Note: Do not read on if you have not seen Season 5, Episode 2 of FOX's MasterChef.
So we still have way too many cooks in the kitchen. They threatened to eliminate during the challenge last night like they did in the premiere, but didn't. I'm glad; it's hard to watch people get sent out while they're still salting (or not salting, probably) their dough.
Mystery Box:Tonight we got the first mystery box filled with ingredients for a dessert. Overall, it was a lot of drama. Elizabeth and Leslie yelled at each other for almost no reason at all, until Gordon had to come tell him to act like a grown up (since he's the only one on the show).
Bottom two were Cutter and Astrid. Cutter made the most ridiculous cappuccino pudding with the show logo swirled into it. Come, on brother. And he made biscotti the size of a skateboard and got a little Italian lesson from Joe. But his dessert, while overly large, ugly, and just wrong, was not as nasty as Astrid's raw lemon bars. Remember last week how she made a mess at her station? That's pretty much what the bars looked like.
Top two were Courtney and Willie. Courtney made a honey coulis and impresses the judges by adding salt to it and whispering over it. Willie made some tiny little cupcakes with cayenne pepper in the cream. Courtney wins.
Elimination Challenge:Courtney not only gets to go in the pantry and pick a dish, but she also gets to choose ten chefs to cook it and ten to save. It's evil. The dish? A meatloaf. Her strategy? Pick some of the better chefs to cook and get eliminated and let people like Leslie and Elizabeth talk smack from the ledge. Also, Courtney takes a weird pleasure in choosing people's fates. "Everyone is going to hate me," she says with a little smile. I think she's our resident psychopath and I can't wait to see what kind of crazy she comes with.
There were a lot of nasty meatloafs and they didn't really pick a winner, though Francis B's adventurous burrata stuffed loaf got rave reviews and Christine topped hers with a fried egg and pesto and I almost ordered delivery.
Stephani made a lamb loaf with couscous and blue cheese and is doomed from the moment Joe asks her, "Do you want to go home?" Whitney is an underdog culinary school dropout who makes a mango (I know) meatloaf with green beans and sweet potato mash. Dan Wu talked a lot about being a food snob but the judges can't even swallow his sorry loose meatloaf with kimchi. The end up sending Whitney home, which is sort of annoying, because I don't think I can listen to Dan Wu talk the rest of the season. And the other Dan just skated through with a mix of the bad meatloafs: a lamb loaf with a sweet potato mash.
Count:Whitney and Astrid are out.
While this show tends to focus on the food, next week they head out to an army base to feed the troops. I'm hoping for a little drama with their MREs.
Who are you rooting for? Tell me in the comments or let me know @karenfratti.
"MasterChef" airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on FOX.