Book Review: Gone Girl

I began reading Gone Girl because I was out of options. That sounds dismissive of the book, which I probably would have read at some point anyway, but it's also the truth. As what was supposed to be a four-day hospital stay with Joey while he recovered from surgery turned into a three-week affair with plenty of down time, I motored through the book I brought with me (Pet Sematary) and the book I bought about a week in (The Art of Fielding). We still had days to go, so I took a walk down to Fenway for my second trip to the Boston University Barnes & Noble. (I feel like I have to state that, yes, as a librarian, I know the public library was an option. But we were close to getting discharged and I didn't want to have to make a side-trip across the city to return a book I hadn't yet finished on our way home.)

I was looking for a sale and found a buy-two-get-one-free table. The first book I noticed was Jim Gaffigan's parenting memoir Dad is Fat, which was exactly the type of book Matt and I read together. Then I saw Gone Girl, which has been on my "I really ought to read that" list since it came out. (The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian, an author that keeps getting recommended to me but who I've never read before, rounded out my three.)

I began reading it in the hospital and Callie, Joey's energetic nurse, noticed it right away. "SO GOOD," she gushed. The next day, Joey was moved to another room. His new nurse saw me reading when she came in to give him some medicine. "That is such a great book," she said, then launched into a confession of her love of thrillers and Dennis Lehane books.

The nursing staff of Boston Children's Hospital wasn't alone. I was told how much I'd love it by friends and by a random woman in the parking lot of a rest stop on the Mass Pike, who knocked on my window while I read in the car waiting for Matt to use the bathroom. She pointed to the book with wide eyes and gave me a thumbs up, mouthing, "SO GOOD," in the exact same way as Callie. It was only moderately terrifying.

So you might say I had high expectations.

And to a degree, it lived up to it. The author - Gillian Flynn - is clearly talented. I'm not really talking about her writing style - although she's talented in that regards, too - but in the even more impressive way in which she parceled out information so that the entire book was one like one long twist.

The story centers on the marriage of Amy and Nick Dunne, recently laid off magazine writers who move from New York City to Nick's tiny hometown in Missouri to care for his ailing parents. On the morning of their fifth anniversary, Amy goes missing. But questions begin arising: Is she dead? Kidnapped? Is Nick responsible? How complicated of a relationship did they have, anyway?

The answer to that last question is very. Amy spent her life as her parents' muse, the real-life subject of a fictionalized children's book series they penned. Nick was the doted-upon son/nephew/brother of the women in his life while hating his toxic father. The book is told in the first person, with chapters alternating between Amy's and Nick's point of view, and it's soon obvious that something is not adding up. Their respective experiences are just so different. So what's really going on?

Gone Girl was extremely unpredictable pretty much throughout, and I commend Flynn's ability to both drop hints early on and not give anything away. My only real qualm is that I hated both Nick and Amy. Hated them. I'm not averse to enjoying something with unlikable protagonists - I'm a huge fan of Breaking Bad and Mad Men, for one. But even the most evil characters have redeeming qualities or at least side characters you can root for. Amy and Nick were both loathsome, and other than possibly Nick's sister Go, the side characters were mostly window dressing. The ending was surprising and not what I think most readers were rooting for, but at that point, I was so irritated by the way it was turning out, I really didn't care. It's like watching drama unfold in front of you. Eventually, you just throw up your arms and say, "Whatever, guys. Have fun."

That being said, I'm not so sunshine-and-rainbowy that I can't appreciate a dark story with unlikable characters, and I really did like the book. I stayed up longer than I meant to last night so I could finish it, and if that's not the sign of a well-crafted story, I don't know what is.

Side note: One of the reasons I wanted to read this book this summer is because the movie is supposed to come out in October. Then, after I finished, I learned that the ending is supposed to be very different (this article goes into that but it's also one big Spoiler Alert for anyone who hasn't read the book). And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. In fact, I'm curious how it turns out, and I'm excited about the idea of Neil Patrick Harris playing Desi Collings and Tyler Perry as Tanner Bolt (Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike play Nick and Amy).

Book Reviews: Kids, Kaling and Christine

I'd like to blame the fact that I was stuck reading the same books for six months on having a new baby that required so much attention and time. It isn't completely untrue; babies have this innate ability to recognize when you're relaxing/settling down to watch TV/going to bed. They wait until you get comfortable, sigh with relief and then....OHMYGOD, MY PACIFIER CAME OUT AND IF IT IS NOT BACK IN MY MOUTH IN ELEVEN SECONDS, YOU WILL FEEL MY WRATH.

So yes, a baby was part of the reason, but I think the more accurate reason is that I just had so much TV to catch up on. Shut up, I know. But when you finally get the baby to sleep and you have an hour until you should go to bed yourself and you're faced with a book you may or may not be totally into OR a completely mind-numbing but entertaining episode of Survivor...well, I think we know where I stand on that. Plus, two of the books I was reading with Matt and the other was one I just didn't love.

Those are my excuses. I'll stop now.

After struggling through those last few months, I've now finished three books in about three weeks. It seems strange to review them all in one shot, but now I'm on a roll and I'm about to go back in the hospital with my son so I'm sure I'll finish two more in about five days, so here we go.

Someone Could Get Hurt by Drew Magary

Source: barnesandnoble.com

I have been a big Drew Magary fan for several years, since I stumbled upon his weekly mailbags on Deadspin. A freelance writer, he's written for a ton of places, and he excels at providing a first-person narrative that is both well-written and extremely hilarious. (For an example of why I love Magary so much, here is a piece he wrote a couple years ago on his attempt to take the SATs as a 35-year-old.) This collection of essays about his own experiences parenting his three young children came out when I got pregnant and it seemed like the perfect marriage of one of my favorite writers and a topic that I was understandably interested in.

At first, that's exactly what it was. We saw Magary read from his book for our anniversary last year and it was great. Then I read the first chapter aloud to Matt while we were on the way to learn about one of Joey's complicated medical issues at an appointment in Boston. The first and last essays are about his youngest child, a boy born with an intestinal disorder that required emergency surgery and a month-long stay in the NICU. Let's just say it hit a little too close to home. We read a few of the essays, but then took a break until we were in a better mindset.

The rest of the book, to be fair, does not have the dire horribleness of the first and last sections. Most are simple snapshots of a life with young children: turning a trip to a grocery store into a race; the ordeal of taking kids absolutely anywhere; his own struggles with feeling inadequate when faced with disciplining his oldest. There's nothing out of the ordinary, but the way he tells it, the stories are fascinating and hilarious. (Also, his final essay about life while his son was in the NICU for 27 days hit the nail so much on the head, it was freakish.) I don't think someone would need to be a parent to enjoy it, although I think anyone who would enjoy it needs a good sense of humor and not to be easily offended.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

Source: crushable.com

This was one of those instances where I knew I'd like this book even before I started it. I find Mindy Kaling fantastic in pretty much every format, and enough people likened this book to Tina Fey's Bossypants that I was prepared. The comparisons are certainly understandable; both women are funny and fabulous, able to emit self-deprecation while showcasing the talent that got them the success they have today. But while you could picture Fey as the awkward band geek who is destined to show everyone up at the 10-year reunion, Kaling is more the drama geek who spends her free time binge-watching comedy sketch shows (which she did) in a room decorated with heart-shaped TigerBeat posters.

Kaling's book offers a little of everything - her childhood, the trajectory of her career (including the story behind her two-woman stage show about a fictionalized version of the relationship between Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, which I want more than anything to see live), and random things that pop into her head. She has an entire chapter of selfies from her phone, most taken as a way for her to check whether that zit that appeared six hours before a red-carpet award show was adequately covered with makeup (looks good to me, Mindy!).

Whether or not you'll like this book is completely based on how charming you find Mindy Kaling to be. I personally adore her and so I adore this book. But if you find her annoying or just don't like her, well, it will probably take you even longer than six months to finish.

Christine by Stephen King

Source: Jmj713 on Wikipedia

This was the continuation of my Stephen King chronology experiment, which is still going strong. I probably missed a couple of reviews for books I finished over the past year or so, and I do apologize for that, but be assured that I haven't cheated. I've gone through them all. The fact that I finished Christine is a testament to that.

In addition to all of the excuses listed above, one of the big ones that kept me stuck on Christine is the simple fact that it is one of my least favorite Stephen King novels. It's funny to me that it is often one of the first stories listed when people talk about Stephen King's anthology, although I think it's because its plot is something that can be described in a handful of words. Carrie was the one about the telekinetic girl; The Shining was a haunted hotel; 'Salem's Lot was vampires; and Christine was the possessed car. But it's just not King at his best.

For those that aren't aware, Christine is a 1958 Plymouth Fury originally owned by a slug named Rollie LeBay and eventually purchased as a scrapheap 20 years later by Arnie Cunningham. Arnie is your typical high school nerd - glasses, acne, V-card still in tact. His only friend is Dennis Guilder, a decent-looking football player who dates cheerleaders. Dennis isn't EXACTLY the big man on campus, but he does pretty well for himself. Against Dennis' advice, Arnie is drawn to spend way too much for Christine and it quickly turns his life around: he alienates the parents to whom he had spent a lifetime being subservient; he clears up his acne and gives him enough confidence to start dating the new, beautiful girl in school; it makes him crazy and paranoid so he then ruins that relationship. Oh, and the car seems to fix itself and go after anyone who goes against Arnie.

It's a fine story, but it's not to the King standard for writing. Most of the characters are one-dimensional: Arnie is the classic high school nerd; Dennis is the high school jock with a heart of gold; Leigh Cabot is the beautiful new girl in school; Rollie is the dirty old man. I'm not sure when King wrote the book, but the uselessness of Leigh hearkens back to one of my beefs with 'Salem's Lot, back when King seemed to have difficulty writing women characters that weren't boring. Perhaps even more baffling is the way in which the story is told. The first third is in first person, with Dennis serving as your narrator. But at the end of the act, Dennis is seriously injured in a football game and spends the whole second act in the hospital, and so the story is told via third person. Dennis returns as your narrator in the final third. It seems strange - why not just make the whole story in the third person? 

I'm not crapping on King at the moment. Stephen King at his worst is still 10x better than most writers at their best. But compared to The Stand, Needful Things and some of my other favorites, Christine is something that simply exists.

MasterChef Recap: Wu Tang Clash

Source: ctv.ca/

The advertisements leading up to this week's episode of MasterChef promised archenemies paired with each other in the team challenge. While I was certainly intrigued, it was also pretty obvious that this was enough cog in the Gordon Ramsay/Fox Promo Wagon, where things are always THE BIGGEST BATTLE EVER IN THE HISTORY OF LIFE AND/OR RESTAURANTS. There were, of course, some obvious archenemies on the show. The battles between Leslie and Ahran, mostly fueled by Leslie's insistence of pronouncing the teen's name E-ran or Eye-ran or O-ran or Ramad-an in an infuriating power move, were already legendary, and everyone is archenemies with Courtney. But no one could tell me Big Willie ever had an archenemy in his life, and others like Elise and Victoria and the adorable Scottish Francis also seemed impossible to hate.

Turns out, that was pretty much what happened. With 15 people left, Courtney learned that her victory in last week's Elimination Challenge gave her the ability to pair the rest of the contestants up while sitting the challenge out herself. She immediately set her sights on Christian, one of the strongest people yet and the person who immediately stated he didn't want to have to work with her before realizing she didn't have to work with anyone. She paired him with Francis B, another strong competitor, and the two didn't seem like they disliked each other. I admit, I wondered what Courtney was doing here, but it turns out she and her stilettos have a much better mind for this than me and my moose pajamas.

Courtney's other pairings were Jaimee & Elizabeth; Victoria & Christine; Cutter & Dan; Big Willie & Daniel; Ahran & Leslie (because duh); and Scottish Francis and Elise.

The challenge was to create a surf and turf-style dish, with countless different types of meat and seafood to choose from. Right away, one team's cracks became evident and it's from a strange source: tough, get-er-done Cutter doesn't like loner Dan's wishy-washy attitude and inability to listen to anyone. Their bickering left them with two unrelated pieces of meat and seven items from the pantry, and Cutter spent the next hour trying to refrain himself from pulling Dan's goatee out, one hair at a time.

But let's not focus on the negative. At least not when we're having a moment across the kitchen, because look! Leslie and Ahran are talking to each other and listening to each other! Ahran's eyes have remained unrolled! Leslie is actually responding to Gordon Ramsay's pronunciation lessons of Ahran's name ("AGHHHHH-RAN!!!!!!!"). THEY'RE HUGGING IT OUT! It's like the commercials leading up to this week were completely full of garbage!

Ahran and Leslie's pork belly tostada with crab guacamole earned rave reviews from the judges, as did the dishes from Jaimee and Elizabeth (lamb and red snapper with carrots and kale), and Big Willie and Daniel (seared ahi tuna with buttermilk miso fried chicken). But the big winners were the underwhelming-by-themselves-but-unstoppable-as-a-team duo of Christine and Victoria, whose pork belly and monkfish with green apple risotto was both intriguing and delicious-looking.

The bottom three consisted of Dan and Cutter's venison and tuna and three carrots; Scottish Francis and Elise's rack of lamb with crab risotto, a Francis-style creative dish that was way too complicated for Elise; and Christian and Francis B's boring and non-creative Moroccan spiked rib-eye with king crab. After the judges saved Scottish Francis and Elise, I'm assuming to save us all from having two Francises in another challenge, the final four had to duke it out - individually, this time - in the Pressure Test.

The challenge? Spring rolls. You know, that favorite of Asian cuisine that someone who maybe grew up in China might have some experience making. You could actually see Cutter's head start to split open when he realized that his newfound mortal enemy Dan Wu would have an advantage in the challenge he had hoped would get him eliminated.

Indeed, Dan's spring rolls are alright, but not exactly stellar. Stellar belonged to Christian, who despite never having cooked spring rolls before, knocked it out of the park. Dan's safety was ensured, rather, because of the disasters that were Cutter and Francis B. Cutter had all sorts of problems: one of his rolls exploded in the fryer and he had to make another last-minute, he didn't have enough filling, they were too sweet, there was approximately a teaspoon of dipping sauce for six rolls.

But the hot mess was Francis B. After cooking with an uncharacteristic listlessness in recent days, he turned out a rough set of spring rolls. His big problem came when the fryer didn't cook them fast enough and he tried to speed the process along by searing them in a greased pan. Except the pan never had enough time to heat up itself, so he just had them sitting in cold grease. And while that might work for the Chinese restaurant down the road from me, it's frowned upon in the type of establishments guys like Joe Bastianich frequent.

In the end, Francis was just thismuch worse than Cutter, although I think he was eliminated more for his attitude and lack of fire than by his one terrible dish. Still, it was way earlier than I thought Francis would be leaving, that's for sure.

Dish I'd Most Like to Try: Victoria and Christine's pork belly and monkfish with green apple risotto sounded intriguing and looked delicious. I also can't say no to spring rolls, so put Christian's in my mouth, please.

Dish I Made Myself: Dinner was on the road, so I didn't make it myself. But I highly recommend the shrimp scampi at the Chateau in Westboro. Whatever breading they put on the shrimp should cover everything I ever eat.

MasterChef Recap: Gordon Ramsay and the Mystery of the Stolen Dessert

It's been a bleak week in the world of MasterChef, and I'm not even talking about how I missed blogging while on vacation. Chicago Magazine released an in-depth and heartwrenching piece on the mental health struggles and eventual suicide of Josh Marks, the lovable runner-up from Season Two, a few days ago. (I'd link to it here but every time I try to open it, it crashes my laptop. So here's an analysis of the piece by Color Lines. They include a link to the original story, and if you have a computer that's more trustworthy than mine - and I know you do - click away.)

Monday's episode of MasterChef was not nearly as serious as the new revelations about Marks, but as far as reality cooking shows hosted by Gordon Ramsay, it was a kind of depressing one, thanks to the immediate elimination of someone for making a stupid mistake. Did Tyler knowingly take one of Jaimee's panna cottas out of the freezer? It does seem strange that he put four of his own on the bottom shelf and only took one off the top shelf later, but who knows what people are thinking when they're under stress? Were the judges right in eliminating him without further notice? I see where they're coming from - they certainly can't taste a dish that wasn't cooked by him, which therefore means he didn't complete the challenge. Still, my heart went to him.

But here I am getting too ahead of myself and all weepy on a Monday night. The remaining 16 contestants arrived for the Mystery Box Challenge filled with hopes and dreams. Tyler the country boy would be happy if the box revealed some form of roadkill; Christine was itching to work with some bone marrow because that's not random at all. Nobody yearned for SPAM, and yet that's what they got, in the form of 52 unlabeled aluminum cans of food. It's like getting a Christmas stocking full of individually wrapped gifts, except each gift is heavily processed and has been sitting in its own juices for 5 years.

And it really is like Christmas for the contestants who grew up on canned food, like Big Willie and Elizabeth. Ahran, in typical Ahran fashion, scoffs at the cans. "We only use fresh ingredients at home," the Regina George wannabe sneers. Jaimee doesn't turn away from the cans, but she does waste 20 minutes opening each of them and then staring at them until the SPAM starts to saute itself.

The top three wind up filling out a Papa Bear, Baby Bear and Goldilocks of ingredient usage. On one end of the spectrum is Victoria, a so-far-unseen entity who favors denim shirts buttoned right up to the top. Victoria uses a whopping eight cans of food to create a potted meat fritter with an artichoke and beet salad.

Conversely, Ahran opened one can of fruit cocktail and quit, using the contents as filler in a rolled sponge cake made with stock ingredients. Joe gushed about Ahran's strategy of thinking outside the box and taking full advantage of the stock ingredients; he just couldn't stop talking about how smart she was. I, however, am going to call shenanigans on that. I don't know if Joe took Ahran in the judges' pool at the start of the season, but I think her dish lacked any creativity whatsoever. She found one thing that didn't scare her and then used bland, boring, safe ingredients to go around it. Mixing five different types of processed meat together and deep frying it to make a fritter and murder all of us by heart disease like Victoria takes talent and a strategy; making a sponge cake and shoving one thing in the middle of it takes the ability to make a sponge cake.

All of this is moot since Goldilocks came in the form of Elizabeth and her pretty pink borscht. Food quality aside, Elizabeth deserved to win for her facial expressions while the judges tried her food. Eyes wide while they put the bit in their mouth, moving her whole body as she tries to read whether they liked it from their reactions, her face a combination of relief and horror when they give her the thumbs up. I want Elizabeth to be my personal audience, following me around and reacting to my stories so they seem even more funny/amazing.

With the win, Elizabeth retreated to the pantry, where she was greeted by last year's MasterChef winner Luca and Junior MasterChef winner Alexander. After learning she was exempt from the challenge, she had to assign half of the remaining contestants to one of the two signature dishes of the former champions: Luca's pancetta-wrapped veal and Alexander's passion fruit panna cotta.

We only wind up seeing a few of the finished products. The judges rave over Courtney's veal, and lecture Big Willie on his insistence on cooking his veal twice and drying it out. Christian's panna cotta was bad, a fact he was more than willing to admit himself before the judges could say a word. Cutter's panna cotta was surprisingly good.

Then we got to Jaimee. During the cooking process, Jaimee put three panna cotta's into the freezer to cool, but when she went to retrieve them, only two remained. One of the two immediately sank into the bowl and the other splattered like pudding when she put it on the dish. She was reprimanded for the consistency, although it still tasted good.

Up next was Tyler, whose pudding-like panna cotta looked awfully familiar. Gordon stopped him before anyone tasted it, went to the freezer and found the four panna cottas Tyler had put there. He was the mysterious panna cotta thief. The judges believed him when he said it was a mistake, but the rules state that contestants must plate their own dishes to be judged. Tyler didn't plate his own dish; therefore, he cannot be judged and cannot finish the challenge.

Tyler, for his part, was classy about the whole thing, thanking the judges and apologizing to Jaimee (even giving her a sweet compliment on how he at least knows his plate would have tasted great).

After that, we didn't see anyone else's dishes, but I guess it didn't matter because Courtney won. Her prize? To be dubbed "little miss tippy toes" by Gordon Ramsay, because of course.

Dish I'd Most Like to Try: While Victoria's meat fritters intrigue me, I'd go with Alexander's panna cotta.

Dish I Made Myself: An egg sandwich with American cheese (I'm sure a staple in Ahran's house) and salsa. Not quite Big Willie's eggs benedict, but about as fulfilling a meal as they come.

MasterChef Recap: Seafood Boy Band

For someone who spends an inordinate amount of time watching cooking shows, I don't exactly have the most sophisticated palate. I don't know what truffle oil tastes like, I've never had a souffle, and I actually hate duck. So, while I enjoy pretending like I know something about the dishes contestants on MasterChef and Hell's Kitchen are cooking, I'm mostly making it up and being judgey for no reason, which is why I live on the Internet.

But tonight I found my calling. Back-to-back challenges with seafood and donut themes, respectively? Frankly, I'm mad I wasn't brought on as a non-celebrity guest judge. CHRISTIAN, YOUR BBQ SHRIMP GRITS NEED TO BE IN MY BELLY RIGHT NOW.

Anyway.

Technically speaking, we should have entered this episode with 19 contestants remaining, but at some point between last week's challenges and this week's, Little Gordon fell ill with some sort of mystery sickness and had to drop out and now we're down to 18. I thought they might eliminate two people this week to ensure an even number for next week's team challenge, but they didn't and I just picture last season's wedding episode, when team captain Natasha had Krissi sit out and Krissi had a meltdown. (Fun Fact! If you Google "MasterChef annoying contestant," Krissi pops up first...and second. And so she shall live on in infamy.)

After several warnings about how whatever was underneath the Mystery Box being alive and dangerous (and a lot of terrible guesses about what might be under there, like snakes and a snapping turtle), the contestants reveal a bag full of live shellfish. At first I scoffed at Kira's jumpiness about the moving food, but that was before I realized how active live prawns are. But even more jumpy is Ahran, who has been waiting these past few episodes to finally get her chance to shine.

And shine she does. This is really our first sighting of Ahran, an 18-year-old high school student from California. The important part of that description is "high school," as Ahran brings with her all the fun drama and angsty bitterness we all miss from our high school days. She harbors an unhealthy obsession with Courtney, who seems to remind her of some queen bee she crossed paths with at the pep rally. Not only that, but she thinks the judges are unfairly favoring Courtney and stupidly tells Joe so. And then HE said, "Are you kidding me?" And she was all, "You know it's true!" And I was like, "OMG, can I have that last five minutes back?!"

While all this fun was going on, there was also a Mystery Box challenge being conducted. The top three wound up being Francis B (fast becoming a threat after several strong showings), Ahran (she and Francis both presented similar spicy seafood stew-style dishes) and Christian (whose BBQ shrimp and cheese grits were a nod to his New Orleans roots and LOOKED AMAZING). All three won praise from the judges, but Ahran's was the only one Graham singled out as a "seafood boy band," I'm assuming for its sweet harmony and nonthreatening, slightly androgynous good looks. So Ahran clearly won.

To her credit, Ahran refrained from celebrating with a hearty, "IN YOUR FACE, REGINA GEORGE!" Instead, she retreated to the back room, where the judges told her she did not have to compete in the next challenge and that she would be choosing what everyone else would have to cook: muffins, cookies or donuts. She chose donuts, clearly the most difficult item and the one most likely to have at least a few contestants who had never made them before. The group was tasked with making a dozen, and making them uniform enough to fit in a box.

Right away, there were struggles. Regina Courtney messed up her first round of dough and didn't have enough yeast for a second batch. Thankfully for her, Scottish Francis took the entire pantry with him and was kind enough to share. She rewarded him with a kiss; he rewarded her with a playful "Don't kiss Scottish Francis!" That and the fact that he decided to make 12 different types of bizarrely flavored donuts, knowing the judges would only taste three total, makes me hope that Scottish Francis will be around for awhile.

Courtney wasn't the only person with problems. Kira added shortening at the wrong time. Francis B. strangely opted for donut holes that looked terrible and would never fill the box provided. And Leslie...well, nevermind, Leslie's in his happy place, so let's just leave him alone.

The clock stops and everyone's done. BUT WAIT. Ahran gets another present for her Mystery Box win. She gets to look at everyone's donuts and elect to save someone. Most adults would opt to save someone that is weak, like Kira or Cutter, in hopes that a stronger person will go home in their wake. But in the 45 minutes that we've actually gotten to know Ahran, it's pretty evident that maturity is not her strong suit and she saves her friend (and dreamboat...and threat to win the whole show) Francis B., despite the fact that his horrible donut holes would almost certainly have gotten him eliminated. She does so under the guise of "wanting to beat the best," which is just something reality show contestants say when they want to save someone they like even though they know it's a terrible idea. (I'm looking at you, Woo!)

Leslie, Victoria, Daniel and Scottish Francis all got good reviews for their donuts, the latter shocking all the judges with just how good they were considering he did 12 times the work everyone else did. In the end, Leslie and Scottish Francis took the win, with Leslie nabbing the slight edge.

The bottom three were Kira, whose donuts looked good, but had no filling and were a strange consistency; Cutter, who also somehow missed putting filling in; and Courtney, who might have mistaken salt for sugar and horrified everybody.

Based on this particular challenge only, I would think that Courtney would have been a shoe-in to be eliminated; she didn't take enough of a key ingredient and then mixed up two very basic ingredients to make something inedible. But the judges often take past performances into consideration (or are simply playing favoritism, according to Ahran) and so they got rid of Kira. Oh Kira, whose name I just learned today, we hardly knew ye.

Dish I'd Most Like to Try: Christian's BBQ shrimp and cheese grits, by far, with one of Leslie's zesty donuts for dessert.

Dish I Made Myself: I'd like to say that I knew a pastry would be one of the challenges tonight and that's why I had chocolate chip pie for dinner. That is a lie. I had chocolate chip pie for dinner because it was left over from Father's Day and it was delicious and I wanted to have it for dinner. I regret nothing.

MasterChef Recap: I Want YOU...to Give Me Pork Chops

www.aceweekly.com

As a reward for making it to the final 20, the MasterChef crew dumped the contestants in the middle of the Mojave Desert, making them trek Lawrence of Arabia-style while Joe, Graham and Gordon arrived by armored truck, with a helicopter escort. Knowing we'll inevitably see our fearless judges arrive by Jet-Ski, hang glider, hot air balloon, and alpaca at some point this season, I'm officially starting the transportation chart now. MasterChef Team Challenge Judge Arrival BINGO? MasterChef Team Challenge Judge Arrival BINGO.

For winning last week's Elimination Challenge, Francis B. (because one Francis is never enough!) got to pick his dream team, even without knowing the actual challenge. He quickly took Cutter and Tyler because they're country boys who know how to handle meat, Victoria because she's a country girl who can handle a grill, Francis Non-B because he's fun, Big Willie because he has finesse, Christine and Elizabeth because we've vaguely heard of them before and two people I'm still not sure exist. (Oh wait, here they are.) Team Everyone Else was then tasked with picking a captain and they chose Daniel because he has all-business hipster glasses.

From there, the judges loaded the teams into the trucks and explained that they'd be serving a meal to 500 service members training in the desert. Somehow, in a truck with these random people, Joe and Gordon still look the most ridiculous in their military helmets, like when the president of a Fortune 500 company puts on a construction helmet and scoops the groundbreaking first dirt on a new project or when a dog wears a wig.

Once they arrive, the team split up and you immediately see the pros and cons of each group. Team Francis starts off with plenty of group unity, with everyone agreeing on making a pork chop with apple cranberry sauce and bacon. macaroni and cheese. Things start falling apart later, when the food actually has to be cooked. First, with limited cooking options, Francis' mac and cheese winds up being a big tub of noodles and partially melted cheese. It's so bad they have to scrap it and make cole slaw, and the sheer magnitude of chopping up 500 servings' worth of cabbage makes everyone's arms fall off.

Their other problem came when they decided to cook the extra-thick-cut pork chops whole, meaning they took forever to actually cook. When they did cook. Which didn't happen for awhile. A lot of soldiers had to choose Team Daniel's plate by default because they either received a raw pork chop or no pork chop at all. Then somebody got the bright idea to butterfly cut the meat so it cooks fast and bingo-bango, they were back in business.

Team Daniel, meanwhile, had their own issues, coming in the form of a certain vest-wearing, Farrah Fawcett-hair-styling, Malibu dad named Leslie. Leslie doesn't want to make chicken like the rest of the team; he wants steak. Leslie thinks Stephani is undercooking the chicken. The only thing worse than an obnoxious guy who disagrees about everything is an obnoxious guy who disagrees about everything and is occasionally right. Chicken was plain and unremarkable. Stephani was definitely undercooking the chicken, much to Gordon's dismay.

In the end, despite missing a bunch of soldiers and serving raw pork to a bunch more, Team Francis took the win, sending Team Daniel to the Pressure Test.

Before we get to the challenge, Captain Daniel has an important decision to make. What three members of his team will he save from having to compete in the Pressure Test? One of them has to be Leslie, right? I mean, he does KNOW EVERYTHING and he did EVERYTHING RIGHT in that challenge that they lost and he's just pretty much the best guy ever. In fact, can Daniel use all three saves on Leslie? One for his vest, one for his hair and one for him? Seems only fair.

Instead, Daniel chose two of the hardest workers on the team - gasp! - Christian and Little Gordon. Then he saves comic book villain Dan because Daniel is intimidated to compete with him in the test.

And that test? It's to make a blueberry pie. Jaimee and her blueberry pie neck tattoo are psyched. Stephani and her complete lack of any blueberry pie-making experience are less so. Elise is torn, having already served a blueberry pie to the judges in the first round that they didn't like. But she loves pie SO MUCH.

Jaimee, Courtney and Leslie were the top tier and saved almost instantly by the judges. Both Daniel and Jordan's pies were a little less consistent, with plenty of downsides but a couple of upsides, too. Not bad for Daniel, who got his pie into the oven way later than everyone else.

Eventually, the loss goes to Stephani, whose bizarre pecan-infused crust and uber-sweet filling did her in. I'm sure her raw chicken during the Team Challenge probably didn't help either.

Dish I'd Most Like to Try: I'm actually not really a blueberry pie person, so I guess I'd try the pork chop dish from the Team Challenge. Preferably one of the cooked ones.

Dish I Made Myself: Leftover BBQ pork tenderloin, leftover garlic and herb rice pilaf, and a mixed greens salad. Nothing says super fun night like food from a microwave!

Bring Back the Ladies of Litchfield!

Today marks the return of Orange is the New Black, the Netflix original series that's about to begin its second season. It also marks the start of a weekend where I will not be seeing or speaking to anyone. I'm modestly crazily obsessed with OITNB - so much so that I watched the first season twice and would probably do so a third time if you really wanted me to. The most recent time was over the past couple of weeks, when I introduced my husband and he was immediately hooked.

How could you not be? For the great uninitiated, OITNB is about life in a minimum-security federal prison for women. We're introduced to the world of Litchfield prison through Piper Chapman, a WASPy woman sentenced to 15 months for a one-time international drug trafficking charge (oh, like you didn't experiment in college, too). Piper is always there, our eyes and ears as we meet new people and experience new facets of prison life, but the real story lies in those around her: the guards and, especially, the other inmates. Each episode in the first season provided a backstory to someone new, giving us a hint at the life they led and how it brought them to Litchfield. The stories are amazing, and the cast is even better.

The first time I watched OITNB's first season was back in September and October and after watching it again so recently, I realized how much I forgot. So here's a primer on the ladies (and gents) of Litchfield and where they each left off.

THE PRISONERS

Piper Chapman

Background: Piper is a self-described WASP, descended from a long line of the same. Constantly looking for adventure and meaning in her life, she stumbles into a bar shortly after college looking for a job. She instead finds Alex, an international drug trafficker. The two hit it off and quickly fall in love. Piper isn't really a part of Alex's business (although she certainly doesn't complain about being trotted around the world like a trophy wife) but agrees to move money across national borders once, as a favor.

Flash forward 10 years and Piper is an NPR-listening, juice-cleansing, fancy-bath-soap-producing blogger engaged to Larry, a freelance writer. She's shocked out of her idyllic life by police and charges and winds up in Litchfield.

Life in Litchfield: Like learning of the wizarding world through Harry Potter's equally unfamiliar eyes, we learn the ins and outs of Litchfield through Piper. She has minor altercations with Red, Crazy Eyes, Janae, Officer Healy, Miss Claudette and others, but she begins to develop her own stories when she starts having an affair with Alex, who happens to be in prison with her. She also has a big feud with Pennsatucky, when what starts as an intense prank war turns into violence and death threats.

Where We Left Off: Rejected by both Larry and Alex and told that she's a bad person by Crazy Eyes, Piper was already having a horrible day when she was attacked and threatened by the insane Pennsatucky. She finally snapped, viciously attacking Pennsatucky. The big question for Piper is what type of punishment she'll receive for the violence? I'm guessing a pretty long stretch in the SHU (solitary).

Alex Vause
International drug trafficker and Piper's ex-girlfriend. She and Piper rekindle their relationship in prison, until Piper realizes Alex was the one who turned her into the police and Alex gets fed up with Piper's manipulation of both her and Larry. After their latest fight, she's no longer speaking to Piper and is possibly starting a relationship with Nicky.

Galina "Red" Reznikov
Originally the most powerful inmate in the prison, Red ran the kitchen, brought in contraband with her food orders and protected a cadre of young women she "adopted" on the inside. Her battle with Officer Pornstache about bringing drugs into the prison leaves her without a job. She reacted poorly to this punishment, sabotaging the kitchen and inadvertently leading to one of her girls getting severely burned in a grease fire. She's gone from most to least powerful throughout the season.

Tiffany "Pennsatucky" Doggett
A drug addict and regular visitor to the abortion clinic landed herself in prison when she shot a nurse after the nurse made a remark about how many abortions she'd received. She was called a hero by pro-life activists and adopted their stance by becoming a born-again Christian. She's also insane and spent much of the season in a prank war with Piper and Alex that led to Alex getting locked in an industrial dryer and Pennsatucky getting admitted to the psych ward. Things escalate and Pennsatucky threatens to kill Piper, only to hit her on the wrong day and wind up getting viciously attacked herself. The biggest cliffhanger of the season: is Pennsatucky still alive after that beatdown?

Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren
Crazy Eyes is an enigma that I hope will have some light shed on it. She's clearly got some mental issues - she's the only person who regularly spends time in the psych ward and returns back to the regular prison population. She stalks Piper early in the season, an act that is at times sweet (writing her poetry, calling her "Dandelion" because she's pretty and yellow, like the weed) and at times terrifying (reacting to Piper's rejection by peeing all over Piper's cell floor). Her parents are well-to-do-looking, elderly white people (Crazy Eyes is black) who call her Suzanne. She provides Piper the most in-depth look at her soul when, after Larry relays some of the terrible things Piper said about her on a radio interview, she claims that the reason they would never work in a relationship is simple: "You're mean."

Daya Diaz (and Aleida Diaz)
Litchfield is a family tradition for the Diaz women, as both Daya and her mother Aleida are both inmates. Their relationship is strained, as Daya spent much of her time raising her younger siblings while her mother hung out with her drug-cooking boyfriend and Daya responded by sleeping with said boyfriend. In Litchfield, Daya quickly falls for Officer Bennett and the two begin a cute flirtation that leads to sex that leads to Daya getting pregnant. Aleida and Red cook up a plan to have Daya "get raped" by Pornstache to both explain the pregnancy and punish Pornstache. Bennett is not happy for obvious reasons, but things end up OK with them after Daya almost gets burned in a grease fire and Bennett realizes how much he still feels for her.

Nicky Nichols
By far one of the most hilarious and entertaining characters. Nicky is a junkie who cleaned up in prison with Red's help. She spent much of the season having an affair with Lorna, who eventually broke her heart. Nicky had a moment with Alex at the end of last season that makes you wonder if they're going to become an item and my favorite television relationship.

Sophia Burset
In for credit card fraud, Sophia's struggles come from a few sources. As a trans woman, she fights with a budget-pressed prison who stop her hormones (she tries to buddy up with Sister Ingalls to get the menopausal nun to share her meds but no dice), and she struggles with a wife who wants to be supportive but also wants to be married to a man and a young son who keeps rejecting her. She's also the prison hairstylist and her buddy-cop routine with Sister Ingalls is fabulous.

Miss Claudette
A stern and serious woman, Claudette worked to bring teenage immigrants to the U.S. to make a new life for themselves. She also murdered someone who abused one of her girls. Claudette is resigned to spending her whole life at Litchfield until the man she's been in love with since she was a child decides he wants to be with her, too. When her parole is denied, however, she snaps and attacks a guard. That gets her sent to maximum security prison, a place no one returns to when they attack a guard. We may have seen the last of Miss Claudette.

Taystee Jefferson
The prison librarian and comic relief. She was paroled midway through the season but purposely got herself arrested again when she realized how little opportunity she had on the outside. Having a known bed and three guaranteed meals a day was more appealing than her freedom. Now that Miss Claudette is out of the picture, Taystee is also Piper's new bunkmate.

Big Boo
Not much is known about Big Boo except she used to date a paroled inmate named Mercy, is occasionally one of Red's girls, and has a dog named Little Boo. I can't figure out the dog, which wears what looks like a therapy vest but seems way too young and untrained to actually BE a therapy dog. I love that there's a dog...I just have no idea how it got there. Anyway, Boo is hilarious, and her best scene is when she has Pennsatucky "heal" her of her lesbian tendencies. Her test to see whether it worked is picturing the U.S. women's soccer team. Boo's the best.

Poussey Washington
It's pronounced poo-SAY! She's best friends with Taystee and is pretty funny (her and Taystee's impersonation of white women is one of my favorite scenes from the season).

Lorna Morello
Forever planning a wedding to a man who hasn't visited her in years, Lorna breaks off her affair with Nicky out of loyalty to her beloved "Christopher." She's one of Red's gang.

Gloria Mendoza
Gloria took over Red's kitchen after she fell on the wrong side of Pornstache and gave jobs to all of her gang. While nobody was able to prove Red sabotaged the kitchen, Gloria knew and instituted a freeze-out of Red's food supply.

Yoga Jones
The yoga instructor of the group, Yoga Jones is as hippy-dippy as you'd expect someone who used to farm marijuana to be. Of course, she has her demons, which come to light when she has a confrontation with Janae. She admits that, while drunk, she shot and killed what she thought was a deer eating her crops but was instead a young child. She and Janae bonded over purposely shocking themselves with a fork and an outlet.

Norma Romano
Red's right-hand woman...until Red burns Gina. Completely mute throughout the season, Norma finally opens up to sing at the end of the Christmas pageant, a la Scrooged.

Janae Watson
Once a track star destined to escape her bad neighborhood with a scholarship, Janae ruined her shot by hanging out with a bad influence - the only boy who ever gave her any attention. Now she's got an attitude about everything and everyone, something that wasn't helped when she spent 10 days in solitary for something Piper did (Piper repaid her by fighting to reopen the prison track). She eventually feuds and then bonds with Yoga Jones.

Sister Ingalls
A nun who is serving for chaining herself to a nuclear power plant as a protest, she is both a moral compass for some characters (Sophia) and someone who's not afraid to go against the norm.

THE GUARDS

Officer Bennett
Considering he is a combat veteran, Officer Bennett is pretty fresh-faced and naive. And, as always, OITNB tests our preconceived notions by having his prosthetic leg be the result of an infection wrought by a dirty hot tub rather than an IED. Bennett develops feelings for Daya, the two have an affair, and Daya becomes pregnant. He's not happy when her solution to the problem is to have sex with Pornstache so she can claim rape and neither will get in trouble, but she still matters to him and she's still carrying his baby.

Pornstache
About as wholesome as his nickname would indicate, Pornstache likes to use his position to gain sexual favors from the inmates. He's also selling drugs on the side, a business that becomes more difficult when they start searching guards. This sparks his battle with Red and leads to Tricia's overdose. Eventually, Red gets to him by convincing Daya to have an affair with him to get him fired. He doesn't lose his job but he does get suspended without pay, and he gets Red to lose her job in the kitchen. He's also decided he's in love with Daya.

Officer Healy
Officer Healy is an inmate counselor, and is assigned to Piper. At first, Piper is one of her favorites; he sees her as a "normal" person, not like the career criminals, low-lifes, and lesbians that otherwise populate the prison. He helps her out until she starts having an affair with Alex and then turns on her. His hatred of lesbian activity is borderline obsessive, a strange thing considering how nontraditional his own marriage is (he has a mail-order wife from Ukraine who hates him). Things come to such a head between him and Piper that he knowingly leaves her alone with a vengeful Pennsatucky, thinking Piper was going to be severely hurt or even murdered.

Officer Caputo
The head of the corrections officers, he's just a little bit sketchy, but definitely not on Pornstache's level. He has kind of an adorable crush on Officer Fischer, and looks heartbroken when she introduces him to her boyfriend in the finale.

Officer Fischer
A midseason addition, Officer Fischer is a sweet woman who catches the eye of Officer Caputo. She also catches the eye of Miss Claudette, who strangles her after losing her parole hearing.

Natalie "Fig" Figueroa
The administrator at Litchfield, who serves as a liaison between the prison's corrections staff and the warden. Fig is mostly concerned with the bottom line and the public image of the prison, even at the expense of safety (when a guard is caught having sex with an inmate, she scoffs when someone refers to it as rape since the prisoner wasn't screaming or crying). She's also stealing money by cutting prison services even though the budget was increased.

Officer Wanda Bell
A harsh-looking female guard having an affair with Officer O'Neill. A good source of comic relief.

THE OUTSIDE

Larry Bloom
Piper's fiance. At first, he seems to enjoy Piper's adventure, which automatically makes his life more interesting. He uses it to get a piece published in the New York Times and get featured on an NPR story about long-distances relationships. But when he learns that Piper is having an affair with Alex, he breaks it off.

Polly Harper
Piper's best friend and business partner. Polly gives birth to a son while Piper is inside. She and her husband Pete are also friends of Larry's and support him as much as they can, as well.

Cal Chapman
Piper's brother and Larry's best friend, Cal lives in the woods, is engaged to a woman who works on an oil rig, and provides advice to Larry, both practical and insane.