"chef academy recap" news and stories

It all came down to this. What this was, we weren't exactly sure, but the remaining students on the final episodes of Bravo's "Chef Academy" certainly had a few ideas: Culinary fame and fortune, mad kitchen skills, a starring role on his or her own reality show. But barring that, a compelling reason to live might be nice.

"I had no path in life -- and now I have one!" gushed schizo Sarah, whose hysterics this season ranged from panic attacks at the sight of the ocean (suggestion: don't join a televised cooking academy in Venice Beach) to self-flagellating shrieking (as when she, um, forgot to bake her bread during the bread-baking challenge).

We're pretty sure self-esteem intervention counseling was not one of Chef Jean-Christophe Novelli's goals when he arrived on these shores, but judging the sound bites on the final two episodes of Bravo's cooking/kooks-on-parade show, everyone was feeling positively transformed by the seven-plus weeks they've spent fashioning spun sugar swans, Parmesan cheese baskets and caramel croquembouches.

Something about Bravo's latest cooking/lifestyle experience "Chef Academy" brings out the easily amused grandma in us: Oh, those wacky young classmates -- what zany pranks will they pull this week?! These here whippersnappers, the hijinks they concoct! How saucy -- pun intended! Get it?!

In general, food TV tends to stick to a formula, and boy, have our friends at Bravo stuck with theirs. You can count on the first 40 minutes of any given episode of "Chef Academy" to consist of mostly canned hijinks interrupted by about 10 scattered minutes of cooking instruction -- which almost always include some fancy French-chef nonsense to wow Aunt Agnes and Grammy Geraldine at home, like a grated-Parmesan bowl or a marzipan flower.

And the remaining 20 minutes? It's what we live for, the inevitable tasting, judging and ridiculing of the nine amateur party planners, would-be actors, housewives and sleazoids who make up the (spoiler alert) yet-to-be eliminated pupils of "world's sexiest chef" Jean-Christophe Novelli.

Three strikes and any one student is out, but these three strikes -- despite the cruel, plate-throwing, sneering critiques this week -- seem damn near impossible to accumulate.

OK. So from the beginning, we haven't had any illusions that Bravo's "Chef Academy" would be about anything as pedestrian as, you know, cooking. But four weeks in, and we're not really sure what the show is about anymore: Hypnotists? Baby showers? Porn stars? Psychics? Elephants? Surfing?... And that was all in Monday night's episode.

We can almost picture the show's directors cracking the whip at their nine over-the-top reality recruits: "C'mon, people! There's a whole hour to kill! Don't you have any more eccentricities to exploit?"

And oh do they ever. These students are a fountain of bizarre traits, habits and beliefs -- which, if you think about it, makes "Chef Academy" less of a cooking show and more of a documentary on life in L.A.

If it wasn't Tracie hiring a hypnotist to help her overcome her smoking habit -- because Chef Jean-Christophe Novelli thinks the dirty habit ruins your palate -- it was the platinum-blonde professional kook Suzanne taking the class on a field trip to her split-level digs in the suburbs of the O.C. "I love where I live -- I love Orange County!" she enthused, before promptly freaking everybody out by showing them her husband's big-game trophies, which included stuffed cats, elephants and bears (oh my!).

Ah, another week, another round of semi-canned antics with the motley crew of "Chef Academy," aka "Bravo's Freakshow Top Chef Rejects Hour."

If our zany cast of characters isn't busy getting berated by Angry Sexy Chef Jean-Christophe Novelli, it seems they're desperately trying to give him an excuse to berate them -- in the middle of learning how to cook risotto -- if at all possible. How else to explain this week's manufactured crisis, consisting of a tailor, Novelli's eyeliner-laden gay assistant and a set of chef's whites that just had to be taken in, ASAP?

The perpetrator in question was platinum-blonde student Suzanne, everyone's favorite lacquered, malapropism-spouting Orange County housewife, just struggling to cook the pants off of Novelli and look good doing it. Oh, and if she gained 10 or 15 minutes of fame in the process, we're sure she wouldn't mind.

If last week's episode dwelled on the porn-star past of would-be actor Emmanuel, this week was more or less devoted to the inanity of Suzanne: her philosophies ("They do not understand the gloriosity of having well-glossed lips"), her alliances (hugs with ex-navy cook Kup), and her spray-on tan (you don't understand, her coat was chafing it all off!).

Apparently, someone at Bravo decided they needed their very own Gordon Ramsay. And he needed to be, you know, sexy.

We know this, because on the series premiere of "Chef Academy," we were reminded about 20 times within the first 15 minutes of French chef-extraordinaire Jean Christophe Novelli's tall, dark and smarmy good looks. First by his right-out-of-central-casting flamboyant personal assistant, then by the contestants, then by the reference to a New York Times' survey naming him "The World's Sexiest Chef."

Personally, we think he looks like a cross between "Charles in Charge"-era Scott Baio and an aging Jon Lovitz, but beauty is in the eye of the network, apparently. What struck us most in this inaugural hour was "Chef Academy"'s weird mix of elements. Cooking-competition program, ridiculous-amateur freakshow and yuppie lifestyle catalog all converged to give Monday night's premiere one of those "Is this thing going to last?" vibes that it couldn't quite shake. To quote one of the student-contestants, "This isn't 'Top Chef'!" Don't we know it.