Food Network Star - Season 8 - Episode 3 Recap

This week on Food Network Star, we were treated to a Chopped theme, where each team was given a basket of ingredients and had to create a dessert with these ingredients.

Team Alton was the first team up, and Alton seemed pretty cranky and was giving his team tough love.  At one point, he told Martie Duncan to "shut up and cook."  Apparently Alton has never seen any of his shows where all he does is talk, and barely cook.

• Martie Duncan talked about her age over and over again and her S'more didn't impress any of the Chopped judges.
• Justin Warner was trying to get chocolate out of Hershey kisses without peeling the wrapper off and then burnt some chocolate in the microwave as well.  The show tried to make it seem like his dish was going to be a disaster, but in the end, everyone liked his dessert a lot.
• Emily Ellyn and Judson Allen didn't get much focus on this episode and didn't stand out as being good or bad.

Team Giada was up next and she complained that she had a very hard basket of ingredients.

• Linkie Marais did the best job this week for Team Giada and had a good dish and good presentation.
• Josh Lyons continued to be the disaster that he has been and didn't impress with his food, and forgot to give a tip during his presentation.
• Yvan Lemoine and Martita Jara got similar remarks and judges didn't think they had their normal energy and thought they could have done better.
• Philip 'Ippy' Aiona seems to be impressing the judges more and more each week and may be a sleeper to keep advancing.

Last up was Team Bobby.

• Michele Ragussis seems to be dropping back into the middle of the pack after her past two weeks not living up to week one.  She complained that she thought Giada was staring at her during the whole presentation, but I think this may have been some editing on Food Network's part.
• Malcolm Mitchell impressed with his food, but stumbled a lot and didn't bring any energy during his presentation.
• Eric Lee seemed to be the standout of the group and once again the judges loved his food.
• Nikki Martin tried to make a bread pudding that didn't have enough time to set and this was a big turn-off for all the judges.

This week, there was no winning team and each team would have someone up for elimination.  Nikki Martin, Josh Lyons, and Martie Duncan were all put up for elimination.  No surprises there.  They had to do a presentation on how to grill indoors.  Nikki Martin really impressed the judges with her presentation and they thought she made herself a contender in that 60 seconds.  She was told she was safe and now it was down to Josh Lyons and Martie Duncan for elimination.  Surprise, surprise, it was (finally) Josh Lyons that was eliminated.  Just as I predicted last week with Giada having 5 team members, and other teams with 4 members.  Although Martie was safe for this week, I don't think we will be seeing a Martie's Party show on Food Network any time soon.


Image Sources - Foodnetwork.com