Sabotage Has Never Tasted So Good..."Cutthroat Kitchen"

Cutthroat Kitchen (2013)

Starring Alton Brown

The Story:

Alton Brown hosts possibly the most diabolical game show/reality show on The Food Network.  4 chefs compete in 3 rounds of cooking competitions. They have between 20-30 minutes to create a dish. After the judge comes out and tries each of the 4 dishes, that judge sends one cook home each round until only one survives.

Sounds simple?

So arm each of the chefs with $25,000 and offer them a series of auctions where they bid to make life miserable for anyone else.

The last chef standing gets to keep whatever money they didn't spend to get there.

Brilliant!

The dishes themselves range from simple to fairly complex.

They have 60 seconds to grab whatever they need to make the dish.

Invariably, someone realizes that they left a crucial component such as eggs, or flour, or milk, or bread behind in the pantry.  How will they make do?

They get creative, or if they are lucky, an auction item comes along that allows them to steal or replace ingredients with someone else.

The show is a lot of fun to watch and see the creativity of the chefs.

The main thing I'm noticing in the first few episodes, it seems like whoever spends the most money in the first round invariably loses.

The other chefs either gang up on them with later challenges, and they just no longer have the money to try and compete.

Some challenges push their imagination...some challenges are just too hard to overcome.

There is a season now streaming on Netflix as of this writing.

I'm hoping they will add the other episodes soon!

Final Grade: A

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: Not sure yet, but I definitely want to see them all.

Here's To A Delicious Weekend... "Good Eats"

Good Eats (1999)

Starring Alton Brown

Originally aired on the Food Network

The Story:

Alton Brown hosts a delightfully entertaining cooking show that is equal parts cooking, history, science and fun.

You'll learn a few things along the way, whether you intend to or not!

So apparently Netflix snapped up some episodes of shows from the Food Network.

I figured, why not?

It's just a bit over 21 minutes long, and sometimes a little short something is just what you need to unwind before bed, or just relaxing on the couch but you don't want to devote the full time that a movie demands.

After all, we enjoyed our episodes of Cake Boss, so let's see what this offers.

It's awesome!

Brown is a genial host.  Filled with facts and enthusiasm for what he does, Brown is filled with energy from start to finish on his show.

He offers up recipes both straightforward and easy to the challenging, but you see with just following a few simple steps, you too can cook like a chef!

That he infuses historical facts and science components in his explanations expands your overall cooking knowledge and appreciation for the magic that happens in the kitchen.

So far only 25 episodes are available for streaming on Netflix as of this writing.  It's not the first season, as Brown refers to other episodes in some of his discussions.

So far, I've seen no reason why these need to be in order, so feel free to jump right in.

I'm trying to take it one episode a day so I don't run out, but it would be so easy to just let them play.

As the show ran for over a decade, there's another 200+ episodes just waiting to be watched.

Dear Netflix,
Please, bring them!
:)

Final Grade: A-

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: I would have no problem watching some of these again, but again, I'm hoping I get to see the other 225 or so episodes first!