Hell's Kitchen/Celebrity Apprentice 09 Update

We've been watching "Hell's Kitchen" 09, or what I call the Cooking and Cussing Show.

It's down to three and I think I've got the winner picked.

The Donald's "Celebrity Apprentice" 09 continues on and this should be called the Joan River reality show.

The cooking challenge will never make Hell's Kitchen but the bickering and cussing might.

All with pics and vid you'll find nowhere else on the Internet.

Pic of the Day

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Joan Rivers About the Only Celebrity on Celebrity Apprentice

We watch Celebrity Apprentice 2009 every Sunday night with a devoted regularity. It’s a reality show and I kind of like them. I sorta kinda like this reality show but this year I am getting so tired of Joan Rivers.

FOR IT’S ALL ABOUT HER!

Now I understand these things are scripted. I know there has to be tension, there has to be a hero, there has to be a good guy. And I know that out of all the contenders this season, Joan is the most well known.

There have been so many shows scripted around Joan this year. Joan was the master of ceremonies for the picture phone challenge. Joan was the project manager for the cupcake challenge. Joan got into a tiff with Clint Black during the dishwashing liquid viral commercial challenge. Joan got disgusted with colleague Natalie Gulbis’ choice of jewelry during the jewelry auction challenge. Finally, this past week, Joan’s all in a tither over Annie Duke, the poker player who Joan says is deceitful, two-faced and poor white trash.

Of course we end up getting all involved with Melissa Rivers, spawn of Joan. Melissa Rivers’ has no discernible talent save being the daughter of Joan Rivers. Her presence on the Celebrity Apprentice 2009 does enhance the scripting in that we have mother/daughter conflicts that add to the drama.

Actually most of these contenders, including Joan, are very nice folk. It’s got to be hard to be a script-writer for this reality show. Truth be told, Melissa Rivers is probably the nastiest of the lot but any tension involving her necessarily must involve her mother.

They tried to make Clint Black a bad guy but come on. This guy walks around with a little Jesus-type of smile on his face. Herschel Walker is such a nice fellow that even The Donald professed his love for the fellow. Dennis Rodman was close to being a villain but truth is he was just a drunk who forgot yesterday’s enemies.

Now Annie Duke, who is being scripted to be an avowed enemy of Joan Rivers, is too a nice lady and who’s going to buy that Rivers’ assertion that being a poker player automatically makes you poor white trash?

-Jesse James-founder of West Coast Choppers
-Dennis Rodman-5 time NBA champion-sent home 3/29/09
-Andrew "Dice" Clay-once dirty mouthed comedian-sent home 3/1/09
-Joan Rivers-talk show host
-Herschel Walker-Retired NFL player-sent home 4/19/09
-Khloe Kardashian-the Kardashian without the nice ass-sent home 4/5/09
-Tionne "T-Box" Watkins-R&B singer-sent home 4/5/09
-Natalie Gulbis-Professional golfer-sent home 4/19/09
-Tom Green-Actor, comedian-sent home 3/15/09
-Claudia Jordan-Actress, model-sent home 3/22/09
-Clint black-country music star
-Brande Roderick-Actress and Playboy model
-Brian McKnight mutli platinum R&B singer-sent home 4/12/09
-Melissa Rivers-daughter of Joan Rivers
-Scott Hamilton-gold medal olympic figure skater-sent home 3/8/09
-Annie Duke-professional poker player, motivational speaker



On the 4/12/09 episode, the challenge was to create an in-store display for Lifelock, that company that protects your identify from theft. Brian McKnight, another very nice fellow, was sent home for failing that task as a project manager. Brian made it very obvious in the boardroom that he was tired, bored and ready to go.

Joan began her slow simmer with Annie during this Lifelock challenge. Seems Annie had allegedly vowed that she would trash Brande for her failures during that competition but Joan felt Annie trashed daughter Melissa.

Nothing of the sort happened but hey, it was in the script.

On 4/19/09 two contenders were sent home. The first challenge, began the week prior right after the Lifelock challenge, was to have the contenders auction of some jewelry from the Ivanka jewelry line. Natalie Gulbis was assigned the task of choosing the jewelry for auction. The prevailing sentiment was that the choices made by Natalie were poor ones, that the jewelry was pretty but too small to be scene from the auction podium. Oh, I forgot. Joan Rivers again came to save the day as Clint Black floundered on his assigned task as auctioneer. They really ought to call this the Joan Rivers Celebrity Apprentice.

Natalie got fired for her failure and soon the next challenge was upon.

In fact I use Schwann’s home delivery from time to time. They are quite expensive and by me their food brings mixed results.

For two people, Schwann’s can be a godsend. I love their pot roast. It comes already “slow-cooked” and it’s very tender and flavorful. It costs nineteen bucks but I cut up portions to make husband hot roast beef sandwiches, which he loves. Husband has bad teeth, a fact that will soon change, and this tender meat is perfect. So out of that nineteen bucks I can get maybe ten nice hot roast beef sandwiches for husband.

Schwann’s has some other good food but given their expense, you almost have to be involved in some sort of apportionment like mine above.

The quality of their food is also mixed. By me, you NEVER want to buy a vegetable that ever had a mother or a father from Schwann’s home delivery. My experience is that their vegetables are awful. Best buy the big bag of frozen things from Walmart then season and cook to your own preference.

At any rate, the challenge was for each team to design a new food item for Schwann’s. I thought both teams came up with perfectly awful recipes, stuff I would never, ever buy. Clint Black came up with a recipe for a chicken breast cooked in a teryaki sauce, a recipe he says is used in his own home.

Well I rarely buy anything with a chicken breast in it as chicken breasts are cheap. It’s simple matter to fry up a chicken breast and cover it with some bottled teryaki sauce, throw on some salt and pepper. The KOTU team added some broccoli to their meal and a frozen yogurt dessert along with that the Schwann’s people said was too complicated for the home consumer.

The Athina team did design a better dish but the noodles had no gluten. Right there I’d never order it.

Well sure there’s folks that can’t tolerate gluten and this dish might be a godsend for them. But the vast majority of people in this country can tolerate gluten and I’m not convinced they’d buy some kind of gluten free dish just on principle. For all we know removing gluten might remove the taste.

The Schwann’s people chose the gluten-free dish as the winner but as I understand it the Schwann’s folks were not terribly impressed by either entry.

Herschel Walker was the Project Manager for KOTU and he got fired.

Below, The Donald fires the two most recent ejected celebrity apprentices.



It’s Down to Three on the Gordon Ramsey Cussing Contest 2009



The winner of the “Hell’s Kitchen” contest their year will be given a head Chef-ship in a new restaurant. The contest is now down to three.

Finalist Andrea will soon be gone and it will be down to Chef Paula and Chef Danny.



This show has the same old, same old, same old, events from week to week. The show begins with perhaps some sort of cooking challenge by Gordon Ramsey. The prize for winning this challenge is unpredictable. Ramsey might take the winner out for an airplane ride or he might award safety from elimination as the prize.

It’s the meat of the episode that is the same.

Hell’s Kitchen opens up. Patrons are seated. The chefs are at their stations in the kitchen of “Hell’s Kitchen”.

The viewer is then treated to about a half an hour of Gordon Ramsey cussing and berating one or another chef contender. Said chef contender did, as is illustrated on the show, do something wrong. On the episode aired on Thursday 4/23/09, Andrea lost track of the Beef Wellingtons and as a result a diner’s meal got delayed and the dinner service did not achieve perfection.

Contender Ben, who was sent home after this episode, forgot to throw in a pile of spaghetti and he made some bland risotto. You’d think he murdered somebody on live TV.



Of course the point of the show is to have drama and conflict in the kitchen. The cussing has been part of the show ever since its inception, some years ago. I hate the cussing, not that I’m a prude so much as the constant blips to keep the curse words off the air are annoying and keep the viewer from watching a logical dialogue flow.

To add to Ramsey’s cussing and abuse, the chefs themselves, who all smoke…do all chef’s smoke? But the chefs themselves tend to cuss a lot. The viewer is left watching a contest filled with annoying bleeps.

I like to watch Hell’s Kitchen on DVR just so I can fast forward past the blips.

Over the years I’ve noticed that Hell’s Kitchen serves up some oddball food. Beef Wellington, for example, is a rare thing to have offered as an entrée on a restaurant menu.

I’ve had Beef Wellington before. It’s a filet mignon type of beef cut. The beef is wrapped with a pie crust and is baked until the middle is a medium rare, or that is the ideal result.

Risotto is another constant offering in Hell’s Kitchen. Risotto is a happening food item of late as we do get Food and Wine magazine at our house. I’ve made risotto a time or two. There are a gazillion ways to make this dish but almost always it involves cooking rice to a creamy state and adding other seasonings to a result that varies.

The risotto in Hell’s Kitchen looks like rice and peas to me. Further, I think it’s served as an appetizer. I can’t imagine risotto as an appetizer.

Hell’s Kitchen also serves scallops which in and of itself is not unusual. But what the hell are those little fried eggs put on top of the scallops?

They are certainly not ordinary hen’s eggs that fit on a scallop that way. I’m not at all sure I’d eat such a thing and I’m game for most anything.

At any rate I think Chef Danny will win this thing. Danny always seemed to be the bridesmaid on so many of the challenges on Hell’s Kitchen 2009. But he was rarely the subject of Ramsey’s horrific wrath and I don’t recall ever seeing him on the block for possible elimination.

Paula’s a good chef as well but my money’s on Danny.
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