So there it is. I'm the 20th MasterChef Champ. I'm astonished. When I was approached to participate in the show I was between books. I'd decided to have a brief break and the prospect of improving my cooking skills seemed as good a thing to do as any. "I'll be in it for a week," I told myself, "and then I'll carry on with the next book."
Two months later I was crawling on hands and knees across my kitchen, wailing, because I couldn't understand why, at the seventh attempt, my chicken parfait wasn't setting. MasterChef breaks you. It was all consuming. And it's the hardest thing I've ever done.
A cake made me cry, a duck breast nearly did for me and a caramel took me to the point of death – but despite the endless anxiety, constant low-level nausea and ever-present feeling that you were being chased through a wood by bears while covered in honey, MasterChef was one of the most enriching experiences of my life.
You never knew what you were going to be asked to do: it was like finding yourself on a ship in a storm, strapping yourself to a mast and clinging on for dear life. Careering from challenge to challenge, dodging eliminations by the skin of your teeth and praying that your tuile biscuit would roll – every step of the MasterChef adventure was fraught with pitfalls and potholes.
The horror moments included my bleak attempt to create a two-tiered celebration cake. (It was the second time in my life I had ever baked a cake – the first was in 1985, for a recently bereaved man who told me it was so bad it made him feel worse.)
But there were also high points. Cooking for the heroes of Bletchley Park was several shades of awesome, and hearing Jay Rayner's comments on the mackerel starter I made for the food critics blew me away. With John and Gregg pushing us to strive for perfection, I achieved things I never thought possible.
And for anyone who has ever harboured a desire to go on MasterChef, I also have a few tips:
▶ Practise. Don't ever cook anything for the first time. I did this and dodged elimination by a hair's breadth.
▶ Have some sauces up your sleeve. Think of one you can use for white meat, one for red and one for fish. The invention box is fiendish, but a good sauce will get you a long way
▶ Everything, but everything, tastes better with butter.
▶ When cooking fish, if you add a crushed whole clove of garlic and a sprig of thyme to the pan while basting, it makes a world of difference.
▶ Emulsions: easy to do, always look impressive (stock in a pan, add butter, hand blender until it froths).
▶ Presentation. Think about how plates look in restaurants. Try to replicate it. Feng shui your food.
▶ Listen to John and Gregg. They want you to be the best you can be. Don't let them down
▶ When everything goes wrong, don't give up. Cooking doesn't get tougher than this. (Turns out it's true.)
• See Emma Kennedy cook live with 2012 MasterChef champ Shelina Permalloo at the BBC Good Food Show Scotland at Glasgow's SECC on 20 October. For more information and to book bbcgoodfoodshow.com
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