Yuku free message boards

If there's cracked crockery strewn on the floor, a bleached blond with a streak of mean hurling obscenities and sauce pans through the air and a cook cryin' for his mama in the corner, chances are it's "Hell's Kitchen."

"Hell's Kitchen," now in its sixth season on Fox, is a reality show that pits 16 chefs against each other for the chance to win a restaurant, which this year is Araxi Restaurant in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. The show airs at 9 p.m. Tuesdays on Fox.

Chef Gordon Ramsay, known as much for his mercurial temper as for the slew of successful restaurants he's opened, spends much of every season tearing down the often tearful chefs in order to build up their skills and chutzpah to be a worthy crew leader.
This season, which premiered Tuesday, July 21, is no exception and features one of Nashua's own: Jim McGloin, 35, of CR Sparks in Bedford.

"I've always seen his shows and thought, 'Yeah, I could do that. I could be on that show,' " McGloin said. "I'm a character. I'm a personality. Who wouldn't want to watch me?"

After a three-minute interview at an open casting call in Boston last October, McGloin was invited to another audition. After a few more months of back and forth, including trips out to Los Angeles, he got the call he made the cut.

McGloin and the rest of the crew began filming in January and shot for a month. That's about the extent of what he can reveal of the outcome. The confidentiality surrounding the show is so thick, he can't even talk about what he can't talk about.

"We don't discuss the details of confidentiality agreements," said Jennifer Sprague, a member of the publicity department at Fox Broadcasting, who listened in on the McGloin interview.

What he could talk about was what it was like to actually cook with the great Ramsay.

"He is definitely a presence," McGloin said, still a bit in awe.

"He definitely has an aura about him. After all the hype and all the shows and him just being a name, to finally be standing there near him - well I started double-checking everything I did."

Which is saying a lot for a chef of nine years.

"He's hard, but he's fair," McGloin said. "He just wants it done right."

And Ramsay was equally impressed with his young protege.

"(Jim's) a very focused, hardworking individual that is incredibly talented, and, more importantly, a great thinker," Ramsay said. "When - you'll have to excuse the expression - when the (expletive) hits the fan, and things start to get slightly pear-shaped, Jim was very composed.

"Someone that was water off a duck's back in terms of his posture, his attitudes - we'll say professional - and, more importantly, he's the kind of guy you want on board when it gets a little bit pressurized there; so very calm, very deep in terms of a thinker and a very creative individual. To a normal person watching him at home, he'd come across a little bit petulant, a little bit moody, but there's a great thinker behind that face and, more importantly, a very, very, very serious chef."The biggest take away lesson from Ramsay, McGloin said, was the message of consistency.

"The last plate that goes out has to be as good as the first one. You can't skip on your standards. Every (dish) has to be great," McGloin said.

And when it's not, it's not a secret, to anyone within shouting distance of Ramsay.

"When you first hear it, you're kind of like, 'When's it going to be my turn?' " McGloin said. "And if it is me he's going off on, you hope it's not too bad. But at first, you're just, like, glad it's not you, although you know yours is coming."

Ramsay himself pointed out that his frustration comes from wanting to push the chefs to be their best and to prepare them for the high-pressure life in the kitchen.

"Do you know what? I've come close to #*%!% sometimes in excruciating pain," Ramsay said. "I can't quite believe that they make the basic errors. Cooking a dish is fine; cooking it under pressure is a completely different ballgame. I always try to tell them from day one, pressure's healthy. It becomes stressful when you can't handle that. I mean, if you don't want to become pressurized in this environment, then don't be a chef. If you want to think about cooking, and it's a high-five, laid back motion, then flip burgers and dress Caesar salad, don't try to pitch in the premier league of restaurant."

However, it wasn't so long ago that Ramsay, too, was on the receiving end of some spirited lessons in the kitchen. He recalled a time when he was working in Paris with chef Joel Robuchon. Ramsay hadn't properly browned a duck and was getting a sound trouncing, when he offered to do another duck."Anyway, the pan got put in the oven, the pastry got put around the outside, and the whole thing had been put in the oven. They cooked it for 45 minutes," Ramsay said.

"Of course, he didn't wait for me to give him the second duck, so for some bizarre reason, they put the whole thing in the oven with no duck in there. It got sent to the dining room, and I heard this big crash, bang, wallop when the chef came through. He went for me big time. . . . I learned from my mistake. I went and did it again, and I completely screwed up. You take it on the chin; you put your head down and you get on with it."

On top of the challenges hurled about in "Hell's Kitchen," McGloin said he found the biggest challenge was just spending every waking hour for a month with 15 other contestants and cameramen.

"You don't really have any alone time," he said. "Even when you're by yourself, you still have the camera there. And you don't get to listen to music or the radio or have any TV, so you're forced to interact with each other. There's really no quiet little place to go to be alone."

But, McGloin said, he got used to every movement being captured on camera surprisingly quickly.

"I didn't really let it change what I am," he said.