Food Network Star - Episode #4 — Nikki Dinki Cooking

TEAMS!!

This week, we are going to the movies!

As we are opening up our envelopes that tell us what genre we are cooking for, Romance, Musical or Western, I am sitting there thinking "just not Western."

I can fit my POV into a Romance or Musical theme (though I'm not sure what kind of food is musical in nature) but "Meat on the Side" doesn't exactly scream Western. Western flavors are more of a Russell thing filled with bacon and smoky meats.

But of course on this show you rarely get the easy route.

As I gather with my team, the idea of a Veggie Chili with lots of Poblanos, Anaheims and Chipotle chilies pops into my head, topped with a fresh and bright tomatillo salsa, a hint of meat and I know this could work.

Combine my chili with a signature Russell meat dish for the Entree and a diner perfected dessert from Stacey and our meal sounds great!

Now to sell this meal...

With Stacey dressed in a rockin dress she seems like the perfect damsel in distress or sexy bar maid. And I decided it won't look too ridiculous if I go up against Russell, fake guns in hand and have a mini shoot out. Of course I do look ridiculous, but that's part of the fun!

We take a long time choosing every word carefully, making sure to stay true to the theme but always remembering that our number one goal is selling the food.

After the burger bash I have realized that selling the food and making it sound irresistible is always the most important thing!

Our trailer turns out great, we worked well together and got a great take. But after viewing the other teams work in the theater I just didn't know if ours was good enough to win.

I thought Team Romance's trailer was hilarious (though I wasn's sure if it could be aired on Food Network without a "strong sexual content" warning) and am honestly shocked when half way through the service I realize they are not filling any orders. I guess it was too much for some people, but it was still one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

Filling orders was crazy, they were coming in FAST! I came so close to running out of food. Luckily half way through the cooking time I decided to change pots and make a larger batch than I was planning.

And I was right! I definitely would have run out of food had I not made the larger batch.

Stacey's dessert put us a little behind because the marshmallows had to be toasted at the last minute, but believe me it was worth it!! Yum!

In the end we really didn't know if got more orders than team Musical. I thought we did...but it was close!! I felt bad for Team Romance, they were obviously feeling down and those are 3 of my favorite people.

Hearing how much the judges loved my food was awesome! It was great to win because we sold the most food, but impressing Alton Brown with my chili was by far the real highlight of the day.

When Lovelygot eliminated I cried (I seem to do that a lot on the show, haha). We always talked about how much we both wanted it. And though she needed to improve on some things, I really thought that her presentational skills would keep her around a lot longer.

The lesson really is, that you don't know what is going to happen week to week and you never know who might go home. I promise that these things are blaringly true for next week ;)