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The Elimination challenge is another shill for the farm where the players are currently located. They will be required to build a dish using Philadelphia cream cheese. They can use no other dairy products save for milk and cream. The lack of butter immediately freaks out several chefs. As the winner, Nina is afforded the ability to choose the course for which she prepares a meal. She correctly chooses the appetizer. Meanwhile, Travis and Carrie are less fortunate at the announcement. They pull out knives that say entrée. Take a moment to consider the last main course you enjoyed that featured cream cheese. Exactly.

The chefs on the appetizer course are Sara, Patty, Carlos, Brian and (of course) Nina. The victims of the doomsday main course are Bene, Carrie, Travis and Justin. Dessert, in my estimation, the easiest draw of the three, is crafted by Nicholas, Louis, Shirley and Stephanie. And the meal preparation is again chaos incarnate. Since there are few ingredients available, the chefs jockey for position the instant they reach the kitchen. Travis aptly describes what transpires as “Black Friday in a very small walk-in." Personally, I would call it the running of the bulls sans bull horns.

Bene is victimized the most by this turn of events. I have noted his passive nature in previous recaps. During the ingredients phase of this challenge he fails to retrieve the protein he wanted. Bene is a nice guy in danger of finishing last each week because he is too polite. Don’t worry, Bene. There are faaaaaaaar worse personality flaws to have than too much respect for your fellow man.

Other chefs experience different issues. Justin is feeling tremendous pressure because several local chefs will be judging this meal. These are his local peers so he knows he needs to excel tonight to affirm his reputation in New Orleans. Shirley is trying to learn from past mistakes, specifically the Beets Meltdown during the Commander’s Palace challenge. Today, she burns her first dish. Rather than going into a downward spiral, she is proud to say that she shakes it off and moves on to another attempt. Finally, Nicholas cannot find yeast, which prevents him from making another beignet. Instead, he chooses funnel cake as his dish. The concern here is significant. He has never made one before. Uh oh.

For no apparent reason, Travis states that his mother has a crush on John Besh when the average looking dude enters the kitchen. There are better looking men at the DMV. What type of hypnosis has this dude mastered?

A pair of chefs struggle mightily. Even worse, the wounds are self-inflicted. Sara, who has been glum all episode, failed to manage her time wisely. She recognizes that the dish she envisioned will in no way resemble the one she plates. Her one star review of her own cooking is, “I’m sure it’s not disgusting.” Yum, let’s eat at her restaurant! Travis screws up in a more direct way. He is trying to carve a rack of lamb. The sharp knife he uses butchers the meat, and he sees no easy way to correct the matter across multiple plates. He does blame the knife itself. What is the axiom about the workman and his tools? Travis is the proverbial workman *and* the tool.

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