The Next Food Network Star - Top 5

I've been watching this show for the last 4 weeks or so. It's pretty darn good so I'm gonna blog it out to the end. The show's premise is pretty standard reality show/elimination show procedure. They start out with 10 finalists and eliminate one each week based upon performance during challenges. The selection committee decides who goes home (it's very similar to the judges panel on America's Next Top Model).

The five remaining contestants are: Lisa, Kelsey, Shane, Aaron and Adam.

This weeks challenge paired each contestant up with a local Girl Scout. They had to first discuss food choices with the little girl, then decide upon a simple meal that they could prepare together LIVE ON THE RACHAEL RAY SHOW!

These challenges are extremely high-pressure because, not only do the contestants have to make food and cooking decisions very quickly but they often have to perform to a camera or a live audience. And everything has a time-limit! Each contestant had 45 minutes to decide what they were going to prepare and get it cooked once. Then they had 4 minutes of live time on the air with Rachel to prepare it again!

Aaron went first and he did extremely well. He was funny and seemed relaxed. He was not intimidated by Rachael and engaged his girl scout during the entire segment.

Kelsey is one of the youngest contestants and although she has attended a top-notch culinary school she really has no experience to fall back on. She was kind of nervous and it really showed.

Lisa is a very bossy person and railroaded her girl scout into cooking couscous? During her segment with Rachael she lost her nerve and just quit talking.

Shane is also young and childless and did not relate very well at all to his girl scout during their preparation session. While on the show he completely ignored the little girl except for forgetting her name and calling her 'kid' (thank goodness Rachael included her).

Adam was very relaxed, included his girl scout and told several jokes. He did a really good job.

During the elimination session Aaron and Adam were the first two to be sent through to the next round. Lisa, Kelsey and Shane were the bottom three. Lisa was told she needed to work on her personality 'demons' and also sent through to the next round.

Shane was sent home.

The final four, Aaron, Adam, Kelsey and Lisa are going to Las Vegas to be paired up with Paula Dean! THAT should be very interesting.

I can't really pick a favorite in this show. One week two people will do very well and the next week they completely bomb. It's definitely still anybody's game to win or lose. I think I'm favoring Adam though because he just seems to have the most poignant story. He had a family owned restaurant that went belly up. Since then he's gone back to workin in another restaurant. He's explained to the judges how the trauma of his restaurant going out of business caused him to have somewhat of a 'cooking block' for a while. The judges really seemed to be moved by this. I was too.

The Next Food Network Star airs on Food Network Sunday nights at 10pm/9pm CST.