I’m not gonna lie to you: I approached the Season 9 finale of Food Network Star with a glass of sauvignon blanc in hand, and a gurgling well of nameless dread in my stomach.

After all, with our esteemed judges’ panel — Bobby Flay, Alton Brown and Giada De Laurentiis — operating the last few weeks as if someone had replaced their brains with goose liver pate, we were stuck with …READ MORE

The penultimate episode of Food Network Star‘s ninth season was like one of those defective loaves of Italian bread you sometimes get at the supermarket: Everything looks fine when you throw it in your cart, but you get it home, slice into it, and discover there’s a giant, hollowed-out air bubble in the middle. READ MORE

We’re down to four contestants on Season 9 Food Network Star, and amazingly enough, one of them is a dude who’s only intelligible on every third word — and whose main dish this week looked like a sloughed-off hunk of forearm. READ MORE

I’m not gonna lie to you: I’ve carefully watched every second of Season 9 of Food Network Star, but to steal a line from Aretha Franklin, there “ain’t no way” I was going to get lured into the online spin-off Star Salvation. READ MORE

With only six contestants left in the mix on this week’s Food Network Star, I expected some amped-up suspense during the judges’ deliberations. But nope, once again it was a case of, “Eh, either one of these cats can go home; and if we’re being honest …READ MORE

We’ve reached that point in the Food Network Star season where two questions loom over every contestant: Is there any way Bob Tuschman and Susie Fogelson would ever greenlight a show built around this person? And is there any way I’d actually watch it? READ MORE

“It’s time to go to a commercial break. Please come right back and hang out with us here at Food Network 4th of July Live.”

As far as throws to ad breaks go, that one doesn’t seem particularly noteworthy, does it? And yet it was enough to save Russell’s underperforming self — and result in the ouster of an early favorite — on the latest episode of Food Network Star. READ MORE

“I think I’m failing in the ‘food authority’ category.”

Let’s be honest, when you’re dropping that kind of self-assessment on Episode 3 of Food Network Star, the only dish on the menu is toast. And yes, you are that toast. READ MORE

I don’t know about you, but I’m 90 percent convinced that Danushka isn’t so much a contestant on Food Network Star as she is a producer plant paid solely to act as the Season 9 villainess. READ MORE