5, 6, 7, EXISTENTIALISM.

Warning: may cause pizza cravings.

No Pain, No G-Ainsley

As ever, Semi-Final Week is home to the mildly boring challenge in which the celebs have to recreate the dishes of a guest chef. HOWEVER, this year it was different because Ainsley Harriott and the cloud of onomatopoeia that follows him wherever he goes can do no wrong

I was at uni during the Peak Ainsley Meme era. So much so that my flat had an Ainsley Harriott Shrine hanging in the kitchen which I still cannot find photographic evidence of. It was made out of a cardboard box and low-res google images printed on subpar paper. It also won us a pub quiz because the tie-breaking question was we had 10 minutes to find the weirdest item we could and thankfully we lived 3 minutes away from the pub. Happiest night of my entire uni life and I think it happened on like the 5th night there?

Ainsley is also a really interesting chef to have this challenge focus on because he’s never really specialised in anything other than gyration so he has a very wide ranging ouvre from retro classics, Caribbean influences and, in the words of Gregg Wallace, “this Asian stuff”

20 odd years of this show and still Gregg Wallace has not managed to find a way to ask people about their culinary influence that doesn’t make him sound like a 1930s dowager who thinks black pepper is a bit gauche.

Ainsley may have been a great pull, however the challenge is still just the celebrities following recipes. Unless you’re Harry in which case it’s less of a rule and more of a general guideline

other than not being able to resist the urge to cover a chicken kiev in cayenne pepper, he was also not convinced that his chicken would cook in the advised 20 minutes so he did what anyone would do and…. doubled that cooking time to 40 minutes

granted, despite cooking for twice as long as needed and the pre-baking butter fiasco

His final result didn’t look to bad

Harry wasn’t the only one fighting his ancestral urges. Vito found himself unable to fight the Italian impulse to stir a pot of rice which did mean his rice and peas ended up a little claggy but the accompanying goat curry and Johnny Cakes (or John’s Cakes to Vito) were highly praised

quite a few of the celebs were having to work with dough and most of them did really well! Craig did phenomenally well by his Bao Buns

and while they say he won the challenge because his buns were so good, I do think it was more because he’d allowed Ainsley Harriott to reach Peak Ainsley Harriott

it was a close run race for immunity from the next challenge between Craig and Tamer. I do think Craig deserved it but really thought they’d give it to Tamer because he was having his Very Special Confronting Masculinity Episode because he was having to make a dessert.
They were also REALLY hamming up the difficulty too. Granted making meringues can be tricky and his were really good! However, I did roll my eyes into the back of my skull when they tried to act like stirring pomegranate seeds through some mascarpone was some sort of Herculean feat

and then I felt bad because he (SOMEHOW) fucked it up

extremely Homer Simpson making cereal energy

I’ll never quite understand what happened but he had enough time to make it again because unsurprisingly stirring pomegranate seeds into mascarpone takes less than 2 minutes

it was a close tie between this and Dom’s Scampi Tacos as to which dish was the most interesting to me

I do love Scampi and Dom had cooked that perfectly, the only real issue with his dish was the fact his tortillas were a little bit too thick so they didn’t really roll correctly.

The last of the main courses was from Rochenda who I initially thought got off lightly with a Pesto Pasta dish

However, it was a pasta making marathon

slightly losing my mind over the fact Harry nearly cooked a chicken kiev for as long as Rochenda spent rolling pasta like the girl with flat-ironed raccoon stripes rolling rizlas at the back of the Spanish classroom while occasionally saying random Spanish words to make it sound like she was busy. Lizzie, you will always be famous to me.

Lastly we have H who was making Banana Fritters with Rum and Raisin Ice Cream. Now, we know H has a penchant for presentation which he has thus far tried to blame on his children. So I would like to know if it was specified in the instructions or not that he had to serve it a top a rapidly browning banana that looked a bit like Wile E Coyote after being crushed by a boulder

that wouldn’t prove to be the most off-putting part of the dish though as his fritters were only partially cooked so ended up looking more like Popplers than you’d ever want a doughnut to look

Mama!

However the judges were willing to find more redeeming qualities in these godforsaken banana travesties than I was. Which I’m not mad at, I’m enjoying H. (This opinion may be wearing thin in the next episode when he goes Full Lobster Luvvie)

An Ainsley Harriott Power Hour Dish Ranking:
1. Craig’s Well-handled Buns. And His Bao Buns Were Good Too.
2. Tamer Hassan Discovers Femininity
3. The Brigid Kosgei of Pasta Shapes
4. Vito’s Risotto Urges
5. Dom’s Unrollable Tacos
6. Harry’s Double Cooked Kiev
7. H’s Good Will is Frittering Away

You Wanna Pizza Me?

In order to finally vanquish Dom “The Second Least Best” Skinner this week’s elimination challenge was for the celebrities to make pizza – a natural advantage for Vito who spent most of the challenge summoning the spirits of Italy to his side

and of course Tamer who has recently discovered he’s 1/8 Italian several times removed and it’s now his entire personality

I think standing next to Vito for about 15 minutes means you’re at least 1/10 Italian.

Sadly the plan to get Dom to make a pizza using Smarties and Fruit Pastilles so we could all laugh at him didn’t quite work because he’d gone for relative normality in the form of Fig and Goat’s Cheese as a topping

this pizza is basically the entire plot of one of my all time favourite cinematic disasterpieces: Little Italy in which Hayden Christensen Doing A Terrible Accent’s big brainwave for a pizza that’s going to revolutionise the pizzamaking scene of *checks notes* Toronto(?) is fig and organic rocket. It’s a phenomenally bad movie with one of the most insane “emotional” character beats of all time. A twist not even M Night Shyamalan at his most M Night Shyamalan could’ve dreamed up.

Much like the 102 minute Emma Roberts Hostage Situation We Call “Little Italy”, Dom’s pizza had quite a few technical issues. His white sauce base was quite claggy and had prevented the centre of his pizza from cooking. A fact I’m sure is not at all influenced by the fact he was second last in the great Pizza relay because they’d only got 3 ovens

and of course Tamer’s Big Manly Pizza for Men *chainsaw noises* took much longer to cook because IT’S A MANLY PIZZA FOR MEN *bear fighting noises*

men will literally dump a full 500g tub of mince onto a pizza instead of going to therapy

Tamer wasn’t the only one going the meat route. As an ode to his lucky charm being a pre-race Domino’s, Harry was going all out with Nduja, Pepperoni and Spiced Beef for his Legally Distinct Meat Fest™

the middle of his pizza was also a little spongier than one would like but it tasted great. Not that anyone’s pizza tasted bad, they’d all gone a little bit predictable. That was except for Rochenda who was swinging a little wilder with her Pears, Gorgonzola and Pistachio Pesto Pizza

granted it’s a combination you can find at any artisanal pizzeria run by a man who is 70% moustache wax but it was certainly one of the more interesting pizzas on offer. John and Gregg were also both thrilled with it, Rochenda was less thrilled with John’s weirdly sensual pizza slice deepthroating

it’s the opposite of Bruno Mars’s Grenade conundrum.

The standout pizza of the episode was of course Vito’s Friarielli Pizza with a ricotta stuffed crust

and you knew it was going to be good just by the pure determination with which he was marching around that room with it

that pizza was going to be amazing by the pure force of Italy alone.

Lastly we have H who was having the classic Probable Winner’s Emotional Fumble with his Steps themed Blue Cheese and Steak Pizza that came served on a turntable that H couldn’t try and pass off as his kids’ idea again

he had been delayed with getting his pizza into the oven because he’d had some issues with his dough falling apart due to how much oil he’d added to it. This did mean his dough hadn’t cooked properly but he was safe on account of his flavours being good and the fact he’s not Dominic Skinner.

A Pizza Ranking:
1. If I Don’t Put Vito First I Risk An Italian Haunting
2. Rochenda’s Pizza Pizzazz
3. Wouldst Thou Like Some Pizza With His Man Mince?
4. Harry’s Legally Distinct Meat Fest™
5. Dom Saves Toronto!
6. H’s Pizza Plot Armour

Nobody had done outrageously bad and in all honesty, H probably should’ve gone home quite decisively because once again, Dom was only the second worst. However, that Prawn Toast is still looming in my mind so it’s hard not to say this wasn’t deserved

I’ll miss, Harry Hill In Disguise.

And so, we head to the end of semi-finals week!