Rachael Ray and Brandon Scawthorn

After two seasons of teaching celebrities to cook, Rachael and Guy have decided to turn their sights on improving the talents of child prodigies. Unlike past seasons of Rachel vs. Guy, no one will be eliminated. Instead, each week the kids will received grades and two MVPs will be chosen, one from each team. The winner will be whoever has the highest score at the end of the competition. The grand prize is a cooking show on Food Network’s website.

In the first episode of Rachel vs. Guy: Kids Cook-off, we are introduced to the eight contestants. For Team Rachael, Hunter Zampa, Brandon Scawthorn, Hailie Thomas, and Jack Witherspoon will be competing. Team Guy’s contestants are Sydney McCoy, Cole Malouin, Alessandra Ciuffo, and Daniel Hamilton.

Even though it has only been one episode, there are already some obvious leaders. Boisterous Alessandra is a larger than life, friendly Italian-American from Queens, who would invite you over for dinner and then send you home with a ton of leftovers that you’ll love, but will be eating for a month. Hunter knows the most about food and can talk intelligently about it. He also likes to cook venison and fish because his dad is a hunter and fisherman. However, he is also probably the most likely to accidentally kill someone with his fondness for spicy foods.  Cole still needs to work on his camera presences, but with a little practice he will be a mini Alton Brown. In 10 years, Cole could totally have a show where he makes food in unusual ways.

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