Don't Use

Let me start by saying I LOVE any show dealing with food, shows like "Iron Chef," "Top Chef" and "Hell's Kitchen." I think cooking is an art like being a painter or designer. I love this show! I think Gordian Ramsay's tough-love teaching approach and the show's high energy make it a perfect combo. Alright, so, now that I got that out of the way let's move on to last night's show.

Like most reality shows right now, we are getting down to the wire. "Hell's Kitchen" only has three chefs left: Keith the tough guy, Heather, who is a great line chef but not the friendliest chef to ever hit the planet; and Virginia, the underdog who wants nothing more than to be accepted by Chef Ramsay.

Every show starts with a challenge and this one was hard. They were instructed to recreate one of Chefs signature dishes by only TASTING it; it blows my mind that people are actually able to do that. Oh, did I mention they were only given 20 minutes? Talk about crunch time.

Off they go, all cooking up a storm with Keith, of course, giving Virginia crap because he thinks she is copying. If Heather and Keith would spend less time worrying and bitching about Virginia maybe their dishes would be better. What do you know, Virginia ends up winning the challenge again, and is the only one who guesses Chef's dish spot on. I say, good for her!

The other contestants say she was given an unfair advantage because she just bought Chef's cookbook on her reward outing last week and the recipe for that dish was in the book. It is highly unlikely, in my opinion, that Chef is going to pick a dish Virginia is reading up on at night. This pointing fingers at Chef is just jealousy, I think.

Virginia gets a private (hmm, "private") lesson from Chef on how to run the line while the other two polish glasses. Ha! I love karma.

Onto dinner service, which is my favorite part of the show. It's where the player's skills are really tested and Chef yells at them the entire time. That's good TV people. Tonight at dinner service each one of them will have to head to the pass and run the kitchen for an amount of time. Again, Keith and Heather cry "no fair" because Virginia just got a lesson on how to run the kitchen from Chef himself. We'll see if it was worth it.

Keith goes first and Chef tells one of his sous chefs to undercook the pasta and send it up to see if Keith notices, which he does immediately. Keith gets points from Chef for that. Heather goes up to run the show and the sous chef purposely makes lumpy mashed potatoes and sends them up to go out to the guests. Heather makes a quick comment about the lumpy mashed potatoes but sends them out anyway. Bad.

Chef jumps all over her, minus points for Heather. Finally, Virginia. She notices the sous chef put a bass on her dish instead of salmon, points for Virginia from Chef … as if she needed them! Virginia is actually the only one who shows some authority when asked to run the kitchen. I think she did a great job and proved herself to Chef. They successfully finish dinner service and are each asked by Chef to nominate another person to be kicked off. Of course Keith and Heather gang up on Virginia (no surprise) and nominate her and Virginia nominates Keith.

It's down to Keith or Virginia being eliminated and they make their final pleas. In my opinion, at this point either could go. Virginia was shaky in the beginning but really picked up the pace, and Keith's attitude has always bothered me.

Chef makes a shocker of a decision (I love when this happens!) and gets rid of Keith. Then, a reality TV first happened. Keith got up in Chefs face and proceeded to tell him that he thinks he has a crush on Virginia. WOW! Did he just step up to the master and tell a married world-renowned Chef that he is playing favorites????!!!! Right then Keith proved why he should have been sent home. He was immature and rude and Chef handled it like a true pro.

Maybe Keith will be back next season with a better attitude. Until then, it's down to Virginia or Heather. Who will it be? My money is on Virginia.