Mastercheffy

 

As a self-proclaimed amateur home cook I love cooking shows to death. I might not own fancy kitchen appliances like magic-mixers or necessarily always use fresh thyme sprigs (believe me the dried stuff is pretty good and doesn’t go bad in the fridge) but I love cooking. I love sautéing, frying, poaching, stewing, baking roasting and all things that start on a cooktop and end in “ing”. I love watching cooking shows (obviously) and I watch all of them, I mean I try, I have a full time job you see. I watch the good ones with great camera work and which actually show you the inside of the pot and the not-so-good ones where the chef stands sideways and they never take the camera close to the pot. I even watch the shows that appear on infomercial dedicated channels where only the chef’s voice makes it to the video, which now that I am thinking about (who makes it after all).

Anyway, so since my love for food and all things cooking has been established you can imagine my excitement for the 3 months in the year when Masterchef is on the television. I religiously come home on time and have my tea (because otherwise I start drooling as I watch) take a bathroom break and sit down to watch the master of all cooking shows the Masterchef. However from the very first episode the thing that stands out are the “mastercheffy” phrases that are inserted in the mouths of the judges (sometimes against their will I am sure). I love these because they are overused, clichéd and sometimes don’t make sense logically. So here are my top 5 overused but never too old phrases in dedication to the Top 10 contestants that have made it thus far through blood and sweat (literally).

 

1. “I am salivating”- Ermm of course you arel, you probably have not eaten yet because you have to judge 24 dishes times 2 or 3 rounds (even 1 forkful times 24 times 3 is a lot of food) and the whole place must smell amazingly confusing, what with French, indian, spanish, Mexican, Italian food being cooked at the same time. I know you are salivating but please leave the mention of drool to us viewers at home.

 

2. “A well-oiled machine”- Yes of course he/she is. I mean they run a kitchen and a successful business together in a time of uncertain economy, but can we think of any other metaphors for a well-oiled machine.

 

3. “That duck/chicken/lamb/steak is a minute over”- 1 MINUTE, that is about the length of time it takes to grab a tea towel and accidentally drop it and pick it up and take the pan off the heat. C’mon 1 minute does not the world break, unless we are talking deep impact.

 

4. “It lacks a bit of zing”- the most confusing of all flavours is zing. It is just above umami and under truffle I guess because it is really hard to achieve. If I ever aspire to join the culinary greats I will have to discover this mysterious flavour and unearth its hiding place.

 

5. “Oomph factor”- Now I know about fear factor but nothing inspires more fear than lacking this elusive factor. Someone really needs to harness this factor and put it in a jar.

 

6. “The perfect marriage”- Now I know the news of the successful nuptials of pork and apple, duck and orange, strawberry and cream, but the poor contestants just made a dessert with blue cheese, beetroot and cauliflower and paired it with chocolate, may be the idea of the perfect marriage of tastes is passé, it is the era of collision and disagreements of flavours

 

7. “It does not look like a restaurant dish”- Yes, because obviously they had to cook within 60 minutes and that included the shopping (so what if it was from the shop-with-everything next door), plus there were multiple cameras and 3 cooking stalwarts breathing down their neck. Its lucky that the medic outside is only called in for cut and burnt fingers and not nervous breakdowns or PTSD.

 

8. “You have tried to make it a look like a restaurant dish, when all we want is you cook from your heart”- MMMhhhhmmm, yeah I don’t know what to say

 

9. “It lacks that textural component”- Oh yes, the texture fixture has driven all the contestants to so much madness that they are ready to put cornflakes from a box on a beautiful lemon-curd pudding (there wasn’t time or ingredients to make a textural element) or dip fried rice noodles in chocolate to create wonky looking chocolate spiders (oh what the hell)

 

10. “This is my version of…”- Well it looks wonderful, of course and must taste amazing but you have only had a whole day and all the time in the world to cook it not to mention “the one I made earlier” version of the dish to help you along. But that’s okay.

 

This should, however, not reflect on my love for the show, I have, I am and I will keep watching this for all seasons to come.

 

Do you have a favourite phrase you think is hilarious?

 

 

 

Now that is a restaurant quality dish from a restaurant

 

 

Birthdays

I just turned the age we all know as the wrong side of the twenties, and I know there is nothing to cry murder about it since it is not on the wrong side forties or even thirties. I am not whinging about my age at all except I will from now on only have 1 birthday in 2 years as a control measure on aging (maybe I will when I hit the wrong side of the next two decades.) but as another so called “Birthday” passed I couldn’t help but observe some strange things around me. Obviously long gone are those days when birthdays were a celebration with a coloured cake with faux cream and a candle, enjoying a party with the neighbours’ kids (none of whom were in the same age category by the way). Also gone are the madness of reaching the legal limit to drink and therefore drinking yourself silly and taking pictures that you still hope don’t surface in some corner of the world 10 years later.

Birthdays are no longer the day when you wait at the stroke of midnight to see which of your friends or boyfriends’ or girlfriend’s is the first to call. Facebook makes sure no one, even the person you hardly remember anymore wishes you on your “page” which for one day in a year is a proof of how many “friends” you have.

So I decided not to think about what growing another year older and most certainly none-the-wiser did not mean but what it definitely did mean

It meant another year that I went without talking to the friend I thought I wouldn’t spend a day without talking to

It meant another year where the number of shoes I bought is more than the number of times I saw my family

It meant another year when I applied, more number of times for jobs which I didn’t love than take a single step towards what I really want to do

It meant another year has passed since I packed that bag and passport and travelled to the next state even

It meant another year had passed without growing at all.