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I teach manners too, Chef.

Colleen Cleek was a contestant on Season 5 of Hell's Kitchen. She ranked in 12th place.

History[]

Season 5[]

Episode 1[]

Main article: Episode 501 - 16 Chefs Compete

Thousands of chefs auditioned for Hell's Kitchen in the series' biggest turnout. However, only three hundred arrived at Hell’s Kitchen and met Jean-Philippe and Ramsay. Out of the three hundred, sixteen were selected to compete. Jean-Philippe began calling out the chefs chosen to compete. Colleen was seen as the ninth person to be called as one of the sixteen to compete. When she came up, she did not believe there was anyone out there who would work harder than she would.

During the Signature Dish Challenge, Colleen was the eleventh contestant to have her dish judged by Ramsay. When Ramsay asked who cooked a dish that resembled diapers, she spoke up. She said it was smoked chicken enchiladas with poblano cream sauce. She revealed that she was a culinary instructor who charged $300, despite not going to culinary school. However, Ramsay was shocked by the size of the dish and said it tasted like crap. Ramsay could not believe she charged $300 to teach people and said he needed some plastic wrap on his ass. Feeling insulted by Ramsay's critique, she retorted that she also taught manners. In response, Ramsay told her, calling her Ms. Manners, to “fuck off back inline”. After the challenge, Ramsay asked both teams to decide on a team name for the opening night. She suggested flames of hell.

When the teams were lined up, the women revealed their new team name, Team Saffron. However, Colleen said she would have preferred Spice Racks, so Ramsay allowed that name instead of the other one. She was at the appetizer station during dinner service with Ji. She was getting her risotto ready, but Ramsay found out she put mascarpone cheese in it when it was not needed. After service resumed from a power outage, Ramsay saw that she was about to make a new pasta dish in a dirty pan in the red kitchen. After disbelievingly remarking that she taught cooking for a living, Ramsay showed her multiple clean pans that she did not see before. Later, she was cooking way more spaghetti than needed and was told by Ramsay that less spaghetti in the pot would cook faster. Worse, Ramsay soon found pasta in the bin and ordered another spaghetti. She admitted to being older than most of the chefs, but she was not nervous about taking criticism. Two and a half hours into service, she finally got her spaghetti properly cooked and sent it along with the risotto. However, Ramsay found the risotto odd-looking, tasted it and spat it out. Ramsay called it the worst risotto he tasted in his cooking career and asked why it was sweet. Ramsay said sugar was in the risotto and asked who put it in. She admitted to doing so but thought she used salt when cooking. However, LA was in disbelief over that answer, and Ramsay tossed the pan into the bin. The red team won the dinner service because of Carol's strong performance as a waitress.[1]

Episode 2[]

Main article: Episode 502 - 15 Chefs Compete

The following day at 5:49 AM, a marching band came into the dorms and played loudly, and the chefs woke up. Sous Chefs Scott and Gloria ordered the chefs to get downstairs, and they were led outside to find Ramsay. Wanting both teams to learn how to respect their products, Ramsay had them go to their crates and gather all the scallops into their colored buckets. While collecting the scallops, Colleen accidentally fell into her team’s crate but managed to get herself out. During the Scallop Cleaning Challenge, Colleen did not want to be seen as the weak link. Fortunately, she got five out of her six scallops accepted. The red team eventually lost 35-36, and they were forced to prepare a raw bar for the next dinner service.

During dinner service, Colleen was at the fish station. At one point, Ramsay noticed that she had already cooked scallops in the pan and warned her that they would turn out overcooked. Ramsay had Lacey come over to show her how to cook them while snarkily telling her that the former would not charge $300 for it. Carol said that despite running a cooking school, her lack of experience showed. Meanwhile, Lacey felt honored to help her out. Lacey sent over scallops that were cooked nicely, and Ramsay showed her the difference. Ramsay snarkily asked her if Lacey charged her for the lesson, but she said the latter did not. On entrées, Ramsay noticed that she had forgotten the John Dory for the order. Not only that, her salmon was both black on the bottom and raw in the middle. Ramsay accused her of not being a culinary instructor, and she was robbing people, but she argued that she was a teacher. After two more of her salmon turned out black, Ramsay lost his patience and demoted her to the raw bar while ordering Lacey to get on the fish station and brought Paula back into the kitchen. As she went to the raw bar, she refused to let Ramsay break her.

The red team lost the service. Ramsay turned to Colleen and told her that people who cannot cook should teach. She disagreed with that argument, but Ramsay said she proved it that night. However, she stated that she knew how to cook fish, but Ramsay made her nervous that night. However, her arguments annoyed her teammates as LA thought she was talking out of her butt. Ramsay said that she was giving him a headache every time he looked at her. The red team was asked to nominate two people for elimination. During deliberation, she knew she was a definite nominee.

Colleen was the red team's first nominee for elimination, with Lacey being the second. During her plea, she said she was fully committed to the competition and wanted to prove to Ramsay she could win. When Ramsay asked her if she was better than Lacey, she said she was. However, Lacey reminded her that she had to take over fish to get entrées out, and despite not knowing too much, she felt she could do better. Still, she promised to make the women a stronger team and asked Ramsay for a second chance. She survived elimination as Ji volunteered because of her injury. She participated in the emotional standing ovation given during Ji's departure, along with everybody else.[2]

Episode 3[]

Main article: Episode 503 - 14 Chefs Compete

The following morning, the Sous Chefs woke up the contestants at 6 AM with cowbells and told them to get dressed and out the front door to the SUVs. The barely awoke chefs were driven to an unknown place. It turned out they were at a meat processing plant, and they took a tour of the building. Sous Chef Scott showed the chefs where each cut of beef was located on the cow's body. Colleen took it seriously as she was from Omaha, Nebraska, the beef capital of America.

During the Meat & Cow Challenge, Colleen was the first person on her team to attempt the cow part of the challenge. As she placed the cut locations on the cow, she called it difficult due to everyone screaming at her. She finished with three wrong answers. The red team lost the challenge, and they were punished by taking in two large sides of beef, prepping them, and eating cow offal. During the punishment, she saw Andrea go through the worse of them in the offal lunch.

During prep, Colleen refused to drop the ball that night. During the Steakhouse double dinner service, Colleen was a waitress for the first seating. She forgot her cart of menu items and had to grab it. During the second seating, she was at the appetizer station. She forgot two orders of Caesar salad, which caused Ramsay to accuse her of doing it on purpose. However, she argued she misheard the order and called Ramsay an arrogant attack dog. Ramsay called her pathetic. The next order was four Caesar salads, three shrimps and one plain, and Ramsay pulled her aside to find out if she understood it. While she could correctly recite the order three times, she stumbled on the fourth time. That caused Ramsay to accuse her of not being normal, and an annoyed Lacey said that if the women lost, she deserved to go home. Despite her mistakes, the red team got appetizers out. The red team won the service.[3]

Episode 4[]

Main article: Episode 504 - 13 Chefs Compete

Colleen was at the hash brown station during the Football Team & Cheerleaders Breakfast Service Challenge. She got distracted by the cheering in the red kitchen, claiming she could still fit into her cheerleading outfit. However, Paula and Ramsay told her to focus on her hash browns. The red team won the challenge, and she was excited to finally win a challenge. They were rewarded with a Beverly Hills-style camping experience. She said the Beverly Wilshire Hotel was the Pretty Woman hotel during the reward.

During dinner service, Colleen was at the meat station with LA. LA was getting angry with her as not only was she not putting their meat entrées in the convection oven to keep them warm, but she was continually asking questions, which double guessed LA's cooks. LA sent over the Wellingtons, but they did not have their ends properly cut off, which the former blamed her for. Then, she brought over her Wellingtons, but she accidentally brought four Wellingtons instead of the three ordered and was accused by Ramsay of taking the competition as a joke. Paula saw her get a beating from Ramsay again, and despite seeing her keep her head up high, the former thought her brain was breaking. Both teams were named joint losers, and they were asked to nominate two each. During deliberation, LA pointed out that she was starting to push Ramsay to his limits, especially since she had been chewed out in the previous services.

Colleen was the red team's first nominee for elimination, with Lacey being the second, and they joined Seth and Ben from the blue team. She said she worked hard and admired Ramsay's teachings during her plea. She survived elimination. After Seth's elimination, she said goodbye to Lacey as the latter was reassigned to the blue team.[4]

Episode 5[]

Main article: Episode 505 - 12 Chefs Compete

During the Asian Fusion Challenge, Colleen was paired with Andrea on the meat dish. They were the final pair from the red team to have their dish judged and went up against J and Giovanni. Their dish was a Kobe beef sashimi brushed with Korean-style sauce. While the beef was delicious, the red pepper flakes overpowered the sauce. Still, they scored that round over the pair of J and Giovanni, and the red team won the challenge 2-1. The red team had their dishes featured on the Epicurious website and won an Asian-inspired day, including sumo wrestling and sake tasting. Even though she had no idea what that was, she was excited to enjoy it.

During dinner service, Colleen was at the dessert station. Ramsay chewed her out at one point for leaving the door open as their Wellingtons were getting colds. Still, she did not remember if she did open the oven earlier. Later, she sent out the desserts in the red kitchen, but one of them, from Steele’s table, was sent back for being raw. Ramsay forced the red team to eat it, and Andrea called that poor judgement on her part. Ramsay chewed her out for sending out a raw dessert, and Andrea could not believe her. Both teams were named joint losers, and LA was named "Best of the Worst" for the red team. During deliberation, she hoped Ramsay would send a blue chef home no matter who LA nominated.

Colleen was not nominated for elimination. However, after Ramsay sent J and Andrea back in line, he called her down and eliminated her for her poor performance during the first five services. Before she left, Ramsay praised her for her tenacity. During her exit interview, she believed that Ramsay made her a better person and hoped he cooked at her school one day.

Ramsay's comment: "There was no place in the kitchen I could put Colleen where she wasn't a disaster. It's time for her to go back to where she belongs: teaching, because she certainly can't cook." [5]

Nomination History[]

Week 1 Win
Week 2 Nominated
Week 3 Win
Week 4 Nominated
Week 5 Eliminated

Season 6[]

Episode 1[]

Main article: Episode 601 - 16 Chefs Compete
Colleen made a cameo during the opening of that season, where she gave a rule to the contestants about what not to do. She declared that she had some advice for them, and then a clip of her putting sugar in a risotto during the opening service was shown. Finally, she revealed the rule "Always taste your food before you serve it!" to the contestants.[6]

Post Hell's Kitchen[]

  • After her appearance on the show, Colleen returned to her cookery school, The Classy Gourmet (before it closed in late 2018) and has been on television on local interest shows.
  • She created her own food blog called "The Classy Gourmet."
    • As of 2021, her food blog has not been updated for a considerable period of time, and her website is currently inoperable.

Trivia[]

  • She is the only contestant from the state of Nebraska.
  • At age 41, she is the oldest of the season.
  • She is the first female contestant to get eliminated after a joint team loss.
  • She is the first member of the red team to be eliminated, as Ji withdrew from the competition due to an injury.
  • She is the third contestant to be eliminated after a service where she was on the dessert station, following Carolann (Season 1) and Jason (Season 4).
  • At 12th place, she is the lowest ranking contestant to make a future reappearance.

Quotes[]

  • "That's not diapers, Chef."
  • "No, I am not a trained chef."
  • "The pan had already been used, and I didn't have a chance to wipe it. I felt like an idiot."
  • (After falsely recognizing the sugar as salt, and putting on the Risotto) "I grabbed this. I thought that was salt."
  • "It was extremely difficult to stand there, and to keep my mouth shut."
  • "I teach manners too, Chef."
  • "Four Caesar salads, Chef, three..."
  • (After winning the Breakfast Service challenge) "V! V-I! V-C-I-T-O-R-Y!"
  • (After being eliminated) "Chef Ramsay and Hell's Kitchen made me better. It made me a better person, it's going to make me a better mom, it's going to make me a better chef, and it's going to make me a better instructor. And I hope one day he'll cook at my cooking school."

Gallery[]

External links[]

References[]

Hell's Kitchen Season 5
Staff
Gordon Ramsay (Head Chef) • Scott Leibfried (Blue Team Sous Chef) • Gloria Felix (Red Team Sous Chef) • Jean-Philippe Susilovic (Maître d'hôtel)
Contestants
Coi BurrussJi-Hyun ChaColleen CleekLacey D'AngeloPaula DaSilvaGiovanni FilipponeAndrea HeinlyRobert HesseWil KocolSeth LevineLA LimtiacoJ MaxwellCharlie McKayCarol ScottDanny VeltriBen Walanka
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