The Next Food Network Star :Lisa Garza or Aaron McCargo?

The season finale of The Next Food Network Star aired earlier this evening, and Food Network has crowned its new star, Aaron McCargo Jr. Its no secret I’m a huge fan of the Food Network, and the next food network star quickly became a show I could not wait to watch each week. If you haven’t seen The Next Food Network Star, its a reality show that started with 10 contestants who were put through food/screen test competitions each week, with the elimination of one person each and every week. The big twist in the finale this season came last week when the judges couldn’t make a decision on who to get rid of, so they brought three finalists in to the finale.

The final challenge put finalists Lisa Garza, Adam Gertler, and Aaron McCargo Jr in essentially a pilot for their potential new show. Lisa Garza was first up and her show essiently was 5 star food using beautiful basics. Throughout the season it was clear to see that Lisa had the culinary chops to win but often struggled on camera and sometimes was downright funny because of how spastic she was. Seriously, at times this girl looked like she was cooking on speed. Then add to that her trying to tie in fashion into her cooking, and you have a recipe for a trainwreck most of the time. Lucky for her, she let the fashion stuff fall the background for the second of the season. In the end I just don’t think she was nationally marketable for the Food Network to build a show around.