Saffron’s mad about me… Don’t you love that song? I do – it would
appear though, that MasterChef Australia’s Producers DO NOT…
You wouldn’t believe it peeps (well, most of you will
because I already told you) but I had a MasterChef audition this week!! What?
FBJ?? But you say the only MasterChef in the world is the UK MasterChef – WHAT WERE
YOU THINKING??? To be honest, I wasn’t
planning on applying, I didn’t even know they were recruiting (again‽) Mrs
Feather sent me a link to the application asking if I was applying. “What the hell?” Thinks I and filled it in, “it,
not like they’re going to call me right?” wrong. Unbelievably one of the very
nice production team gave me a call and invited me to audition. Shit. What do I cook? It’s not like I
actually have a signature dish!
I told the Wee Girl when she called after work “Australian
MasterChef??? You’re not actually going to go are you??” You will remember my
previous post, where I may have said we prefer UK MasterChef? I stand by my
views – a far superior contest… “Yes Wee Girl, I will, I mean, what a laugh
right? “Maybe…” She says – she is not convinced, believing that a personality
contest is inferior to a cooking contest.
So I turn up with all the other hopefuls in our timeslot –
20 in all, so they’re chewing through about 60 people in a day – that’s a lot
of broken cooking dreams left burning in the halls… Me on the other hand, well –
I’m here for a good time. If they like
me, they do, if they don’t? Well… there’s no accounting for some people’s
taste*
So a few of us get chatting and having a bit of a laugh –
seems like the 5 of us are all from Sydney, and they’re a really nice
bunch. We swap stories and talk about
stuff – general nervous bonding I guess. Amongst others, there’s an IT Girl (that makes two of us) and a young lad who is studying
the bassoon at the Sydney Institute of Music – dude, why are you here? The bassoon
is a far superior calling, I mean, you get to sleep in, play late, miss gigs...
way more fun than a chef I reckon…
So finally a young, spunky producer comes in and introduces
himself (his name now escapes me of course, we’ll call him Good Prod). He tells us he loves us all and really wants
us all to succeed so, you know, cook our best and we’re all in with a
chance! Everyone is pumped – itching to
cook. They really want to see our REAL
personalities he says (hmmm be careful what you wish for dude – I’m not sure
you can handle my real personality).
They’re going to be filming us too – uh oh, there goes my street cred…
He then goes on to warn us of the perils of double
dipping. Oh FFS!! What is it with people
and double dipping?? Seinfeld has a LOT to answer for, the un-funny bastard. I mean, remember when you’d go out when you
were young and fancy free, meet some guy and snog him – there were no swab
tests beforehand! WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE??? What a load of wank. I have no cold
and no cold sore – I am clean! Oh, and
of course, no cutty cutty meat on the same board as your vegies, it’s not like
they’re both going to be cooked to kill all the bacteria right? Salad? I concur, otherwise? Pfft!!
So into the kitchen we go.
I’ve decided to cook ravioli filled with ricotta, basil and lemon with a
lemon cream sauce. I don’t know if I
mentioned, but when I was in Umbria we did a pasta making course with the
gorgeous Leonardo and Alessandra (as you do).
The pasta recipe had been passed down through generations and one of the
things he stressed was that pasta dough needed to be kneaded (ha ha) for half
an hour. Phew! Half an hour?? That’s a lot of kneading… We did it there, and I’ve
done it again since coming home and it really does make for an amazing pasta
dough. Unfortunately though, I’ve only
got an hour so… ten minutes later dough is done and looking pretty, shiny and
squidgy. Camera man comes round and does
a close up of me kneading – look out for that if it makes the cut on the show
;-) I hope he doesn’t show my age spot up close…
So now second producer strolls around, let’s call him Bad
Prod – I really did feel like they had the Good Prod/Bad Prod thing going on,
he was a whole lot more serious. He complimented me on my glossy dough and
moved on (phew). I made my filling and
suddenly, a wee box of saffron catches my eye… hmmm saffron, I LOVE saffron!
Maybe it will give my dish that extra je ne sais quoi? So I add a bit to the
filling.
It’s now time to roll out the pasta – and the thing with
ravioli right? I don’t like it too thin, there’s a chance it will burst, when it cooks it looks like old ladies undies and
also, I like it with a bit of substance or it all gets a bit soft and mushy, so
I roll it out to my satisfaction and it really is a spanking dough (if I do say
so myself). Back to my bench and shit,
there’s still HEAPS of time to go… Oh well… I make my wee ravioli and put them
aside to be cooked at the last minute.
I did the sauce in about 3 seconds flat – it’s just not that hard and at
the last moment think – hmm maybe some saffron in there too… Why not after all?
And then the camera, producer and sound guy is bearing down
on the guy next to me, he’s talking it up – living the dream, saying what he
wants to achieve out of this. Good Prod
then says to me, well you’re doing a whole lot of standing around; well I’m
just efficient says I (maybe I SHOULD have kneaded the damn dough for half an
hour…)
The camera then descends on me – what are you cooking, what
do you want to achieve? And a few other things, maybe what inspires you? I don’t
remember. And so what do I say? Hmmm I would
like to be in food writing. Food writing?? WTF FBJ? where’s the
cooking in that?? I dunno, maybe I should have said I want to start a cooking
school for underprivileged single mothers teaching them how to cook wholesome
meals – but that’s already been done right?
I did have an opportunity to bang on about Feather and Bone – how much I
loved them and how I love cooking ethical meat, my whole 80/20 rule and all
that… I’m not sure if that’ll make the cut – I may have come across a bit manic
(who me?) Good Prod seemed to like me – but I reckon he’s like that with
everyone.
When it was time to plate up I did – the dish did look
lovely (I would have taken a photo but that was totes not allowed) so you’ll
have to deal with a photo free blog. Bad
Prod came around and made a snide remark about seeing the saffron threads in
the cream – I should have heard the death knell then…
So we have to stop cooking (which I had really stopped about
20 minutes before). And there we stand,
waiting for them to come around and taste all our dishes. I wait as my pasta congeals on the plate –
mmm delicious… So finally it’s my turn, Bad Prod and 2 ladies I did not have
the pleasure of meeting beforehand start to judge my food. Oh, that’s waaayyy too much saffron says Bad
Prod WRINKLING HIS NOSE AT MY FOOD - OMG stop me now… It’s given it a real ‘funky’
taste. Hardly, I think. Oh and that cream sauce (what, the one that’s
been sitting there congealing for 20 minutes? That cream sauce?) It’s way too
heavy says woman number 1. Well, that’s why I put the lemon
in, says I. That was never going to work
with all that cream and butter says Bad Prod patronisingly to me – (#@@$^%^#$ I think
to myself)
Then, woman number 2 cuts a piece of my pasta off and says (wait
for it) “I haven’t actually tasted it
but this pasta looks too thick to me” ARE YOU SERIOUS? You are not even going
to deign to taste it, but you’re judging it? These people are too much. I mentioned what I learned in Umbria – from Leonardo,
who you know; uses a recipe passed down through generations about a 30 minute
knead*. Pfft! Says the tasters, it only
needs 10 minutes max (in their most pretentious tones) yeah, right, Mr Fiftieth
Generation Umbrian has no idea right…
Good Prod is hovering in the background and as the Bad Prod
and his entourage sweep off he has a bit of a taste, happily he didn’t gag and
luckily he didn’t comment on the saffron – Good Prod to the end – go you.
Was it my best ever dish? Nope. Did it deserve the nose
wrinkling disapproval by Bad Prod? Nope again – I thought it was yum when I
tasted it, if a bit lemony of all things…
A lot of us got ordinary comments, so we all swapped
commiserations afterwards while waiting for them to come in and give us the,
who goes through news. My name was not
called; I’ve decided they’ve already filled their position for Plucky Comic Relief
so I was out on my ear.
I am a bit glad though, my 2 week dry aged Dexter sirloin on
the bone was still safely in my hotel room, and the amount of food they
actually tried when they were judging was miniscule – I’m not sure I’d want to
waste that glorious cut of meat on their judgey judgmentalness – especially when
the majority of it goes to waste – that cow will not die for naught! Himself
and the Wee Girl will give it the love, affection and respect it deserves…!!!
I walked back to the hotel that evening singing Mellow Yellow
at the top of my voice… I'm just mad about Saffron, Saffron's mad about meeeeeeeeee, I'm a just a mad about Saffron, Saffron's mad about me! They call me Mellow Yellowwwwwww.....
*and his pasta was not rolled wafer thin - it has to have bite you see...
