‘Alex vs. America’
I’ve been on a bit of a cooking competition kick, and so far, the greatest discovery (beyond finding out that Beat Bobby Flay is on Season 35) has been Alex vs. America, now in its fourth season. In each episode, Iron Chef Alex Guarnaschelli competes against three chefs who all specialize in a specific type of cuisine (like French or pastry) or a specific ingredient (like bacon or potatoes) in two rounds of competition. Chef Alex is one of Food Network’s greatest competitive chefs and she enters each episode of Alex vs. America with one goal: win. Each round comes with a specific set of parameters, like types of dishes, hyper-specific variants of the episode’s theme ingredient, and additional star ingredients that their dishes must contain. Then the plates are judged blind. It’s fascinating to watch Chef Alex’s mind work as she cooks and often wins, but sometimes, it’s more interesting to watch the episodes where she falls short.