Cheryl Katz

Anthony Bourdain, food author and Travel Channel TV personality, explains why Amy won’t win. They’re all excellent reasons not to win – she simply is too smart and too sophisticated for a network about making kitchen crafts accessible to we average slobs at home:

Amy is too capable, too hard, and waay too French-centric. As the judges–again–candidly and astutely pointed out. FN likes food their audience can pronounce. Her Cordon Bleu experience, leadership skills and cooking ability–that she’s clearly a strong, capable woman are HUGE liabilities. The judges hate her already–she’s a painful rebuke to everything they stand for–and a painful reminder of their dead, hollow souls–how far over to the dark side they’ve strayed.

http://blog.ruhlman.com/ruhlmancom/2007/06/ruhlmans_nightm.html

He’s also said,

Amy (is it Amy?) made the mistake of using fancy communiss ingredients like goat cheese and looking like a real, working woman and talking too fast. The judges hate her and her fancy-ass French ways.

http://blog.ruhlman.com/ruhlmancom/2007/06/next_fn_star_up.html

I wouldn’t have gone as far as to say that the judges hate her. They seem to give her matter of fact critique, and I attributed that to her generally even keel and mature handling of even the selection committee’s lame comments. I feel as if they will come up with something not especially positive even when a contestant’s performance was flawless. Anyhoo.

Also, I just watched Colombe’s exit interview where she explains why she used jarred cheese in her stadium food challenge. And it still is indefensible. I’m sorry, but how hard is it to melt some effing cheese? Get it started on low heat and let it sit while you do the rest of your prep work; I simply do not see where the complication arises. Furthermore, there is no way in which preparing a fresh salsa magically makes the whole dish fresh and healthy, food to feel good about eating. She lost her crunchy granola yoga earth food badge the minute her eyes fell on the jar of Cheez Wiz in the market.

I had the very long beginning of a very bad post written and saved in drafts; an objective list of the awful ways in which moms eat each other alive for their choices.

Posting such a post is really deflecting attention from what I really want to say, which is that I’m tired of being told what I should be doing, how much my husband should be doing, and how much time I should take off.

No one walks in my shoes. No one else is part of my family dynamic. And no one else is responsible for my daughter’s health and happiness.

I’ve tried scheduling, and I’ve tried being flexible with her schedule. What I’ve discovered is that she may follow a general pattern, but it isn’t tied to precise times that are identical from day to day. So if she is tired at 8:30, I let her sleep then. And if she is clearly not tired until 11 pm, then that’s when she’ll go to bed. I’m tired of fighting to implement and maintain a regular schedule, when it results in more stress and less sleep for my husband and for me.

Sami is not a fan of eating yet. I offer her food at least once a day, but I’m not willing to turn meals into stressful occasions for her. So if after 5 bites, she remains uninterested, I give her some safe baby finger foods or a mesh feeder to play with, and call it a day. She’s still gaining steadily through nursing, and showing small signs of interest in food. I don’t need her to eat just because everyone else’s kids do. She’s crawling, practically walking, and I trust her to start eating when she’s ready. (I also suspect that she’s not terribly interested in food because her teeth are going to come up soon – the lumps on her gums must be very painful – but that’s another story entirely.)

My daughter sleeps with me, nurses on demand at 9 months, and is not rigidly scheduled. She gets a bath every day, is well nourished, blowing away her developmental milestones, and is a happy, well adjusted, caring, sharing, gentle and friendly baby. She spends tons of quality time with me and with my husband every day. He may not always be the one to give the bath or take her to bed, but that’s really for our family to decide and not for anyone else to criticize.

Ultimately, I’m your all around crunchy hippie of a momma. I won’t say that I agree with everyone’s parenting choices, but I will tell you that what others choose for their children is their choice, barring abuse. I don’t expect the majority of other parents to understand why I make the choices I do. But I do expect them to be respectful and keep their unsolicited advice to themselves, if it is going to be unfriendly and derisive.

Edit: I’m recognizing that it’s not reasonable for me to expect others to keep their thoughts to themselves. This is a reminder to me that I don’t have to feel pressured by advice of others; having a different view doesn’t make me wrong or uncertain. I just need to let things roll off my shoulders.

Of course, I’m rooting for Amy – not just representing San Diego, but all around awesome person (whose kid plays really well with my daughter!)

But this week went pretty predictably, and Ben and I nailed the eliminated folks before the show was half done.

Colombe – not only did she passively sabotage another contestant, but then couldn’t even bring it up in a timely way when he searched and questioned for his stuff? What EVER. The French Toast. “It tasted good to me, but…” HELLO. This is because your regular diet consists of twigs and berries! Which are fresh, if flavourless. Her frenetic camera presentation combined with bad French Toast, cheez-wiz nachos, and generally crappy personality made it clear from the get-go that we’d (finally) get our wish for her to go home!

Adrian – nothing too much to say about him. He has flown pretty much under my radar all along. The bacon mushrooms did look good though.

Salmon – Always makes food that looks good, but his personality doesn’t do it for me. I disagreed with the selection committee about the game food challenge, though. I liked the little persona he assumed. It said “New York Street Vendor” to me, and I felt it worked toward the challenge.

Amy – I always agree with what she makes, but then I like culinary adventures, and I live in San Diego. I *wish* you could get goat cheese quesadillas at sports events. I get why that wasn’t the best choice for that challenge. I also think she handled the feedback with more poise and grace than anyone – she never cracks, always responds responsibly, and takes the critique on to the next challenge. I’m also glad she said what she did to Colombe – she probably guilted her into helping Paul with the challenge she sort of snapped out from under him at the market. *GO AMY*

Tommy – I was sad to see him go, since I thought his meatball looked great (though I would have wanted to eat it with a fork.) Deep down, he wants to be home with his family, and his camera presentation was exceedingly dry. I see why he’s going home, and I can find peace with it.

Paul – I would have preferred he go home, rather than Tommy. He generally responds to things like a poodle. Advised not to “spin out” by the selection committee, he chirps a parting phrase and prances out the door. He did face greater challenges this challenge than other players, mostly due to Colombe, so keeping him despite his poor showing does make sense to me. I suspect he’ll go home next week, though.

Rory – I’m not her biggest fan, but I must say I am a fan of her using her rack to sell her cheesesteaks. And I was a fan of her annoyance at Colombe’s flakiness. She’s becoming more of a character. I just wish she wouldn’t look so hurt every time she gets a little bit of negative feedback.

JAG – meh. Clearly he is his own favorite project. I think he generally does a great job of making himself a multimedia product. Something about him registers as childish and petulant to me – kind of like my little brother was when we would have “contests.” Lots of attitude, but not so much delivering. He is clearly a good cook, and I don’t think he’ll be among the next round of eliminations.

In general with this show, I like people who show personality and calm on camera, who show poise and adulthood as contestants, and who take on interesting dishes in their challenges. This is why I’d be rooting for Amy whether or not I knew her personally. (Though I admit, having a friend on the show makes me feel like I’m executing the strategy myself.)

The show’s shot sequence during the stay/leave scenes is becoming formulaic enough that I can tell 20 seconds before they announce the next contestant, who they’ll be naming.

I’m ready to see Amy start kicking some real butt next week, but I’m comfortable with her simply maintaining a safe position. You don’t have to win all the challenges to be one of the last two finalists.

I decided it may be time to get over myself and have some bigger ideas. Or perhaps just to express them in a more articulate way. Here’s to life, the weather, and motherhood; anything in between is incidental, and to be celebrated.