Grocery Games

Yeah, I've been caught up by another food show. I started watching this because... it looked mildly interesting and I was looking for something to distract me.

Guy's Grocery Games is part game show, part cooking show, part reality series... the idea is that, in each episode, there are four chefs from different areas (they had one of the presidential chefs!). And they are in a supermarket, and they have to cook with ingredients from the store. There are three rounds. In each round, they grab items from the store for some particular dish, make it, get judged and then one gets cut. Then the last chef has to do a final grocery grab of ten items, $2,000 per item, in two minutes.

And while the cooking is interesting and done under the gun, the main twist is the different kinds of games. For example, instead of shopping carts, in one game they might have to carry everything in their arms. Maybe they can only use five items. Maybe they have a budget, and have to use coupons! (I remember one chef feeling rather distraught by that, "I buy whatever I want, I don't have to shop with a budget!") Another time, with just two chefs, they grab items in a shopping bag... which then gets swapped.

It's fun, and we get to see some rather amazing dishes turn up. I can't say I'm inspired to cook more myself, but I do enjoy watching this.

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