‘MasterChef’ Update: Please Throw Away Your Gadgets And Hero This Haloumi
Hope you like to watch chefs yell at normals about cheese!
MasterChef can see what you’re tweeting, okay? They’ve heard your complaints about the show becoming ‘too difficult’ and that the contestants are ‘actual chefs’ and that talk of molecular gastronomy makes you want to ‘kill everyone you know’.
Things are changing this week — it’s “home cooking week”! The three fancy men stand beside a big box draped in a black sheet, which is then revealed to be a big cage, presumably from Matt Preston’s sex dungeon. The cage is filled with things like blast chillers and other scientific cooking equipment that normals wouldn’t own.
“No gadgets!” says Gary in triumph. Gary rode here on a horse! The contestants become extremely concerned. Ray is like “wtf how are we meant to cook anything”. Ray can’t even fathom how he’s meant to cook without an ice-cream maker handy.
“Is Maggie Beer in there?”
Oh no, it’s just a bunch of gadgets.
Everyone is thrilled.
“We specifically want to ruin your lives.”
This week it’s all about “raw talent” and NOTHING ELSE. “We all love technology!” says Matt Preston. “But today we are interested in more.”
I hear ya Matt, back to basics. Technology, bleugh! They didn’t have gadgets back in the golden age, way back when things were better! (Also, if anyone cuts themselves while cooking they will not be getting a tetanus shot; modern medicine counts as a gadget.)
Safe to say that Callan Smith — notorious lover of gadgets despite owning a face that belongs on a WWII propaganda poster — is freaking out.
“Hahahaha, they don’t mean Sous-Vide Immersion Circulator do they, how will I cook my breakfast.”
“I’m here to fuck you up, Callan.”
The judges want them to cook normal and the contestants want to die. The mystery box contains pineapples, prawns, anchovies and a bunch of other strong-tasting foodstuffs. George does a bit where he throws tweezers into the cage too and is all like “Oh no, I will miss these tweezers”. Are tweezers a gadget? I kind of feel like tweezers have existed for many thousands of years?
Anyway it’s not funny, pay your workers George.
Good gag, Georgie boy.
Callan is just staring at paper. He is at a complete loss without gadgets. “I’ll make a twill!” he says. Callan starts work on his twill and Gary wanders over. “Do you actually shave yet?” says Gary.
Callan is shamed.
“Hey lil baby boy, grow a beard right now, I dare you you lil baby.”
“But I can’t, sir.”
Some of the contestants — ones who have not been studying how to insert essence of bone marrow into grass-flavoured Tim Tams their whole lives — are actually exhilarated by the thought of a world without gadgets. Pia is making ricotta doughnuts and is stoked about it. She whispers “okay baby” while straining her ricotta.
I wonder if Pia is one of those people who loves to talk about how she doesn’t own a TV.
“I’ve got this, carnts.”
A woman named Eloise has a food dream of opening up a whiskey and dessert bar. Delicious! There’s nothing I like more than sipping expensive, overwhelming liquor and then cracking into a sickly sweet cake, yum yum. Like everyone else, she is freaking out about her lack of access to a blast chiller, which apparently is now standard equipment in Australian homes.
As Eloise is making a tarte tatin, Matt Preston explains to her what pastry tastes like.
“You see, it’s flaky and golden and makes Matty P happy as a clam.”
“Please go.”
Callan still does not know what he is going to cook!! He is just chopping vegetables like they used to do in the olden days. Poor rosy boy. The judges approach him and are like, “Boy, what are you cooking?”
It turns out he has not really cooked anything. The judges are delighted. It suddenly occurs to me that Callan was born in the same year that ‘All Star’ by Smash Mouth came out.
“HAHAHA, you’re really struggling without gadgets, hey Callan??”
“Seriously kid, if you fuck this up then you are out on your arse, I don’t care how rosy your cheeks are.”
“Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me!!!!”
Callan is extremely worried. Others try to comfort him. “A watched pot never boils, hey!” says Eliza. “Haha, so true!” says Callan. I’m completely sure that Callan doesn’t know what this means.
The judges are amused that they have worried the contestants so. Then they remember they’ll have to taste some of this muck.
“Should have made it chippies week.”
Everyone seems to be making a variation on prawns with pineapple salsa. A hungry Gary and George approach Pia. “Pia! We heard there were doughnuts….?” says Gary, sniffing the wind. George actually gasps. “The key thing here is the doughnuts,” says Gary. “Thanks Gary!” says Pia.
It looks like Callan is serving a delicious plate of twill and spiced yoghurt soooo, good luck Callan. He is so sad. It keeps cutting between his plate and his sad 1950s face.
Even the prawn seems to be looking at him in sympathy like, “it’s not so bad, man”.
“It okay, my dude.”
The judges want to sample Pia’s doughnuts. She is shocked to her very core! “Don’t you hate your job sometimes, boys,” says Gary. They feast on the doughnuts and lick the doughnut residue off their fingers. George reckons with this one dish, Pia has inspired all Australians to cook doughnuts at home. The Australian doughnut industry is ruined.
“Yum we are hungry doughnut boys.”
Michelle is next and she has created a work of pineapple art despite not having a blast chiller. She has done well! “Home cooking week!”says George. Michelle agrees.
Whiskey Eloise presents her pineapple tarte tatin. “I’d order that!!” says Matt Preston “Oooooooooo yeah,” Gary says as he sensually pours the syrup over the cake. Gary grabs a fistful of cake and pounds it into his mouth over the plate. George looks momentarily disgusted. There are divides within the ranks in season nine.
“You uncouth ingrate.”
The winner of the Mystery Box challenge is Eloise! Her advantage is that she gets to pick the next core ingredient, which are all ingredients George’s mum always has in her kitchen: fennel, muscles and haloumi! Man, George’s mum is fancy as hell. Eloise chooses haloumi, because haloumi is only something you buy when you are feeling particularly financially irresponsible. Surely the other contestants will enjoy cooking these salty boys!
A man named Pete says that he wants to do “something fancy” so he’s “taking some inspiration from Heston”. NO, PETE NO!!!! He’s putting apricot gel in mashed potato or something ridiculous, rip Pete.
Seeya, Pete.
The contestants, driven mad by salty cheese, keep saying nonsensical things like “I need to hero the haloumi”. “Remember, this challenge is all about the haloumi!” yells Gary, into the void.
A poor man named Lee is being harassed by the judges. “YOU ARE NOT HEROING HALOUMI,” they froth. “They’re right, I’m not heroing the haloumi!” Lee says in panic. Lee is so panicked that he throws away the snapper that he has lovingly cooked and, driven by momentary insanity, grabs some supermarket pastry from the freezer and just sort of wraps it around the haloumi. Yeah, that’s better Lee.
Lee knows that he has made a huge mistake.
“If only I could turn back time.”
Sweating in another corner of the kitchen is Pete! His dish does not yet look like Heston food. “Wtf is this,” the judges say, pointing to his apricot gel. They want to know where the haloumi is at. It doesn’t look like Pete is heroing the haloumi at all.
“Rip something out in eight minutes,” says George. Rip something out? George continues to use phrases of his own making.
“Rip it out, punch it in and reach to the next peak to make your mark at the end of the journey day.”
“I think he means I should serve only haloumi.”
Judging time! Lee presents his dish. “God,” says Matt Preston. They tell him he has a “confused plate” which to my memory, is because they confused him and made him throw away his perfectly good original dish. Lee is sad.
Many more sad men follow Lee. Ray (who is my new favourite, because he is too sweet for this world) presents a “veggie stack” which is literally a stack of vegetables. “Put this idea back in the 1980s cookbook it came from,” says Matt Preston. Pete, almost crying, presents his food. “That’s not a dish,” says Gary. “You’ve been watching Heston? You’re not him,” says George.
Jesus it’s savage as hell in here.
“I’m sad.”
“I’m sad.”
“I’m sad.”
“You’re tacky and we hate you.”
The judges do flip over Eliza’s pasties though! Between mouthfuls, Gary explains that MasterChef is confusing because the contestants are encouraged to do fancy things and smear sauces over plates, but here the judges are losing their minds over plain old pasties! “It’s so confusing!” he says, while George nods. Everyone agrees that yes, this show is deeply confusing.
“You simply cannot win.”
“We’re so happy to be here.”
Eliza, Sarah and Karlie did the best cook of the group. “Wow, girl power!” says George. Pete, Ray and Lee are of course in the pressure test tonight. They look as though they have lost faith in their ability to cook anything at all.
“We are sad boys.”
“Don’t hate us cos you ain’t us.”
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MasterChef is on almost every night tbh, at 7.30 on Channel Ten.
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Sinead Stubbins is a writer from Melbourne who has done stuff for Vulture, The AV Club, Pitchfork, Vice, frankie and Elle. She tweets about Drake, Gilmore Girls and cheeseburgers at @sineadstubbins.