course the red team. Who couldn’t see that coming? They “sucked,” as Ramsay says.

And now the time we all look forward to: elimination!

This is when the team members get to attack each other in order to save themselves.

Stacey was the first nominee, and then, before announcing the second one, we cut to commercial. We always cut to commercial at this time because we’re supposed to be eagerly waiting the announcement. We’re supposed to be hanging on the edge of our seats, but frankly, this is the first episode and I’m not all that invested in it yet. Maybe later. But right now, I’m not taken with any of the contestants. They’re all blank slates, and any one of them could go without affecting me at all.

Fran is the second nominee. She was kicked out of the kitchen before she had a chance to really screw up other than not knowing the difference between lobster and crab. “I was a kosher chef,” like that’s an excuse. Really? She thought she could just show up and it wouldn’t matter that she doesn’t know the difference between crab and lobster? Given how often lobster appears at Hell’s Kitchen you’d thinks he would have prepared for that eventuality. Then again, I’m a crab expert, I like to think, so the idea that someone can’t tell the difference is beyond me.

Stacey said she could care “more than you can even imagine.”

And then Ramsay makes his decision: Stacey, the private chef, is out. How humiliating, not to even make it through the first episode. We see her trudge away, defeat in every step.

Next episode preview: Shocking events have Ramsay in a rage! But, when is he NOT in a rage? This is standard operating procedure for the chef, so it’s not as if this is anything new. Yet, I’ll tune in, because I want to see what invokes his rage this time. I want to see people, some of whom I wouldn’t trust to make me a bowl of cereal, try to cook their way to acclaim and greatness. And I want to sit at home and say, “Cripes, people, even I could cook that!”