If you haven’t caught Masterchef yet, well, I think you should. Not only to read my reviews and please me. And not just to get your weekly dose of Gordon Ramsay. Nuh uh! But because it’s pretty entertaining. Look, it’s definitely not highbrow. The judges, Graham Elliot, Joe Bastianich and even Gordon himself can get a little overly dramatic. OK. A lot overly dramatic. They like to draw things out ridiculously, get in people’s faces, ask them burning questions about potatoes, and give meaningful stares. But hey! It’s summer and I’m hot. I really don’t want to think that much anyway. Do you?
Right! So. We started this week with 30 would-be chefs, and the knives started flying right away. Literally and figuratively. The contestants were first asked to chop and slice onions. Loads and loads of onions. If you think this sounds easy, well, it isn’t. Gordon ought to know. He tells us that when he was twenty-two he spent fifteen hours a day, six days a week with onions. Yeek. And I thought several of my past jobs bit the big one!
The amateurs are judged on this basic culinary skill, with the goal being minimal waste. Four people cut themselves within the first minute. Yep. This show is not for those of us who get woozy at the sight of blood. Living in the Detroit area and watching the nightly news, that’s not a problem for me. Six people are asked to leave during the ninety minute challenge. Think about it. Ninety minutes of chopping onions? I must be a mamby pamby, because the thought alone makes my eyes water and my back hurt.
After this weeding out, Gordon and friends bring in twenty thousand eggs. Each contestants gets only one to make the most amazing egg dish they can. One! So, what did they do with the other nineteen thousand plus eggs? I have no idea. But I was kind of appalled at the waste. See? This is what I mean by Masterchef going too far sometimes. Whether it’s for ratings, to make a point, or a combo platter of the two. This chafes me sometimes.
At this juncture, I have to say that I never knew an egg was so important in basic cooking. I did my research. Did you know there are over one hundred ways to cook an egg? Also, did you know that the folds in a chef’s hat used to represent how many ways he could prepare one? I know. Me neither!
But the contestants sure took advantage of the versatile egg! My mouth was watering at some of the inventive ways they were cooked. Over steak and potatoes. En cocotte. With rice noodles as an egg roll. Deviled. Poached with spinach and mushrooms. Yum! Honey? Make me some eggs please!
The only stipulation in this challenge is for the cooks (not chefs yet) to “make the egg the star of the dish. The hero!” Well, as usual, some could and some couldn’t. I was sorry to see a couple people get basted. Like the courageous Daryl, who came this far with only three fingers on each hand. Or Tamar and Adelize, who really seemed to want it.
Yet some of my early favorites did make it to the final fourteen. And I’m not mentioning any names, because my predictions of late seem to get people eliminated from shows! OK. Just two. I really like twenty-two year-old Whitney, who left college to pursue this. And Avis, the big lady who prays for it and hugs everyone.
I have a couple of others in my back pocket that I’m watching as well. Who do you like so far? Anyone looking Masterchef-ish to you? So far, I’m liking this. It’s a fun ride. Now let’s go out and have some eggs!
Clacked by Tara Shrodes
on Aug 11, 2010 @ 18:10 EST5EDT
You go girl, I didn’t think I would like this program, but as they were chopping away at the onions, I was hooked!
I was so hungry for eggs after that program I almost never got to sleep!
Keep up the good work!
*POST AUTHOR*
I know Bronsont. It’s a day later, and I still want egg en cocotte!
. . . . .
How difficult is it to follow a simple direction?
Make the egg the star of the dish.
Apparently, pretty freakin’ difficult.
I was flabbergasted at some of the concoctions created by the cooks. The gal who mixed her egg up in noodles (“Where’s the egg?” “All over in there.”) was one I especially tossed my hands in the air at and yelled at the screen toward. I knew from her description alone she was headed out the door.
Make the egg the star of the dish.
That doesn’t mean burn it. Sure … it’s a ‘star’ of the dish, but not in a good way.
I agree: Some of those dishes were envious. I was enthralled with a few and took notes. (I’ll toot my own horn and state without reservation that I do, indeed, know how to cook an egg. Matter’n fact, I’d be willing to bet I could have survived the cut, eggily speaking.)
Sympathetic favorites of mine (Daryl, Adelize) will be missed. But I’m not on board your train with barely-out-of-diapers Whitney.
And don’t look at me with that Joe Bastianich smoldering stare.
You know I’m right.