Cheering for Hell’s Kitchen

Hell’s Kitchen is a reality cooking show with an evil twist. Two teams square off and cook up the best meals every week, until only one person remains and gets the top prize of being an apprentice at a posh restaurant owned by host Gordon Ramsay. The problem? Gordon Ramsay can make sailors blush with his cursing. He is a difficult boss, a pusher and extreme motivator, a harsh superior who can compliment recipes once in a blue moon while throwing pots and pans across kitchens and kicking wastebaskets and cooking stations over as often as contestants try to hold back their tears. The show isn’t called Hell’s Kitchen for nothing.

Chef Gordon Ramsay (courtesy of http://www.smh.com.au/news/tv-reviews/hells-kitchen/2007/05/14/1178995061555.html).
Knighted, renowned, and honored, this top chef does not mince his words. If Hell’s Kitchen had a script, the screenwriter’s keyboard would be missing the letters F, U, C, and K by now.

This season, Chef Ramsay pits aspiring men and women chefs against each other. One man, Matt, is labeled by the men’s team as a weak link because he can’t seem to work with the rest of the boys. Chef Ramsay transferred Matt to the girls’ team last week, and this week, Matt has to prove that it isn’t his fault that the boys are doing pitifully.

It turns out that Matt is right.

What follows are experiential and media journal entries on the May 13 episode of Hell’s Kitchen.