Binge Watch Guide is a blog series to lead you through the many available series for streaming.
“Chopped” is the golden child of the Food Network. For those of you who refuse to submit yourselves to the brain numbing exercises that are reality television, “Chopped” will serve as a more respectable, yet equally as indulging, form of time wasting.
Each episode introduces us to four competitors from various backgrounds and pits them against one another in a time-crunched battle to create beautiful presentations of food. The tricky element of the competition comes in the ingredients. For each of the three courses that the chefs prepare, they are given an array of ingredients that they must include in their dishes. To be honest, I don’t know what the ingredients actually are most of the time.
The chefs prepare an appetizer, an entrée and a dessert, each including different obscure ingredients. After each round, one chef is “chopped” from the competition. After the dessert round, one chef is chosen as the champion and receives ten thousand dollars. It’s all very exciting.
Time Commitment: Low. The “Chopped Collection” is currently available on Netflix, a collection of 25 episodes centered on special themes. Each episode is only 45 minutes long, so you only have to dedicate 19 hours of your time to check this one off of the list.
Most Interesting Character: Ted Allen. Given that he is the only individual who appears in every episode, the enthusiastic and painfully awkward host of the competition wins this one by default. As you progress through the episodes, you may find his food puns eventually becoming endearing. Or they will just get more and more painful with each utterance of phrases such as, “this one takes the cake.”
Honorable Mention: Judge Alex Guarnaschelli. She is absolutely ruthless.
The Good: Leave it to the Food Network to turn cooking into a suspenseful and aggressive activity. The show will have you appreciating the secrets of cooking that only extremely experienced chefs make use of. The “chopping block” will break your heart as you watch chefs leave the kitchen in tears. You will find yourself on the edge of your seat as the secret ingredients are revealed and the chefs look at one another in horror. As some might say, “it’s lit.”
The Bad: The judges make terrible decisions for terrible reasons that only those in the world of elite chefs can understand. It hurts to see chefs go, after all of the emotions that you have experienced with them. It seems that the jerkiest chefs often win. Maybe that’s what it takes to win in the kitchen, but what is a girl to do when her favorite chef is put on the “chopping block” and robbed of ten thousand dollars? Regardless, the unexpected outcomes of the competition really only adds to the excitement.
The Takeaway: Cooking is so flippin’ cool. And hard. You will appreciate the artistry that goes into a chef’s work after watching them create beautiful dishes out of random ingredients. It’s a learning experience.
If you liked this, consider watching this too: Cutthroat Kitchen. Yes, yet another cooking competition that will really get your blood boiling.
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