All done!
That’s it from me until next week! Lynton is gone, Rose is a new fave, Poh is still in – despite truly testing the boundaries of time – and Hayden is out there somewhere wearing his cap backwards. Thanks for following along. I’ll be here next Sunday. Because, again, I truly just have nowhere else to be.
Stay safe! Look after each other! Cook yourself some delicious food without a cruel timer from Gordon Ramsay!
Updated
On the plus side: Rose lives to doubt herself another day.
The loser is kicked into the street
IT’S LYNTON! HE’S GONE! Everyone touches their eyes, nose and mouth in mourning.
It’s down to Lynton and Rose. Who will wear the crown of shame? Who is the biggest loser from a group of extraordinarily talented winners? How will I make rent next month? Wait, not that last one.
Oh no, Rose’s roasted eggplant and yoghurt flatbread looks great, but the judges think the sauce has too much garlic and the flatbread is too doughy.
Still, that’s surely better than the fish sludge? If Rose loses to fish sludge I will METAPHORICALLY* take to the streets.
* An edit for Victoria Police. I will continue lawfully sitting here, on the couch in my trackies, quietly seething about a pre-recorded TV show that is kindly distracting me from mass global trauma.
JENNY. DO IT.
I could write a whole thread about the diversity in this season (compared with previous ones) and the judges sitting at a round table and why equality, dignity, class, gender and race are all interconnected - but you get the idea #MasterChefAU
— Jenny Leong MP (@jennyleong) April 19, 2020
Rose seems really intent on doubting all her consistently proven abilities. It’s just nice to see women so realistically represented on screen.
men pitching: I have an excellent story, I look forward to you running it
— Bhakthi (@bhakthi) September 26, 2017
women pitching: I expect you'll hate this, sorry for existing
Good luck, Rose!!! You’ll do great!
Melissa gives great taste face. I feel this flavour in my bones.
Courtney’s up. She has cooked roasted cauliflower steak with a cashew paste and harissa sauce. Healthy, but also not beige sludge! I guess it is possible.
And it IS delicious! Between this and Poh’s cake, all my iso baking decisions have been validated.
Chris’ turn! He’s made a basque cheesecake with fino cream, and orange and sherry caramel.
Why would a Big Meat Man make a dessert (for small women) ????
It’s his late grandmother’s recipe. MasterChef family nostalgia is back!!
It looks delicious.
The judges love it! They cannot stop slurping down the squid noodles. They’re shotting the egg yolks whole and snorting the black pepper.
It’s Hayden’s turn. And the dish is not a big hunk of meat! It’s lots of small, fancy pieces of meat with a cheeky egg on top.
The verdict is in: they did not love it.
What’s the opposite of food porn
A frantic cook but @Lynto_Tapp has given it his all 🧡 #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/IiXuPrHRlh
— masterchefau (@masterchefau) April 19, 2020
I think they love it?? What a cliffhanger.
Time to taste!
Lynton brings up his dish of blue swimmer crab of buckwheat and grilled asparagus. It sure sounds… healthy!
But, in his defence, I’ve lost all perspective of “health” after eating cinnamon rolls and mashed potatoes in isolation for the past month.
The cook is over!
Here’s a little treat to celebrate
i’m going to tell my kids this was jock from #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/It5oIEAzfm
— eliza (@autumnelizakate) April 14, 2020
Drama!!
MasterChef alum Alice Zaslavsky says it’s not even possible to roast an eggplant in that time. Is Rose in real trouble?
I’d agree with you based on the edit, but based on my cook’s brain, I’d say whole-roasting eggplant in that amount of time to cuisson is nigh-on impossible.#masterchefau pic.twitter.com/pD3W4dnxN7
— Alice Zaslavsky (@aliceinframes) April 19, 2020
Ooh, the old judges have taught Andy the tried and tested method of “completely destroying a contestant’s confidence in their life-long craft for 3 seconds of good TV”.
After trying Lynton’s sauce he looks him dead in the eye and says “are you happy with it”?
Let’s recap.
Chris is making mini-cheesecakes. Lynton is cooking crab and asparagus. Hayden is making carbonara out of squid (?). Courtney is doing a cauliflower steak. Rose is making roasted eggplant and flatbread.
Everyone is alive with anxiety and none of it is related to a global pandemic that has decimated the hospitality industry. Imagine!
Hey guys, if you were missing that tight sickening feeling in your chest after Poh, good news: Rose is here!!
Very anxious. Just casually ruminating on what I’ve given up to be here and how much this moment means to me and also how behind I am, wow everyone’s so talented and KAJHKfkbjnf THE CLOCK HAS STARTED OKAY.
Hayden, a truly relatable home cook, starts mindlessly listing the ingredients he’s gonna get from the shop before saying “mm it’s gonna be good”.
I use a similar process before drinking a couple of glasses of wine, forgetting to start cooking before 9pm, and eating frozen fish fingers instead. Good luck to him!
“There’s no time to waste, can you please describe your dish to me in length. No you may not multi-task.”
Does anyone on this show understand how time works?
“This dish takes an hour in the oven... I am going to wing it in a halfa?”
Round two: cook for your life, losers!
Chris, Lynton, Hayden, Rose and Courtney have produced the worst dishes!! They’ll now have to cook a second dish with whatever time they have left on their clocks.
The good news: Australia has been blessed with at least another week of Poh on primetime TV! Also: my opinions of beef tartare have been completely validated.
The bad news: that means we’re somehow only about halfway through this episode? I hope Rose (a real-life angel) and the Rocket Power guy stay in the comp.
Maybe Chris will pick a 2009-inspired dish to match his hat. If his year was anything like mine, it could be a bowl of Indomie Mi Goreng with a side of Smirnoff Black.
Wow this meme is relevant on a daily basis now
Poh after every cook. #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/EXgwXiKeuc
— Tara Watson (@tara_watson_) April 19, 2020
Poh doesn't do things by halves... save us a piece please 🙌🏼 #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/swyFCY3UAd
— masterchefau (@masterchefau) April 19, 2020
“Perfectly cooked”!!!!!!! “GUTSY MOVE”
“Australia thinks you’re a pure joy. That was a pure joy to eat”.
“It’s technically perfect”
I never doubted her.
POH IS FINISHED. The cake looks so good. I can breathe again.
btw, where’s the Zoom link for the virtual riot we’re having if she’s sent home?
“I might actually not even have a dish”. Ok then. This is fine.
Poh: The cake usually takes two hours to cool, I’m hoping it does in 15 minutes. #masterchefau
— Dean Nye (@Dean_Nye) April 19, 2020
Me: pic.twitter.com/lChDLFOkcK
While the ads are on, let’s take some advice from Sarah...
Easily the most relatable moment that has ever happened on MasterChef #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/3fiVSyhJh3
— Michelle Rennex (@michellerennex) April 16, 2020
Pray for Poh
Meanwhile, how is Poh going?
Reynold has cooked an “excellent” dish! Of course, he has. Come on. Don’t waste my time.
No one needs this stress in their lives, Poh.
Grandchildren: How did you cope in the pandemic?
— Michael Lucas (@MrMichaelLucas) April 19, 2020
Me: Look basically okay until Poh decided to use the entire 90 minutes to make a strawberry lychee chiffon cake in the #MasterchefAU time challenge.
Jock tells Brendan “I had these in China not long ago. From a street vendor”.
Two notes on that:
- Exactly how long ago, Jock???
- This is 100% the type of comment that comes from white people who think they’re good at cooking Thai food because they’re 1/64th Korean.
Poh is isolation baking
I feel very connected to Poh in this moment, as she paces around the kitchen, filled with mortal terror, watching a delicious cake rise.
What do you reckon about the edible flower thing?
Is this #MasterChefAU or MasterFlorist? Stop it with all the flowers!
— Adam Richard (@adamrichard) April 19, 2020
Remember 2012 when every cafe started putting whole garden beds on bacon and eggs?
PS what do we reckon about Hayden’s backwards cap? (It’s only fair after I went after Chris). It’s very Twister Rodriguez from Rocket Power.
I love that everything Hayden plates is just a caveman-sized slab of meat in some form. Remember when MasterChef was a competition of ‘who can cook a roast chook the best’ and not ‘who can alter the molecular structure of sugar to best recreate the feeling of your estranged grandmother’s embrace’? Simpler times.
The judges go mad with power
Is... everyone going straight to the balcony right now? Jock is out of control.
Is everyone going to be on the balcony watching Poh make a sad, solo elimination cake???
No shade to Fedora Chris, but beef tartare really does look like dog food. (Does that opinion mean I’m too uncultured to be blogging about MasterChef?)
Even the positive feedback - “love the chunk” - is objectively gross.
What. Is. Happening.
It's fine Poh. I didn't come here to do maths either #MasterChefAU
— Kristen Amiet (@KrissiAmiet) April 19, 2020
Just so everyone’s on the same page: if Poh’s dish is one of the worst ones, she WILL NOT have any time left to redeem herself. She’d be out right away.
The bottom five contestants from this round will use their remaining time to cook a second dish for the judges. The worst one of those will be eliminated.
It would be on form for this year though hey...
If Poh goes home first, 2020 is fully cancelled. #masterchefau
— Maeve Marsden (@maevemarsden) April 19, 2020
In Poh’s defence, strawberry lychee chiffon cake sounds completely amazing.
Trust in the MasterChef queen.
RED ALERT: REYNOLD IS NOT MAKING A DESSERT. He’s making a slow-roasted quail which seems ill-advised as it is a time challenge and this is a dish with “slow” in its name.
Jock loves it! He’s on board! No problems here!
Chris’ dedication to his fedora is really something. I know that it was his trademark look in 2009, but dragging it in to 2020 is a hell of a decision.
In 2009 I wore a lot of vests and my favourite piece of jewellery was an antique teaspoon on a chain. Some things should stay in the past.
Melissa inexplicably strokes a pineapple
I love Melissa.
Melissa heads over to Dani’s station and says “I think it was a really brave and bold move to not use your immunity pin!”.
Finally, this show has a female host who can nail that blend of “compliment” and “thing that devastatingly undermines all confidence you had in yourself”.
Nine years ago a friend told me “I love how you just wear, like, anything!” right before I walked out the door to a party.
I still think about it to this day.
Any time a contestant says “I really just hope it will set on time” their dish is automatically guaranteed to not set in time. Good luck, Reece! I look forward to seeing your sugar soup.
Guys, I am very nervous for Poh.
This will be my vibe for this whole blog FYI
If Poh gets eliminated at any stage all the remaining contestants should just start tearing the kitchen apart. Like throwing ovens through the windows and ripping up the floors any everything. #MasterChefAU
— Adam Liaw (@adamliaw) April 13, 2020
Andy punctuates Dani’s sentence by yelling “BOOM” and clapping his hands together like an Australian chino-wearing Guy Fieri. Is this his brand?
DO NOT OPEN THE BOX
Don't forget tonight is also #MasterchefAU night. The gang must cook Gordon's parting gift: the preserved penis of Napoleon Bonaparte.
— Your Friend Ben Pobjie (@HartWexford) April 19, 2020
They’re here! Dani gets out of the car and says “let’s smash it like a pork chop”?? I have no explanation or further commentary on this.
WE’RE ON. So, what’s happening tonight?
At the end of Thursday’s episode Gordon Ramsay left a mysterious “parting gift” for contestants in a small box tied up with a Union Jack ribbon. What could it be??? I w... The ad directly after the episode aired revealed it was a timer.
This means that each contestant has 90 minutes for tonight’s elimination cook. It’s a multi-round challenge and they can split the time however they want. We already know that National Treasure Poh Ling Yeow is using the whole time for one dish which is a “MASSIVE RISK”.
In an ad for tonight’s episode Jock gets right up in her face and says she could be going home. And honestly, how dare he.
Playing it safe? Nope, not Poh! 😬
— masterchefau (@masterchefau) April 18, 2020
Tune in at 7.30 Sunday on @Channel10AU #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/WxIzN5jDvl
Welcome to our first MasterChef liveblog!
Hello, and welcome to Guardian Australia’s first MasterChef liveblog! Aren’t liveblogs usually just for news? They sure are. But it’s end times, folks, and there’s only so many stressful news alerts we can all take right now. We need some stressful cooking alerts too!
MasterChef Australia came back this week for its 12th season - an all-stars bonanza in which old contestants (Poh! Reynold! Others I’m less attached to!!) return for one final crack at the prize.
Contestant: Why would I come back and risk my reputation by getting eliminated early?
— Cool Hip Jim (@simdawgsays) April 13, 2020
Producer: We will plug your Instagram. #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/4GSyfT37OM
Notably, three people did not come back: long-time judges George Calombaris, Matt Preston and Gary Mehigan. (Remember when that was one of the biggest news stories in Australia??). But the good news is, we have three newbies to replace them.
Melissa Leong is a writer and previous host of SBS’ The Chefs’ Line. Her brief: smart, kind, incredibly fashionable. Jock Zonfrillo is a celebrity chef who seems to be mourning Matt Preston by wearing his cravats as pocket squares. He glares at everyone, and people are incredibly horny for him. Andy Allen is a former MasterChef winner who says “bangin’” and “yummy” a lot, and is generally very excited to be here.
Tonight is the first elimination of the season. Only one person is guaranteed a place in the competition next week, Callum, because he cooked a sculptural fish dish at the same breakneck speed as professional sadist Gordon Ramsay. Good job, Callum!
I’ll be watching each Sunday’s 7.30pm elimination show with you, providing running commentary, and looping in the best tweets and takes. Leave me a comment below or find me on Twitter (@msmegwatson).
Why not? You definitely do not have other plans right now!
