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The Next Food Network Star: Week 2 - Was Nipa eliminated?

By: Santosh :+: Under: Brown in America, Entertainment, Food
On: ⋅ June 9, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
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Week 2 on TNFNS was pretty exciting. After racing through various nondescript locations in NYC and answering culinary knowledge related questions, the contestants had to pick up or were allocated raw materials depending on their performances in the quiz. Then Dinner Impossible host, Robert Irvine, who looks an awful lot like Mr. Spock from Star Trek, assigned them the task of cooking brunch for 30 guests on a moving train.
This is how Indian cuisine chef Nipa fared:
Nipa’s team was placed second in the quiz challenge. Given the choice between duck and lamb, Nipa picked lamb. No surprises there. After being criticized for her mild flavored less than stellar sukhi bhaji in last week’s episode, Nipa went all out on the spiciness. Her group’s presentation of their product was nothing spectacular.
In the elimination round, when asked why the judges should retain her despite her lackluster display, Nipa had a breakdown of sorts and left the room, which led us to believe she had been eliminated. But she composed herself and walked back into the room and conjured up some immigrant angle. I guess that convinced the judges because down to two contestants for elimination, Nipa lived on to fight another week.
From watching Food Network over the last 7 or so years, a couple of traits I’ve noticed in Food Network show hosts/chefs is their friendly demeanor and ability to engage in story telling. While cooking they impart detailed descriptions of each step, complete with witty anecdotes and minor trivia. Nipa, on the other hand, comes across as abrupt, cocky and arrogant from her clips on the show which leads us to believe either she is that way in real life or the show writers and editors are portraying Nipa in the mold of a Food Network Omarosa.
My wife also seemed to think that she is getting a raw deal from the judges - last week they critiqued her food for lacking the curry taste explosion and this week when they got it, she was critiqued for the food being too hot. News flash for Food Network execs: Most Indian cooking is too hot for most people to handle if you’re not used to it. It’s still hard to root for Nipa given her demeanor (or how she is portrayed on-screen).
On her part, Nipa would do well to stick to one plan instead of changing around to please everyone. Having said that, a little bit of customer and situational knowledge would be useful when she cooks. As some judges mentioned yesterday, lamb curry is not the ideal dish for a brunch. Lamb samosas, perhaps? Or maybe even a lamb curry salad?
But the message sent to Nipa was loud and clear, Food Network needs variety (something I stressed in my post last week) and her Indian cooking was exactly what Food Network was looking for. Can Nipa hold it together long enough to be The Next Food Network Star? Only time will tell.

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