THE MASTER CHEF?

Season 2 of Australian Master Chef: I was addicted.  There is no denying it. 

For the three odd months that the show aired, I watched nearly every episode, and the one’s I missed, I caught up with on the internet.

I shopped at Coles so I could pretend to ‘shop like a Masterchef’, because that’s what Curtis Stone told me to do.  I collected the recipe cards; I downloaded the recipes from the website.  I even gave some of them a crack. 

I cried when contestants were eliminated, when they won or lost challenges and when it was all over.  My life was so empty when it ended.  What was I to do now? 

I loved it, and I waited eagerly for Season 3 to begin.

What a letdown.  *sigh*

Sure, I’ve loved this season, but nowhere like the last.  In comparison, it seems somewhat… pedestrian, as Gary Mehigan would say.  I’ve missed a few episodes, and haven’t really bothered to catch up on the internet, because I know I’ll get bought up to date with the necessary refresher montage at the start of each episode.

Let’s be honest; it’s a reality show, and like all reality shows, the first season explodes with a bang.  People love it! They enjoy the format and love the contestants, who give up their lives for ‘the experience’.  Bullshit.  I wouldn’t give my life up for ‘the experience’.  I’d be giving it up for the cookbook deal and the 100 grand.  Hello?  Stop kidding yourselves!

If you want to live the ‘food dream’, get a fucken apprenticeship and be done with it, for fucks sake.

No, this is about money and opportunity; let’s be clear on that.  AND, there’s nothing wrong with that.

So, when the second series rolls around, we know what to expect.  We do get some wonderful personalities (because the producers now know what the public are looking for now), and some fabulous cooks. 

Then, in the third series, we seemed to have scraped the bottom of the barrel with not only personality, but talent.  Is Australia running out of amateur cooks?  Oh no!  This could be disastrous!  This could send me back home on a plane to anonymity!

Now we’re in finals week! Yeah! It’s nearly over! 

Is it just me, or does this season seem to be painfully dragging out.  It feels like we’ve had the Top 5 for like two weeks, but finally, we’re down to the top three.

So let’s just recap the last couple of episodes and the adventures of the ‘top four amateur cooks in Australia.’  Yes: the TOP FOUR COOKS.

We have Michael, Dani, Kate and Alana.  Fantastic that the top four is made up of all women, as my friend Marika pointed out to me. Yay for girl power!

These people are the four best amateur cooks that this country has to offer, yet they cannot even cook a chicken terrine.  Sure, the Maggie Beer challenge was a tough one.  Or was it?  Was it just time deficient? Or, were these four cooks completely disorganised and incompetent and the whole challenge backfired? 

It was laughable, and it was clear that when all four had produce inedible food, that something had gone terribly wrong somewhere. Even the gorgeous Maggie Beer was wondering what the fuck had happened. How embarrassing.

So, we’ll cover up the fact that we’re dealing with four numpties, and throw them all into elimination.  That’ll fix ‘em.

Now, let’s have a look at the four amazing cooks that we’re dealing with.

Firstly, we have Dani, whose plan of attack was to giggle, cry and flirt her way through every challenge.  Now personally, I think she was a closet genius, because this approach clearly worked.  The double barrelled ‘giggle pot’ attack, combined with the miraculous reward of not one, but two elimination pins, saw her stumble through to the top four, where thank God, the judges were finally forced to admit that she’s so far out of her element, that it wasn’t funny, and sent her home.  Crying and giggling of course.

Then we have Alana, who is so amazed to still be in this competition, but has declared for the last three weeks that she’s ‘here to give it her all and work her hardest to get through to the end.’  Who declared to us in the post-challenge genuflected snippets they throw up throughout the show, that she hoped she didn’t go out on her autobiographical dishes, but then told the judges that she would be proud to do so. 

I’m confused.

I think she is too.

Lucky she’s so attractive and articulate, because when she wins the title, she will be a Channel 10 promotional dream.  Thank God she can cook, too.

Then we have Kate.  Aahhhh…. Kate; who declared that the most memorable experience of her Masterchef journey was cooking for her family.  Her family.  Forget the New York challenge.  Forget the Dalai Lama.  No, her most memorable experience was doing exactly what she does every day of the week.  Seems totally worth it, doesn’t it?

To me, out of all the contestants, Kate seems to have shown the most progress.  From a coffee cake that she threw up in her Top 50 tests, to the desert she produced last night; big change.  I hope her family appreciate those types of meals, and the three hours it takes to prepare them.

Then we have our last contestant, Michael, or as my friend Marika pointed out: Michelle.  I can only describe Michael as….special.  He clearly loves food and loves cooking with such intensity, that it freaks me out.  How about his pallet, though? I’ll tell you this; if you served me baby pigs head, I would be inclined to throw it at you.  Not my bag, baby. Nor is it the bag of most people out there, I dare say.  In fact, when most people go out to a restaurant for dinner, the last thing on the menu they will choose is baby pigs head.  That’s if it’s on the menu at all, of course.  Thank God his sister wasn’t there, because she possibly would have gagged on that too.

However, this is Masterchef after all; the land of make believe, where we’re lead to understand that this shit it normal.  Right.

Then there is the fifth finalist.  Yes, the fifth.  The one that seeks the most attention, but misses out on having the glory rained on it, as the winner will do.

The judges.

It’s okay though.  Don’t fret for them, because they won’t miss out.  Apart from their massive pay checks, cook books, endorsement deals and cravats, their restaurants will be booming.  I hope they can cope.

Thankfully, I haven’t heard George cry out ‘Boom! Boom! Shake the room!’ too much this season.  By the way George; it’s booooom booooom.  It’s supposed to rhyme with room.  Get it right, you screaming dork.

I’m lucky I don’t drink, because if I had a shot for every time Matt Preston declared ‘what I love about this dish…’ I’d be in rehab.  Or dead.

And what’s with Gary and Matt Moran last night?  They seemed to glean such joy out of throwing Michael (Michelle) into such disarray.  ‘You should use the suckling pig,’ Gary declared.  ‘I don’t know why you’re combining the two different cuts of pig?’ added Matt. ‘It’s confusing.  It doesn’t make sense?’ maybe not in your world, Matt, but it clearly does in Michael’s.  By the way, it’s his autobiographical story, not yours.  ‘One’s a more robust cut, and the other is tender and succulent,’ adds Gary. ‘Think carefully about your choice, because it doesn’t make a lot of sense.’

For Christ’s sake fellas!  It’s just a fucken pig!

However, now I can sleep at night knowing Michael used the suckling.  Thank heavens for that! Just imagine how disastrous it could have been!  It may have even sent him home on the first plane back to Adelaide.

Then there was Moran postulating over Kate’s entrée that told the story of her home, and Preston saying he was really sad and disappointed at Dani’s dish, because something had clearly gone wrong.  Really?  I thought she was just crap, myself.

At least the judges had the opportunity to show Australia how vast their culinary knowledge and distinctive pallets are.  We, the food ignorant, would be so lost without them…

Then of course, there’s their random, screamingly obvious declarations.  ‘You’re out of the kitchen and into the fire now!’ ‘Don’t let this chicken challenge pluck you!’ ‘This is a massive challenge!’ ‘You’re in finals week now!’ ‘the end prize is in sight!’ and of course, my favourite.  The eye candy called Curtis Stone, declaring ‘this recipe is set in stone!’ and giving his co-judges a ‘get it?’ look, at which point I choked on my chilled mineral water with a twist of lemon, and wondered ‘Oh my God! Did I just witness this show jump the shark?’

Thankfully, I haven’t seen him on the show much this season.  Seeing him in the ads telling me that if I shop at Coles, I’ll ‘cook like a Masterchef cooks’ is bad enough, because I don’t think I want to cook like Dani.  However, teaching a woman to cook chicken schnitzel and salad for her family in the Masterchef kitchen is clearly a massive achievement.

So, I wonder what will become of Australia’s third Masterchef?  Will they be as successful as Julie Goodwin, or float around the fringes like Adam Liaw?  Who knows.

Hopefully, they will learn from Liaw, who’s clearly a brilliant cook, but I don’t think his beautiful book is geared toward the ‘home cook’; a phrase so often spat out by the judges that it’s nearly offensive. 

His book has been nowhere near as successful as Julie Goodwin’s, who nailed her target market.  Our Family Table is such a constant in my kitchen, it’s not funny.  I think the 250,000 other people that have purchased it could attest to the same.  Basic recipes that taste fantastic, and do not take three hours to prepare.  As a proud ‘home cook’, I appreciate that.

Maybe that’s what it all comes back to; basic comforts.  Maybe that’s what this show’s lost a little; it’s so over the top now that it’s nearly cringe worthy.

Oh well, we’re nearly there for another season.  Then, later this year, we can all get excited again when they  throw another 20 odd pre-pubescent brats at us, and we can watch in freakish horror as they run around with whisks and safety knives, and produce stuff better than Dani can.  I bet they could cook Maggie’s chook terrine though.

Thank God I’ve got The Renovators to distract me.  Now, instead of spending three hours in the kitchen producing something that will be eaten in five minutes, I can demolish my house and start all over again, because clearly, like my cooking, it’s crap.

Hoorah for reality tv, I say.

Peace out.