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Kevin and Eli talk a bit about their braised pork and potato salad. The judges want to know who did the pork and Kevin says that he did it, using his family's recipe. The judges make the same inquiry for Michael and Mike, and Brother Michael says that he did the bacon-as-pork-belly dish. Pompous Mike did the Greek salad instead but is happy to share in the glory of the pork belly dish.

I thought that Kevin would get the win for his family's recipe but it turns out that Michael wins it for his pork belly. The brothers are one and one in Elimination Challenges so far. They are certainly a force to be reckoned with.

Meanwhile, Padma asks the boys to bring three people back as the bottom chefs in the challenge: Preeti, Laurine and Pompous Mike. When Mike goes back to announce that he's in the bottom, the chefs are understandably stunned.

"What?!?" exclaims Jesse.

"Yeah, I guess it wasn't a team today," he says with a shrug.

Back out in front of the judges, Mike is very antagonistic.

"You seem angry," Mark Peel notes.

"I am angry!" Mike explodes. He says that that only reason he cooked the Greek salad was to help out the team. He'd noticed that there wasn't a salad on the menu and he decided to do one. The judges don't mind that decision, in and of itself, but they take offense that it was under seasoned, that the shrimp was undercooked and the dish as a whole lacked flavor.

"I didn't taste acid, I didn't taste salt, I didn't taste flavor," says Gail. Mike doesn't have much to say after that but he is clearly still upset.

As for the other team, the judges want to know whose idea it was to make the pasta salad. Preeti and Laurine mutter incomprehensibly about it being both of their idea. Tom doesn't buy it and says that at some point someone said, "Let's do pasta salad." Neither person owns up.

"Did you think it was flavorful?" asks Gail. Laurine tries to put the blame on the canned ingredients but Tom points out that everyone used canned ingredients and plenty of dishes had flavor. Preeti strongly disagrees and says that she thought the dish had good flavor - in fact more than other dishes. She asks the judges point blank if there's anything remarkable about doing a clam chowder on a 90 degree day.

"It was a better version of a clam chowder than your version of a pasta salad," retorts Tom. Ouch.

Laurine owns up to the fact that she didn't think it was a winning dish, saying she got caught up in cooking for the servicemen and forgot about the competition. Then she tries to back up, saying that was a bad answer.

"It was a bad answer, a bad dish and a bad idea," says Tom.

The judges ask the two of them who should go home. They mutter about how they worked together. Padma asks if they would both like to go home.

"I'd rather no one goes home," says Preeti.

"Well, that can't happen because this is a competition," Padma answers back.

I was hoping in my heart of hearts that Pompous Mike would go home for his Greek salad but after all this, I know that Preeti will go home. She's displaying that total idiocy, that senselessness, that incomprehensibility of the mediocrity of her food that tends to really irritate the judges in the early stages of every season.

And sure enough, she goes home. They judges knock Mike for sending out a throwaway dish that he didn't really care about (and didn't cook well). They criticize Laurine for not realizing that she had to cook great food, not just good food, in a competition. But Tom hammers Preeti for her inability to see that her food was not up to snuff and Padma asks her to pack her knives.

All in all, Preeti didn't make anything that seemed outstanding. She was never going to win this competition. And frankly, the competition is stronger with her gone. I think she meant well, but as early cast-outs go, she was a deserving one.

So now after three episodes, we've seen three women go home. Will we see another girl pack her knives next week or will one of the men finally fall? I'm eager to find out.

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