Want to know what’s cooking each week when it comes to your favorite food and dining shows? Be sure to check out our weekly roundup of what’s sizzling, what’s salty, and what’s a little under-seasoned on your favorite food, lifestyle, and cooking competition shows.
‘Kids Baking Championship’
Kaniyah Cary has been a real bright spot in this season of “Kids Baking Championship” — ever since an early episode when she loftily told judge Duff Goldman that he would eat something she had made and he would like it. Over the weeks we’ve grown to love her no-nonsense attitude, and the amazing dance moves she might break out at any time, like when she’s mixing up some buttercream.
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But her reaction to finding out she’s safe after a tough week has really sealed the deal for us that Kaniyah is one of the most enjoyable and unfiltered reality show contestants of all time, kid or adult. Watching her brings us serious joy, and we hope she takes the whole thing home because she’s a talented baker with an amazing attitude.
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‘Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party’
Martha and Snoop are back, y’all! And right off the bat, they are taking things to a whole new level of awkwardness with a cringeworthy, culturally-appropriative episode devoted to Japanese cooking. Martha, the outfit, just… No. We wouldn’t have you any other way, but sometimes…
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At least Martha’s picking up some new knowledge — we like to imagine her serving purple drank from a festive yet elegant crystal punchbowl — that she’d describe exactly that way.
‘MasterChef Junior’
It sort of goes without saying that that the kids on “MasterChef Junior” have to be preternaturally mature. They’re preparing incredibly challenging dishes that would stymie many adult home cooks under tough time constraints, all while competing against other similarly talented and quirky kids who they bond with quickly and closely. We adore an offbeat, startlingly emotionally mature kid, so we fell in immediate love with sweet Jake and his adorable old man outfit…
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Watching the interaction with Gordon Ramsay in this clip, we figured this plucky young man was a shoo-in for an apron, and were genuinely distraught when he didn’t get one. Why make us love this kid, only to eliminate him minutes later? And how does a kid get sent home for making mac and cheese with gruyere, lobster, and panko? We would eat that all day long!
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Watching his competitors give him a hug and tell him how talented and awesome he is, we realized that sometimes on these hypercompetitive reality shows even just a small glimpse of someone can be surprisingly meaningful. Jake may not have made it to the next round, but we got to experience a brief moment of his cheerful, staunch kindness: Not a pivotal moment for the competition itself, but a strong and resonant moment that reminds us why we love these shows so much.
‘My Kitchen Rules’
This show can be frustrating at times for its loosey-goosey format — the scoring and competitive aspect are an afterthought, and while we enjoy the banter and camaraderie between the contestants, the looseness can feel a little too sloppy to make the show appointment television. But all that changed this week, thanks to guest judge Leah Remini and her family. While the teams prepare small bites for a hundred attendees at a charity art auction, Remini and her mother, sister, and daughter careen haphazardly through the scenes, creating adorable chaos and wine-mom situations at every turn.
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They give super blunt feedback on the food, snipe at each other in that affectionate way families do, flirt with the hunky artist, yell at Andrew Dice Clay, and even throw down some tipsy camera confessionals. It’s delightful and unexpected — and never would have happened on a show that actually stuck to a strict format. We basically wanted to clip the whole episode, and so: We’re sorry we ever doubted you, “My Kitchen Rules.” You may be a hot mess, but we’re starting to love you because of that fact — not in spite of it.
‘Top Chef’
If you haven’t been watching “Last Chance Kitchen” online, you probably don’t feel the full impact of Brooke’s return to the show after her victory there — after all, she only left last week. But on the web series, Brooke opened up about how much it sucked to be the first runner-up in her season to Kristen Kish, who earned her way back into the competition through “Last Chance Kitchen.”
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Now, ironically, the conceit that may have cost Brooke the win in Season 10 has allowed her to return to the finale, and she’s the first person to admit the cognitive dissonance of that. We’re still a little sad our forever girl Casey didn’t make it back in, but she did come back as Brooke’s sous chef in this challenge — which makes us feel like she gets to play a role in Brooke’s victory in this week’s elimination. It’s awesome to see them support each other and care about one another… And extra fun to watch them sample tequila with the other chefs at the Patron Hacienda, which is admittedly and clearly a tequila commercial — but is it really product placement, when the product sells itself?
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“Kids Baking Championship” airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Food Network; “Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner” is back with new episodes Mondays at 10 on VH1; “MasterChef Junior” and “My Kitchen Rules” air at 8 and 9 Thursdays on Fox; and “Top Chef” wraps its season Thursday, Feb. 23, at 8 p.m. on Bravo.
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