Saffron gelato and kitchen fires on ‘Worst Cooks in America’

Three weeks in and the Food Network’s “Worst Cooks in America” still doesn’t disappoint. On Sunday night’s episode there were fires, saffron gelato, burnt burgers, and Carla Johnson from Long Beach proved once again, she’s the best hot mess that reality food TV has ever seen.

Bobby Flay and Anne Burrell took their teams into a gelato studio in New York to make some wacky flavor combinations. After showing the chefs how to make gelato and a waffle cone, the chefs let their teams loose in the kitchen. Here are some of the flavors the recruits came up with: saffron and basil, pear Gorgonzola and walnut (after someone’s favorite salad flavors) and maple bacon and potato chips (one recruit’s idea of breakfast).

Despite more than half of the recruits scrambling their eggs instead of tempering them, they each managed to finish a gelato flavor and something resembling a waffle cone for the blind tasting. Johnson ended up winning the gelato contest and literally flipped out. She started screaming and threw her arms around Flay.

The next day Flay and Burrell left their recruits alone in the kitchen for a burger challenge. They called in Willie Degal from “Restaurant Stakeout” to set up cameras to watch the action. Left alone in the kitchen these guys were hopeless. Three of them set fires, one of them fell down, another almost chopped his fingers off. It was a mess.

I completely lost it when recruit Aadip Desai from Sacramento decided to put his cheese straight on the grill. As the cheese melted he helplessly tried to scrape it off. “I was trying to grill it to get a nice sear on it,” explained Desai. I was laughing so hard tears fell.

After watching Desai grill cheese and lick his fingers while cooking, Burrell sent him home. I’ll miss his sideburns. Flay ended up sending Prime Time 99 Alex Stein home for his lack of ability to take any direction. “If you play with fire, you’re bound to get burned.” And “Peace out” were his parting words.

Best quotes:

“The only ice cream I’m familiar with is vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. They call that Nipple-politan.” -- Carla Johnson

“I would have never thought of putting no tea in no jelateh-lo-jela-toe.” -- Carla Johnson

“I’m an old chick, but I can still uh, uh, uh, uh, ah.” -- Carla Johnson. I think she needs her own show. “Cooking With Carla”? “Carla in the Kitchen”? I can see it.

“Vegetarian brown eggs. Is that a real egg?” -- Alex Stein

ALSO:

‘Top Chef’ recap: Comeback kid Kristen Kish wins

Wendy’s gets cozy with new lounge-style fireplaces

‘The Taste’ recap: L.A.’s Khristianne Uy kicks off-cut butt

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