Sunday, April 19, 2015

All-Star Academy Winner Crowned Tonight

Photo - Food Network
Tonight at 9pm ET on the Food Network is the All-Star Academy finale where one home cook will walk home with $50,000.  The three remaining contestants are August Dannehl representing Alex Guarnaschelli, Joseph Harris representing Bobby Flay, and Vanessa Craig representing Michael Symon.  Curtis Stone lost all of his competitors, so he will not be the winning mentor.

During the final episode, the cooks have to make it through three rounds of culinary challenges, which are breakfast, lunch and dinner.  The contestants will also get to cook side-by-side with their mentor.

The Food Network has a poll on their website asking which cook people want to win, and it seems like people are rooting for Joseph to win.  He has about 47% of the people rooting for him, while Vanessa has 34%, and August has 19%.

This post will be updated after the episode airs with the winner of this season of All-Star Academy.



Photo - Food Network
UPDATE - During the breakfast round Vanessa and Michael won giving them an edge in the lunch round.  They were able to choose their meat and went with ground lamb, giving August ground pork and Joseph ground beef.

That advantage paid off as Vanessa and Michael also won the lunch round with their lamb burger and fries.  August ended up being eliminated during the burger challenge due to his ground pork burger being underdone and served with barely any fries.

In the final round Vanessa and Joseph went against each other and were allowed to cook any dish they wanted.  Joseph was able to impress Curtis Stone more with his striped bass dish and ended up winning the $50,000 prize for himself and bragging rights for Bobby Flay



16 comments:

  1. The stats changed. I just took the poll, and now it has 40.73% August, 33.72% Joseph, 25.55% Vanessa. I voted for August, because I'm Team Alex all the way. :)

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  2. Aw, if Alex's home cook couldn't win, then I'm glad it was Joseph. :)

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  3. I was team Alex, too. Too bad. Bobby always wins. :(

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  4. I was on Team Joseph from the get-go—partially because he's from my neck of the woods and partially because I really liked his personality and skills. Not an arrogant egotist like August and not a loony like Vanessa; just a really nice guy with culinary talent.

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  5. LOVE Alex (and liked August) so much, but I'm glad Joseph won.

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  6. When does it start over?

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  7. Yes, they will air another season this year. It has already been filmed

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  8. Ahh, thanks Matt. I had not seen any promos etc..

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  9. I wasn't thrilled that Team Bobby won, because Bobby wins so often; however, I really liked Joseph.

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  10. I really like Joseph too. I wasn't particularly fond of August; I'm just a big fan of Chef Alex, so I wanted someone on her team to win. I didn't think August was arrogant or egotistical. He just seemed young and confident to me. If he weren't Team Alex, he wouldn't have stood out to me. I found Vanessa annoying.

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  11. I haven't seen any sign of that show returning. I wouldn't be surprised if it's toast.

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  12. Haven't seen any signs of a new FNS, but between last season's winner and the fact that the whole contest no longer seems to address the chefs'/cooks' ability to teach and present to a camera tells me that the enterprise should be put out of its misery.

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  13. I was very happy that Joseph won. He seemed like a nice person throughout the competition plus he could cook. August was part wise guy, part smarm. I didn't like Vanessa's personality right from the start and her hair bows and cowboy boots were so theatrical that I couldn't take her seriously. Overall, I enjoyed this show.

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  14. August seemed to mess something up every dish, the little Grandma should have gone to the final instead.

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  15. I would have preferred to see "the little Grandma" as Alex's champion too. [I forgot her name.]

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  16. Sharon. And I also liked Sherri, who was Alex's other team member but whom Alex kept making crazy. Sherri would likely have done better on Michael's team.

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