92 replies to this topic

[RyanCrowell]

Other than saying she reminds me of Rachel Griffiths, or that her voice bothers me, I didn't know what to say, so I just came up with the title because she almost fainted in the first episode.

I can't see her lasting very long if she is this wispy. She fades into the background more often than not. She will probably be like Maribel last season.

[Dale]

Her near-fainting just because Chef Ramsay opened up her dish really troubles me as to how she'll handle the stress of working in the kitchen.

[Dale]

Not bad, Jen. Looks like your leadership really got everybody gelling tonight. Go, you.

[moonchildbeast]

I was pretty surprised at her leadership. Before that, I kinda got the feeling she was playing with a deck of 51.

[RyanCrowell]

I wonder how much of that was her leadership and how much was just the team working together. It's easy to say, "Go team go!", but this doesn't make as much of an impact if your team is falling apart at the seams.

She looks so much like Rachel Griffiths I can barely pay attention to her scenes. Thank heaven there is no one one here who looks like Peter Krause.

[ImaginaryFriend]

Going back to the first episode, upon re-watching it, I was amused at the point when GRrr reacts to the amount of alcohol in Jen's dish and she demurs by saying, "Peach schnapps; just a little." "Just a little" to her may be about half a bottle. I see Jen in later life as being one of those grey-haired ladies who "takes a snort" now and then. In fact, this small-town girl may already be there.

[Bard Sinister]

Jen sort of lost me in episode one by making the classic cooking competition error of preparing crepes for her "signature dish." The dish is going to sit awhile before tasting, and crepes easily get soggy. GRrrr raised that complaint about dessert crepes Heather prepared for a challenge last season, and I have seen the same thing happen quite a few times on competitive cooking shows.

I'm not sure it was Jen's leadership skills that brought the women together last week for a very impressive service. It will be interesting to see how she handles some of the other stations, like garnishes (which seems to kick the cheftestants' asses the first time they are assigned there).

[Dale]

It certainly wasn't the leadership, after all. I was wondering what she was thinking, nominating herself. Why on Earth wasn't she booted for that stupid decision alone?

[casey22]

Getting the food out of the garbage. Now that's a restaurant I would want to dine at! Mmmmmmmmmmm. I do applaud her for putting herself up there. I think she saw that Julia didn't deserve it and felt guilty.

[inyourdreams]

I'll give it to her for putting herself up there, but Bonnie needed to join her and Joanna. She will now be known as garbage girl for the rest of her life! Good thinking there.

[dunvegan948]

I think she put herself up because she didn't want Julia to mention it. She knew Ramsay would ask Julia why she should stay and it was completely likely that Julia would point out two things: How well breakfast ran with her in charge; that she stopped Jen from serving food out of the garbage even though it may have made her look bad because it was her station that ran behind because of it. It was far smarter, as I explained to the 12-year-old dunveganlet, for her to own up to her mistake before someone else ratted her out.

Plus, she got the benefit of putting on the show for Ramsay.

Edited by dunvegan948, Jun 18, 2007 @ 10:02 PM.

[ImaginaryFriend]

Fetching the pasta was bad, real bad -- leave it to the college guys to retrieve cold pizza crusts out of boxes in the trash on Saturday mornings. In addition, she lost track of her Wellingtons and that seems to have brought the red team's dinner service to an end. But for Joanna's greater string of disasters ... Jen's fortunate to still have her picture on the wall.

Edited by ImaginaryFriend, Jun 18, 2007 @ 10:21 PM.

[LunaChick]

She will now be known as garbage girl for the rest of her life! Good thinking there.

My friend said this exact same thing, as we were watching the show. We were rooting for her because she's from our hometown - but I'm now firmly on Team Waffle Girl.

[thuganomics85]

I think Gordon's face to hearing the news, was pretty much what my face was, when I saw it. That... really was just one of the most boneheaded, stupidist things, I've ever seen. I would think even Bonnie would realise that taking food out of the trash is not the way to go.

It doesn't matter how long she stays, I really doubt Gordon will ever hire her. She's a dead woman walking.

Edited by thuganomics85, Jun 18, 2007 @ 11:34 PM.

[bbb]

Pulling food out of the trash was the worst career move ever. Unless she considers working for a recycling centre...

[LunaChick]

This was in the local paper today:

Hell's Kitchen: Cooking with Jen
Hazleton’s Jen Yemola avoided becoming the fourth cut on Fox’s reality TV show “Hell’s Kitchen” Monday night after trying to salvage spaghetti from the garbage. “We had an order for spaghetti and I threw out what we had,” Yemola said.
The 1998 graduate of Hazleton Area High School received a late order during dinner service and attempted to take spaghetti out of the garbage in order to save the dinner.
After being scolded by her teammates, Yemola volunteered herself to be one of the contestants to be booted from the weekly TV show. But world-renowned chef Gordon Ramsey decided to keep Yemola on the show for another week, instead opting to cut Joanna, a 22-year-old chef’s assistant from Detroit, Mich.
“I made a bad decision, but I have to move on and make the best of it,” Yemola, a 26-year-old pastry chef from The Inn at Turkey Hill in Bloomsburg, said after realizing she was still on the show.
Yemola is one of eight chefs still in the running to win the coveted title of head chef of a new fine Italian restaurant at the Green Valley Ranch Resort and Spa in Las Vegas.
Earlier in the show, Ramsey cut Aaron, a 48-year-old retirement home chef from Palos Verdes, Calif.

[evil jesus]

If GR had seen this as it was going on, he would have made her eat food from the garbage.

[lindseyquinn]

Shades of George Costanza! It is not alright to eat food out of the garbage, even if you did take it from "on top."

[dippychik]

I wonder how she will get a job anywhere being "the one who took the food out the bin in front of all the cameras ON TV", that was not only disgusting it was incredibly stupid. I know I definitely wouldn't eat where she was working.

[weaselbaby]

Exactly how old does she claim to be?

Those are 26 HARD years.

[DaWife]

I wonder how she will get a job anywhere being "the one who took the food out the bin in front of all the cameras ON TV", that was not only disgusting it was incredibly stupid. I know I definitely wouldn't eat where she was working.

whoooo laaaaaaawd!!!!!! I about fell out my chair when I saw that- I called my gf and we were just in shock, like "WHAT THE F**K?" is all we could say....that was HOT. FLAMING. MADNESS. I can't imagine running a restaurant and letting her anywhere NEAR my kitchen- she gets in the weeds, and your customers risk food poisoning....that was completely insane, and completely disrespectful to patrons who are PAYING for food you just pulled out of the trash. Thank God for Julia.

[MrsTeasdale]

What are the odds that she gets fired from her job? In today's day and age, I'm not sure they could just fire her, without fearing a lawsuit. But if she were my employee, she'd be out the door after what I like to call the "spewghetti" incident.

And I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks she looks at least 10 years older than 26!

Meow!

[Remlab]

Jen didn't have a thread when this ran in our local paper (dated 6/6/07), but I thought I'd post it here anyway. She's from a town about 30 miles from mine, so the paper feels compelled to run stuff like that.

LunaChick, I didn't see that blurb in the paper today. Is there a link to it?

[SceneStealer]

As everyone has said, I was floored that she did it, and floored again that she nominated herself. And MrsTeasdale, wouldn't her antics be reason enough to fire her? There is NO WAY I would want a chef working for me who I knew had pulled food out of the garbage. She didn't even realize her mistake until someone had to point it out and tell her no! Who knows what other disgusting things she's doing...

"I saw a piece of dirt on the meat when I was plating it, but my hands were full, so I licked it off. But it's okay, I just had a doctor's visit last week and I'm not sick or anything!"

[MrsTeasdale]

SceneStealer, believe me, I agree with you 100%. I just worry that she'd be able to get some sleazy lawyer and sue because no one could "prove" she'd ever done that in her "real" restaurant, etc. Even so, I'd probably risk it if I were her boss. And/or install 50 video cameras in the kitchen.

Frankly she reminds me of one of my coworkers, who is not a bad person or anything, but has no, and I mean no, common sense. She even looks like my coworker. True story: this coworker once offered me some half-eaten soup, because she didn't care for it. WTF????? Nothing personal, but I don't eat other people's half-eaten food (MrTeasdale being an exception, as we agreed to mingle germs when we got married). But clearly there are lots of people out there who think nothing of stuff like that.

I may never eat in another restaurant again... !

[Houddy]

I may never eat in another restaurant again... !

I'm with you on that. This show has killed the restaurant industry for me. I didn't realize I was putting my life at risk every time I went out eat. *shiver*

I really believe the only reason Jen is still here is because Grr couldn't lose three people in one episode. Yes Jen's action was unsanitary and stupid, but I get the feeling it won't happen again, but the other option was Joanna, who was about to give people rancid seafood which is a lot more dangerous than pasta that was sitting on the garbage (not that I'd want either, but concidering Grrr had to choose only one after losing Aaron, I think he made the right call).

I am pretty certain that next time the girls lose, Jen is gone. I think, had she tried to cover it up, or pretend everything was fine like Joanna always did, she'd have been cut. Lucky for her, there was someone worse on the block beside her.

I also can't hate her after stepping up and putting herself on the block. if nothing else, it made for good TV.

[The Acid Queen]

SceneStealer

wouldn't her antics be reason enough to fire her?

If she lived in a right-to-work ("at-will") state, yes. Pennsylvania, however, is not right-to-work--you have to show just cause to fire somebody, so unless she's caught doing that crap at her "real" yob, her yob is pretty well secure.

[Ulle]

Couldn't it be just cause that the restaurant risks a drop in business from how she (voluntarily) presented herself on TV?

I for one don't think I hold to many illusions of what goes on in the kitchen, but from that theoretic knowledge to the certain fact that this exact restaurant employs someone I have seen attempt to serve garbage.... Well, I guess I'm willing to take a risk, but I see no point in actually removing any chance to get clean food. I wouldn't go to a restaurant where I knew she worked, and I don't think I'm the only one.

[ghettoghostman]

Exactly how old does she claim to be?

Those are 26 HARD years.

Sheeeeeeit.

If that ho is 26, then I am Jenna Jameson's body double!

[Cherry Wire]

I'll bet that article was trying to warn local diners in PA who didn't see the show.

I'm feeling a little sympathetic, because she probably acted in the heat of the moment, and seems like she felt properly guilty afterwards and would never do it again, unlike many of the cheftestants from this and other seasons. Then again, who the hell knows?