MasterChef 2021 Ep 4: Chicken Or Egg Elimination

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Top Image via Twitter

First Elimination… let’s be honest: all anyone cares about today is whether Trent will go up in flames (again) or actually cook something decent. I do have a couple of questions about Elise’s dress though: specifically about the bananas on it. And why is Andy looking fancy today? Did I miss something? Are we to be put through another Katy Perry episode? (please no)

Okay no, the camera went a bit wide, and I’m back to thinking that whoever dresses Andy should be fired. It’s not as jarring as Matt Preston’s sartorial choices, but at least they had personality, even if said personality was obnoxious.

In Round 1, the contestants have to cook a dish featuring either a chicken or an egg. Of course they leave Mel to dress up this very boring challenge up in not-boring words, but that’s pretty much what it is. Is the new first step to being Australia’s MasterChef showing that you can be Basic AF?

First time we see Trent in the episode, he says he’s ‘gagging’ to go into the MasterChef pantry. He also drops some whisks or something. Hot Mess Express is leaving the station!

DEPINDER IS MAKING CHICKEN BIRYANI OMG OMG

QOTD: Does she put elaichi in her biryani?? I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled.

Andy would simply roast chicken on the crown? This man basic. Jock’s not much better. Omelette in 75 minutes??

Eric is a pure baby! Polite doctor who can cook? Indian parents’ wet dream right here.

“Better get flubbing!!” Shouts Mel. I think she’s speaking Australian for a second before realising that everyone is as confused as I am. This is a relief, but also a matter of concern because if Melissa stops making sense then they might as well cancel this show altogether because no one will understand anything at all.

Justin’s gone over to the dark side: he’s using the hibachi. His flashback shows a whole bunch of people sitting and eating together… it feels like decades ago. Clearly I have not aged well.

Trent is making egg tarts. Of course, he says ‘chicken’ right after he says ‘egg tarts’, which is… concerning.

Melissa questions whether Maja’s beetroot fresh egg pasta features egg enough, so she adds a carbonara sauce. I thought carbonara was more cheesy than eggy, but she’s the cook, I guess? Will be keeping an eye out for this one.

The Hot Mess Express is really bringing the mess, with custard leaking out of the tart shells in the oven. I’m literally walking to the alcohol cabinet right now. Come on man.

Back to Depinder, and she’s like:

Sab changa si!!

Amir’s freaking out about the water for his pasta. With all the cool gadgets they have on the show, why not an electric kettle for each contestant too? I have never understood this.

Trent’s egg tarts are sticking to the tins like they’ve imprinted on them, and he’s just got one decent tart to serve. Why is he like this.

Time’s up, and Perfect Man Eric is up first to the tasting table. He’s cooked enough for five, and it looks yum af. You have to listen to his description your yourself. It’s poetry.

Perfect Man getting more perfect by the minute.

Depinder next! I’m not even surprised that the judges love it because… I mean. It’s biryani. Quick biryani. Coal and ghee-smoked quick biryani. This girl is a genius omg. Perf.

SHE ADDED CARDAMOM! HA! Brb I’m gonna go rub this in my brother’s face.

(Her second happy dance looks like my aunt trying to hold her pee though ngl)

Justin’s up next, and he doesn’t know if his hibachi-d whole chicken is cooked through. Oof. Jock is utterly non-committal as he cuts into it… and it’s perfect!

This show has more drama than a 90s Karan Johar movie ffs pls stop.

Also this. Oh, Trent.

So the bottom five- Trent, Dan, Yo Yo, Amir, and Linda- now have to cook with whatever they didn’t choose in Round 1. Yo Yo, Amir, Dan, and Trent get chicken, and Linda gets eggs. Up on the gantry, the rest of the contestants are clucking and freak out about how it’s all ‘so real now’.

Trent’s going for a chicken-lemon myrtle combination. This looks promising, but I’m more interested in Amir’s shawarma. And also Amir’s glasses. And also Amir.

Trent says something about Christina Aguilera, and then horrifies Connor by putting lemon myrtle everywhere. This is worrying, but also not surprising.

Yo Yo’s making kung pao chicken with rice, while behind her, Dan gives the gantry a real show with a knife and some unfortunate green.

At least Trent didn’t do a Poh and forget to turn on his pressure cooker. His chicken is done, too, which is also a relief. Linda’s overcooked her confit egg and decides to poach one with like 4 minutes to go. More power to her, I guess, but also she doesn’t have a choice.

Time’s up, and Amir goes first. That shawarma looks delectable (yes I am only looking at the food). I want it. (Still only looking at the food…)

How does Mel eat with such poise and still look like she’s enjoying the food? I need to take notes. Also, she’s happy dancing at Amir’s food, so I think it’s safe to say that he will live to cute another day.

(Jock and Andy like it too)

Dan of the knife skills is next, with a chicken Rou Jia Mo, or a Chinese hamburger. It’s apparently one of the oldest versions of the hamburger, so please, America, pipe down. Yo Yo brings in her Kung Pao Chicken next, which looks fancier than any takeaway Kung Pao I’ve ever had. I’m jealous.

Next up is Linda with the doubtful egg, and I’m a little antsy. But it looks like the poached egg has worked out, judging by Mel’s reaction. You go, last-minute Linda!

Trent tootles in with his lemon myrtle chicken, and my heart is in my… well, still my chest, but it’s still beating moderately fast. He does the requisite sucking up by professing to love native ingredients (camera cuts to Jock because did you know Jock cooks with native ingredients?), and then chuffs out to let them eat.

You know what? Everyone should listen to Connor because that is wayyyyy too much anything in any dish. There is literally this weird lemon-myrtle under-skin under the actual chicken skin and… I guess we know who’s going home, right? The only question is whether Mel will roast him like a chicken or just let him off easy. Not sure which one I prefer tbh. Am I here for the food, or am I just here for the drama?

Trent makes some speech about having learnt so much- not sure how much you can learn in two days and three different cooks, but okay. I feel for the guy, though- it’s not easy to have lived up to a moniker like “Hot Little Mess”, special emphasis on ‘mess’.

As the Hot Mess Express leaves the station for the last time, Linda is trying really hard to squeeze out a tear. Think of your kids, Linda! In seriousness, Trent, it’s been real, and hopefully you come back at some point later (assuming they’re doing that this year).

MasterChef Australia Season 13 is currently streaming on Disney+ Hotstar for Indian subscribers.

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MasterChef 2021 Ep 3 Recap: Queen Emelia’s Mystery Box Challenge

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Top Image via Eminetra

Okay, I’m doing it. This desi girl is doing her own MasterChef Australia recap series. And not even from the beginning! It’s a go with episode 3, in which our 24 new hopefuls finally cook in the MasterChef kitchen for the very first time.

Look at them all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. It’s like me on the first day of kindergarten.

IT’S AN EMILIA MYSTERY BOX! Last year’s champion enters like the queen and conqueror she is, and I literally squeal. It’s past midnight here in Bangalore. When this season finally airs in India, I just know my mom is going to smile at Emilia like she’s her own daughter. I’d feel replaced, but honestly? Yeah.

All the contestants are, naturally, also squealing.

Aww, she’s pregnant! Jock goes for the obvious ‘mini-choux in the oven’, but personally, I prefer Emilia’s own ‘heir’ reference. This is her kingdom alright.

Anyway, she runs through the mystery box ingredients: saltbush (do you know Jock cooks with them? Do you?), silverbeet (because it’s ‘average’, apparently, idk, I’m Indian), dark chocolate and cherries (duh), potatoes, pistachios, a homage to her super-sexy finale dessert (which she won on), Sichuan peppers, because finale main (which she won on), quail as a throwback to that Suburban Week mystery box (which she also won), and finally, Barramundi.

(Yes, Emilia won MasterChef 2020, why do you ask?)

After Andy explains the rules of the Mystery Box (in case there is one person left on the planet who doesn’t know how a MasterChef Mystery Box works), Mel drops the real bombshell (apart from her earrings. And Emilia. And Emilia’s heir. And Emilia’s earrings): they’re cooking for the only three Immunity Pins of the season.

Ooooh, shiny.

And then Jock drops another one: this year, you can use an Immunity Pin at any time during an Elimination.

Yeah, I’d cook up a storm for that.

Trent the pastry guy/Duracell Bunny is doing his ‘Black Forest’: a tempered chocolate log around a pistachio diplomat cream, with macerated cherries, cherry coulis, saltbush something, chocolate something, ganache something, and something crumb. It sounds a bit Reynold, which is to be expected since the ghost of Reynold has lingered in this kitchen since his Season 7 debut until he returned to turn it into a towering legacy last year.

Trent sounds very confident, though he also slops some of the cream onto his apron. Gotta say, that is thick. Is it supposed to be that thick?

No, I don’t know. Who d’you think I am, Reynold?

(Expect a lot of Reynold mentions. He’s a bit of a family favourite)

Hi Kishwar! I first heard about this Bangladeshi-origin contestant on the wonderful Nabela Noor’s Instagram, and I loved her audition. Is it the sweet mum energy? Is it the ‘small dream’ of writing a Bangladeshi cookbook? Is it just my curiosity about how Bangladeshi food is different from Indian Bengali food? Whatever it is, I love her. Also her dish sounds gorgeous, 10/10 would hog.

Therese says she’s feeling the pressure, but she’s also giggling and doing a thumka and making jokes like ‘whisky business’ (not a typo), so she’s like those girls at school who talked about “blanking out” and still got 95/100 in all exams. I’m not sure about this one, guys.

Jock and Andy bonding over the Pin. They’re also walking around tag-teaming like all last year. Do they need an intervention or a bromance ship name? Jandy? Andock? Please suggest

Oh god. The hibachi.

(I’m ready to godspeed the hibachi right out the fucking door)

Arreyyyy, there’s a Punjabi in the house! She’s a baker? I did not see that one coming. I obviously need to do a lot of work on confronting my stereotypes.

She’s making choux pastry. For Emilia. I just… I can’t. I want to write an exhortation in Punjabi, but all I know are prayers and swear words, so… godspeed.

Is Elise the new Laura? References to nonna, now ricotta… honestly, there aren’t many better MasterChef alumni to take after. Laura is, after all, the bomb.

Mel’s uplifting quality is clearly undissipated by the disaster known as 2020. Honestly, five episodes into season 12, it was hard to remember a MasterChef that did not have Melissa Leong. She (and her earrings) are literally the best thing to happen to this show.

Trent is going on about knowing German. Does he also know that he’s got chocolate on his apron now? He’s struggling with the tempering- he’s literally sitting in the fridge now to try and get the temperature down. Jock offers him some words of wisdom that he’s obviously not going to take because he’s a self-proclaimed “Hot Little Mess” and right now he’s really leaning into that.

Poh had the emotional and cultural capital to do this. Trent is… just a mess. I like him, but there are ten minutes to go and I’m not nibbling my nails, I’m rolling my eyes.

Tommy is a sweetheart. I can even forgive him for saying the word ‘hibachi’. There’s something so endearing about a cook who loves their food.

Kishwar didi is doubting herself again. Please no! You are amazing and that looks drool-worthy.

Trent has gone from “I’m gonna get that pin” to “Gotta get something on the plate”. This is gonna be hard to watch.

Halfway through the tasting, they call Kishwar, and she looks so scared. I hate this. How can someone so talented doubt herself? Who cares about fancy? She looks like she’s waiting for the axe to fall…

…Only for roses to rain down! Everyone loves it! Kishwar is smiling! I’m tearing up. I want my mom to see this.

Hot Mess Trent is up. This is going to be really hard to watch.

…It is worse. Melissa lays down a few harsh truths about the difference between “being a punchline and being a player”. This is horrible. If Melissa Leong said those words to me in that order, I would fling myself onto the nearest hibachi.

Honestly, the rest of the episode is tame after this: some hits, some misses, Therese, Elise, and Wynona win the three Immunity Pins, and automatic immunity from the first elimination of the year which is…. tomorrow. Am I a tiny bit salty on behalf of the resident desi girls in the house? …Yeah. If Kishwar gets eliminated tomorrow, this cute new venture of mine will walk out the door with her.

MasterChef Australia Season 13 is currently streaming on Disney+ Hotstar for Indian subscribers.

Veganism, Climate Change and Ground Reality – India Chapter: RePower

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A friend of mine recently got into an online argument with an advocate for veganism. When I got dragged into it, I found that while while a wholly vegan diet could certainly cut the world’s greenhouse gas emissions by around 70 percent, that’s not the whole story. Further research unearthed a more recent study at Johns Hopkins University, which says eating meat once a day, in conjunction with a plant-based diet, could actually be more beneficial to the environment all around.

Most of the meat-rich diets are influenced by the western ideal of a ‘balanced diet’- and here is where another problem lies.

Read the full article on RePower: Veganism, Climate Change and Ground Reality – India Chapter — RePower

Girls Are Coming Out Of The Woods

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Source: Girls Are Coming Out Of The Woods

Tishani Doshi’s session, her dance, her poetry, her thoughts- they changed something in me, added something, weakened something, healed a few more things. Made me think. In conversation with Janice Pariat.

Initiations: Writing Race

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Source: Initiations: Writing Race

It just occurred to me that I hadn’t shared my articles from my time as a volunteer blogger at the Jaipur Literature Festival @ The British Library, London. Two of the best days of my entire stay in the UK.

This is one of my favourites, because it’s about race and identity, two things I keep coming back to. Another one coming soon!

Watching For Goodbye

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How does one wait for death? What do you look for, what signs do you wait for when you watch for it?

we are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying,

and nothing will stop the death-flood rising within us

How do you greet death when it’s not coming for you, but for one you love? With tears and pleas? With a wobbling smile? With brickbats and burning chillies and ash thrown in that inevitable face?

I ask and ask; it’s at times like this that you realise that adulthood doesn’t mean having the answers to everything. Most adults, it seems, put a wise expression on guesswork and shots in the dark embroidered with a little perceived truth and optimism or pessimism, depending on who you’re talking to.

She gave me her name, her face, a nose-pin. I used to sniff the powder from the soft folds of her neck like a baby-faced crack addict; she would sit on the floor as I inched my way through meals, tell me stories, put me to sleep.

‘She’ is my grandmother, and my grandmother is dying.

When death comes for an immortal, hope goes first. Grief is going, draining at a jerky rate. Tears become texturised, gritty with salt because the human body is only 70% water, after all. It runs out fast when death comes for your immortal.

I want her to slip away in peace, to a place beyond pain. I want to cover her wasted body with mine and scream until Death shields his ears and runs for cover. I want her to sit up and order her kidneys to do their duty.

I want my grandmother, and my grandmother is dying.

I love her beyond reason. I hate her for dying, for being un-immortal, for forcing me to say goodbye to her without a kiss, without a wave, without a balcony in sight. I hate myself for not coming back sooner, for not having magic under my skin or in my voice, for not making her well. I hate having been born because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have lived through losing her.

I love my grandmother, and my grandmother is dying.

What do I watch for, what do I listen for? A whisper of cloth against a wall, a shadow slanting wrong? How will I know when to sit up and hold her hand, when to say goodbye for the last time so that it matters? Adulthood is a shot in the dark; a perpetual game of Bluff and old music. I have no answers. I can only hum the sounds of my Paati’s time (or a section of), and hope I get the timing right.

We are all, all of us, dying. She’s just going first.

RE: Homosexuals And Their Private Business- An Open Letter To Subramanian Swamy

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BJP leader Subramanian Swamy said that homosexuals should conduct their business in private and not flaunt it.

Well, fuck that. (Please don’t pardon my French; I couldn’t care less)

The thing is, Mr Swamy, we are people. We are humans, we are people, and we will be treated as such. We are not second-class and we won’t be treated like we are.

Heterosexuals- people like yourself, Mr Swamy- can ‘flaunt’ their relationship in public (whether they can do so safely is a whole other conversation). They fit into your neat little boxes and therefore they have a place in your idea of India. People like me, and others I know and love, don’t.

I do not fit into any box, not even the one marked ‘homosexual’. My poetry handle describes me as Not interested in being polite or heterosexual. I’m not like you, Mr Swamy, and that’s one thing I will always be grateful for.

No, I’m not talking about your sexuality, because it’s not worth talking about. Although you seem to think that it (or the difference from it) is. I’m talking about your personality.

Mr Swamy, you have a great deal of personality. I wouldn’t dream of denying that. You have forceful views, which I’ve found I almost always disagree with; you are annoyingly articulate, which forces me to confront the fact that fundamentalists are not always uneducated people who don’t know any better. You are cantankerous, which would be deeply amusing if you were less of a bigot and more like the crotchety old grandfather that everyone loves. You know how to use social media, a rare feat in a man of your age, and I can respect that you’re (somewhat) willing to move with the times.

Now, read that again.

Your sexuality means nothing to me, Mr Swamy. It doesn’t factor into my views of you- were you gay, aromantic and/or genderqueer , I would still find your politics divisive, still disagree with you, and still admit your personality. Although, admittedly, I would have thought you traitorous as well, or perhaps pitied you.

But my point is, your heterosexuality doesn’t inform my opinion of you. And mine shouldn’t inform yours either. Because I’m more than my gender or sexuality. I’m a student. A history honours graduate from DU. Almost an English MA. A curly-haired woman. A poet, dancer, writer, dreamer, and many other interesting and uninteresting things. I’m a liberal, politically speaking. You can hate me for that. But what’s the point in hating me because of whom I might or might not sleep with? I wouldn’t dislike your sexual partner of choice because she chose to sleep with a man (also, I’m a #wokefeminist who doesn’t believe in judging a woman’s sexual choices, thankyouverymuch)

Frankly, Mr Swamy, you’re a disgusting old homophobe. Now, normally, I respect people’s phobias. But you’re not afraid; you’re just an asshole. Please, disapprove of me for saying that. However true, it’s very rude and I too would take offence.

One of the tools of poets is anaphora- repetition. I will employ it now:

I am human and I will be treated as such. I am an individual with rights, and I will be treated as such. I am an Indian citizen and I will be treated as such.

How dare you tell me to hide my love, my affection, because you think it’s wrong? How dare you, when the theatres are chock-full of of DDLJs and Humpty Sharmas and every sodding version of Romeo and Juliet that Bollywood has ever dreamt up? The state has no say in who its citizens love, Mr Swamy, and neither do you.

I don’t need your permission to love whom I choose, to hold his or her hand in public. Gay bars are safe spaces that we need because of people like you. And frankly, they’re just fun. AIDS can spread in ways that are not anal sex. Instead of policing people’s private lives, focus on funding the search for a cure. It’ll be a much better use of your time than flippantly reducing human beings to second-class citizens because they don’t happen to be straight OR male OR rabid religious fundamentalist dirtbags.

In sum, Mr Swamy, you want us to not flaunt our ‘business’?

Well, fuck that.

Regards,
Malavika Subramanyan.

People who are not like you do not need your permission to live.

S***

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“They… they’re saying you’re such a slut…”

I was thirteen, and the above line was murmured to me by my then-best friend, whom I’ve rather lost touch with and I hope is doing well. At thirteen, I wasn’t very shocked; not because I’d heard worse, but because I didn’t know what it meant.

“Papa, what’s a slut?”

“It’s a sexually promiscuous woman.”

Well, I didn’t know what ‘promiscuous’ meant either, but rather than talk more during a tense CSK match, I sought out the next best source- a dictionary.

In the columns of the gigantic, moth-eaten Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary Of The English Language, I found that I’d been termed someone who has sex with any man who asked. Please don’t run for the dictionary; that’s not how it’s phrased, but my copy’s halfway around the world.

Which, I reasoned, was rather ridiculous, because we were thirteen; who wanted to have sex anyway? It sounded like an uncomfortable business.

(It had been the late Khushwant Singh who had contributed greatly to my sexual education. I don’t recommend it)

That’s not to say it didn’t sting, of course; which teenager doesn’t dread being gossiped about? On the other hand, a whole new world of insults now opened up before my slightly-shocked eyes, although it took three years for me to actually use any. When I did, though, it was to a boy: with the air of someone delivering her coup de grace, I informed one of my classmates that he was, in fact, a man-whore.

“You should say gigolo.” He replied. I was late to the party, it seemed, and not fashionably.

You might wonder why I’m writing this now. And yes, while there’s a part of me that’s gleefully typing up words like sex, whore, gigolo, for all and sundry, I still feel something like a bee-sting when I type the word slut.

There it is again.

That’s one word I try not to use. It may have slipped out at some point over the years, but I try. There’s something particularly filthy about it- and even, I feel, something maliciously female. I can now easily call a man a whore without tacking the ‘man’ to it, but slut always seems so pointedly female.

Slut-shaming. I hate the term. I hate the practice. I hate the casualness of it, how easy it is when the target is a ‘she’.

A sexually promiscuous woman. But a man is just a playboy. A Man.

This isn’t a rant against slut-shaming; honestly, I don’t quite know what this is, even. I don’t often dislike words in and of themselves- even stuff I’ve made my peace with. But slut is one thing I’ve never been able to find middle-ground with. Maybe it’s personal. Maybe society’s ease with it. I don’t really know.

At any rate, it’s a good word to dislike.

A Beginning, A Middle, And An End

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Coventry

I’ve made many a new start in my life, with places, with people; every one was special.

There are, perhaps, times when I wish things were different, or perhaps more familiar. Who doesn’t look back and sigh for the way things used to be? Of course I wish that. But the thing is- and bear with my truism, because it’s a truism for a reason- we can’t go back.

As this beginning ends, then, I won’t look back too much. I’ll think, sometimes, of the days when my brain hinged on my nails piercing the palm of my hand; of the days when I dragged my laughs up from the drainpipe; of spiraling panic and fear and I’mnotgoodenoughfuckpleasehelp. But there were softer days, and there are brighter memories.

There were warm days, when the sky was blue and I did laugh easily and swing with my face up to the sun. There was a smile etched into the corners of my eyes as the Skype call came through. There were softer days. The memories are brighter.

Bath

The name means Jane Austen. Austen, love stories, laugh stories, stories, writing, teaching myself to write, Austen teaching me to write. Austen is my first and last goal.

Imagine, if you can, a young woman in a family of ten; educated parents, little money, large library; putting pen to paper and slowly, laboriously, creating out of the little she sees.

The little becomes a lot; the father is kind, the mother is clever.

And then, Bath. The city that fuels her imagination. The city that she writes about, more than ten years later, in tones both rational and achingly tender. A love story for the elderly.

My nails bite into my palm as a lump rises in my throat. Perhaps I’m seeing her city, perhaps I’m seeing another, perhaps I’m still seeing mine.

Tones both rational and tender, a love story. I could. I could.

The writer who fuels my imagination; who’s still teaching me to write, to be, more than ten years later.

Coventry

Back home, it’s 2018. My best friend’s quiet laugh into the phone rings in the new year five and a half hours early.

How do you pick up the threads of self? I broke my heart to find my self, and in the lowest moments, I wonder just where to turn, and which map to follow.

I fell in love. I fell, I fell, I flew. Then I didn’t so much pull my chute as cut the strings. Goodbye, my bleeding darling, my weeping heart. I hope I find you some day, when I have a self to give and a hand to offer.

I can hear the rain pittering outside. It’s just me tonight: pasta, brownies, rum, and me.

And you, if you’re reading.

Happy New Year (It sounds like my best friend’s laugh. Nothing could be better). Happy New Year.