MasterChef Australia!!!

After coming back from a wonderful hectic holiday all I wanted to do was to stay at home, have some massages and eat home cooked food. Don’t get me wrong … I loved the lovely variety of food that we consumed being it Greek to Italian to Chinese to French but after a while I start craving for ‘ghar ka khana’ and I even though we succumbed to going to an Indian restaurant in Heraklion it didn’t really hit the spot. If I had been served that food at home I would have probably left the table…. but there we all gobbled it up as if there was no tomorrow!!! Do you ever get the feeling after going on a holiday you come home feeling you need another holiday just to recover….. very strange!!!

The icing on the cake when I got back was that there were 14 episodes of MasterChef Australia 16 on Hotstar. My favourite genres on the television are any kind of cooking programme be it a reality show, a cooking quiz or any kind of film centred around food. Now my all time absolute favourite is MasterChef Australia and I have watched pretty much every episode that has aired on the tv from its inception. There are loads of MC from all over the world but Australia is by far the best. I managed to watch MasterChef USA which starred Gordan Ramsey as one of the judges and that was ok but the one from England was so bad that I really struggled to get through it!!! MC Australia started in 2009 and the judges were George, Gary and Matt and when they left in 2016 I was devastated. They were really good with a combination of humour, great food knowledge and empathy for the contestants. My world was shattered but their replacements , who I initially hated, namely Andy, Melissa and Jock gradually grew on me and all was good!!! Then in 2023 Jock unfortunately passed away very suddenly and they had to find a new set of judges. I have just started Season 16 with Andy, Poh who is a former contestant , Jean who is a Michelin star chef and Sofia who is a famous food writer in the helm. It seems a slightly odd combination but I will give them the benefit of doubt and see what they are like…. though in my heart of hearts I know I’m going to hate them but I guess everyone deserves a chance!!!

For those who are uninitiated ( I can’t believe that there are people like this… who are you and where have you been hiding ???!!!) MasterChef Australia is of course filmed down under and they scour the Country to find the best home cooks who are then thrust into the famous MasterChef kitchen and given a whole load of easy to nearly impossible dishes to make in an extremely short amount of time. The challenges get harder and harder as various competitors are eliminated each week and the winner earns the title MasterChef Australia and 250,000 dollars. The pace is manic, the contestants go through a multitude of emotions and it is one of the toughest competitions in the world. One gets to know each of the competitors as though you are friends and you feel as though you are riding a roller coaster with them. If you do not watch this epic programme please do so…. by the way I am not getting paid for plugging this ( I wish I was!!!) but I really love it and will be discussing this in my future blogs.