Either gawping in amazement at the sheer audacity and skill of these plucky amateur chefs in their race to the title, in amazement at the shouty shouty soundbites that pass for presenting these days, or because everyone on the damn programme seems to eat like that, and if that's the example they want to be setting, why not follow it?
That's right, if you've not guessed it yet (Jason announcing it earlier was a clue) tonight, on Watch With ..., the weekly feature in which we dissect, ingest and review an hour of British television in real time, we'll be watching the Masterchef Final on BBC 2 from 8-9
So. Who are we liking to win? Jonny? James? Or Emily? Did I just get their names right? Wicked. Then I say James. Or maybe Emily. Jonny is also a possible. Because, Um, I've just been trying to catch up on this series in the last several hours.
So more importantly, who do YOU fancy? For the title? In the meantime, I'm going to make myself something impressive and clever to eat. Back at 8...
9.55: Alright, I did have all intention of making something impressive and clever but got downstairs, realised what time it was, flipped out a bit, got a bit weepy and girly and ended up with a cream cheese and lime pickle sandwich and a triple espresso. And yes, that was as pleasant and harmonious a flavour combination as it sounds. What did You have that was so much nicer?
Is it on yet? No, three minutes. Back in three minutes.
8pm "This is it, now, on BBC2 - the climax of MONTHS of competition..." says the nice continuity lady, and so it is, ladies and gentlemen,
"This is One Tough Competition" shouts John. "Whoever wins, it'll Change Their Life" "Cooking" agrees Gregg, commandeering the capitals to outdo his chubby co-shouter "Doesn't GET Tougher Than THIS"
Yeah baby. Bring It ON.
8.04: Yes, the three contestants are fitting up for a massive finale - first making something good out of a random box of ingredients. Then travelling to France and being shouted at by some French cooks while, you know, cooking something good. And then, to top it all off, they'll have to cook somehting good. No, DAMN IT, they're going to have to cook something Really Quite Good. And then one of them, you hear me, Will WIN.
I'm sorry, I can't possibly keep up with the big cappy loudness of the bald one and the non-bald one, so I won't even try. If I can help myself. Which I Probably CAN'T!
8.07: First, a recap of all three finalists. Basically, if you've been watching the whole series, you'll know who they are already, and if you HAVEN'T been watching the series, you just need to know First: The Speccy Northern Irish one with the down to eart cooking style and a look on him like he might have a propensity to burst into tears if you prodded him with a stick repetitively for an hour. I don't know if they've done that yet this series, but this is the final, so I imagine if they're pulling all the stops out, they'll be doing that tonight. Second: The young woman who is pretending to be 18 but looks about 12, with a flair for crazy flavour combinations and a place at Oxford which probably has nothing to do with puddings but they keep mentioning it anyway. Third The Curly haired young dad who's given up barristering to cook instead. Really? Because he only looks early thirties and that's a little young for midlife crisis, even in this accelerated world, isn't it?
8.13: They're making a dish out of a box of mystery ingredients. Well, I mean, they know what the ingredients are once they're out of the box. They haven't just all cubed them into identical sized cubes and covered them all with black food covering to keep them mystery all the way through the process. Though that might be a good idea for next series.
8.15: Glancing down into the comment box I realise that I can't even vaguely keep up with the level of knowledge that people already have about this show, so I'm not even going to bother trying. Especially not going to describe exactly what they made.
Using duck, scallops, chervil, bacon, and, you know, stuff, the three finalists make three courses that the two judges (the chubby one with no hair, and the other chubby one with hair) think are all very good. Which, at this stage, you should hope would be the case. Tiny Emily's food is so good, in fact, that the one with hair, John, is visibly choked by the experience of tasting her food. By tears, I mean. Not by the actual food.
Meanwhile I am transfixed by their eating style. Both bald Gregg and non-bald John seem to have perfected this bizarre technique of moving the fork sideways toward the mouth, shoving it in toward the cheek, and then sucking it off with the strength of a rocket-powered intern. And I'm talking a big forkful, here.
8.25: Jonny, James and Emily have been packed off to three three Michelin star restaurants across France, and are being given responsibility for three massively frou-frouish dishes during a lunch service - it's all mushrooms and waffer-thin toast, presentation and precision and finesse and, all the while, back in London, John and Gregg SHOUT AT EACH OTHER FROM ABOUT TWO FEET AWAY ACROSS A SMALL TABLE.
8.30: In their various restaurants, the three amateur cooks are having difficulty keeping up in kitchens with people who have strived their whole careers from catering college through pot washing and minicheffing and Little Chef up to sous cheffing at Nandos to this, a prize gig, working at a three star restaurant.
And that's not really surprising, really. Take any several people with no restaurant experience, no matter how good chefs they are, and they'll have difficulty in a professional fast-paced kitchen. you know where I learnt that? The school of hard knocks.
Yes, I was watching Gordon Ramsay again.
8.35: Having done very well at their various lunch services, or as well as can be expected, the three amateurs are set the task of cooking one of the signature dishes of the chefs for whom they have been working, and serving it to the chefs themselves.
Which they do. And quite nicely.
I do realise that this is probably a lot more exciting if you've watched the whole series, I really do. but I do get the feeling that with these three cooks, who have beaten so many others to get to this point, have had a whole week of finals in which they've all been cooking really quite well. And they haven't been able to show any one or other doing particularly better than any other, because they wouldn't want to ruin the experience of the final, so it's been nice people cooking nice things nicely. For a week.
Well, that's all I could tell from the iplayer episodes, anyway.
8.42: Finally, we're into the good stuff, the three cooks taking the time to prepare their prize-winning dishes. Well I say taking the time, it's squished into three minutes of the programme, I don't hve time to appreciate what they're doing, or how they're doing it, it's all so damned fast. It's like watching Saturday kitchen while still drunk after coming in after a long night out your pulse racing and head spinning. On fast forward.
Jonny's starter is a chanterelle mushroom risotto with a rocket pesto, then some sea bass with parsnip and potato thing, and a fennel and vanilla cream, or something. It looks alright, but I'm entranced by Gregg's fork technique and the sound of someone walking past my front door gobbing on the pavement. Pudding is a chocolate fondant, which has a soft centre, almost causing orgasm in both judges.
8.49: James has made three courses, which, if I want to write them down, are either going to have to decrease in number of ingredients by about 86%, or not doing this live. Whatever they are, both the starter and pudding are 'LIGHT AS A FEVVER!', whispers Gregg. And the meat is also nice. It's all nice. James sits back in the green room, tucking nervous hands into his apron. "I don't know how I've done, he says. Bless him. I think he's done alright, and why? Because It's all very nice.
8.51: Emily cooks three courses of Lunatic Gourmet - the starter is something like polystyrene packing nuts in a langoustine and crushed biro sauce, the main is potted headmaster in a jus of rabbit knackers served on a bed of mashed iphone with a froth of salt and anger on the side, and for pudding, she's serving sorbet. Sorbet made of iron filings and headwind.
I don't know what she made, alright?
It was very complicated and it went too fast, and I JUST CAN'T KEEP UP.
8.55: John and Gregg are shouting a lot. Emotively. I think we're about to hear about who the winner is.
8.57: The contestants are lined up. Behind them, several months of competition and one solid chord of TENSION music. Do you have to hire a composer for that, do you think? It just kind of goes DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUH! for about two minutes - or almost a year, frankly, if these dramatic pauses get any longer I'm going to take up having children in them - until finally someone says...
"James"
9pm: So, as we conventionally ask at the end of each week's Watch This...What Have We Learnt?
1. To get to the finals of Masterchef, you have to be a pretty good amateur chef. It would seem to follow, therefore, that a whole week of finals will result in several quite good cooks cooking quite complicated things quite well. Which is nowhere NEAR as fun as unmitigated disaster, frankly. 2. While a youthful sense of culinary derring do is a commendable thing, it doesn't get you as far as a spawned law qualification and a head full of bouncing curls. 3. Being solid, dependable, stocky and able to cook a hearty plate of grub, meanwhile, impresses no one. Well, it impresses a fair amount, actually. It just doesn't make them cry. 4: The Masterchef trophy - which looked, at quick glance, like an @ sign with a big M in the middle made out of solid steel about half a metre high - is manufactured by the same subtlemerchants responsible for supplying Gregg and John's presenting style. 5. Masterchef is now far from the days when three judges wandered slowly from presentation area to presentation area, delighting in the construction and concoction process of each dish and revelling in slow cogitation of their decisions. It's now produced by a quorum of primary school children on class A amphetamines. Not that I'm advocating that. At all. 6: If they only took the dramatic pauses between the announcement of winners and spread it out amongst the rest of the programme, there would be at least 20 minutes of extra time to spread the material out. If not more. 6. Liveblogging finals is a lot easier when you've seen the rest of the series.
So thank you again to the fine team in the comment box, who kept me going and informed all the way through.
Thanks and goodnight - we're back to Wednesday again next week, for, you know, something or other, because I have to go to Crufts on Thursday - so, you know, see you Wednesday, maybe? Thank you and good night.
