Masterchef Australia Season 12

Back to win.

I've been a big fan of Masterchef Australia for a long time now, as its usually nice, wholesome and uplifting emotionally despite being a competition.

The end of Season 11 also saw the departure of the beloved judges Gary Mehigan, Matt Preston and George Calombaris leaving some pretty big shoes to fill for the new comers - previous guest-chef Jock Zonfrillo, articulate foodie Melissa Leong, and season 4 winner Andy Allen who went on to become a One Hat chef (only two more to catch up to Jock)!

The new judges: Andy, Mel and Jock.

While initially wary, I find these three to be quite good at the job - but the real masterstroke was from whoever decided to bring back the best non-winning contestants from previous seasons meaning there's plenty of familiarity around for long time fans.

It's quite interesting too how they manage to continue through COVID which necessitates the removal of public outdoor and service challenges; rules that are retained for the 3rd Junior season of the show (which coincidentally had the epic idea of having a live orchestra play music during the final cook). I'll be continuing to watch if Season 13 rolls around. :)

Blaugust Topic Idea: Future Tech

I am always interested in learning about new technologies and devices, hard ware in particular. So while you can talk about the new OS of your phone, I'd be much more interested in hearing about exoskeleton power armor advancements and electromagnetic levitation.

Yep, that last one came to light for me during the Masterchef Australia 2018 finale when Heston Blumenthal had food on a floating pillow. I know he used a floating plate in a previous season but it wasn't as visually stunning as this.

No strings, just the magic of magnets.

Turns out you too can get your own levitating items from Levitating X: Levitate Everything. Their "how to" video is particularly good, you should go check them out. :)

Today I Smiled: Kept Busy!

While I admit it's kinda nice to take a break from not blogging for awhile, it's also slightly annoying as I've got lots of stuff I want to post (regardless if people read it, haha)! Busy at work, busy in the Siege of Neverwinter, busy in Skyrim, and busy watching wonderful TV shows (like Masterchef Australia)!

Still, I thought I'd at least put up some filler content! Have you heard about "Judas goats"? Marked and GPS tagged the feral animals are released and followed back to their very sneaky herds where hunters would promptly kill all but the marked ones, who would then lead the hunters to the next herd (social animal instinct). Their reward? To die alone. And you thought I was cruel!

Still my favorite comment!

There's also another type that has the dubious honor of being made extinct; twice. Yay for cloning! On the topic of killing, how about that new Philippine President who is keen on turning up the death count? Keep in mind he won via an election. I'm not sure if that's progress or going back to the dark ages, but I definitely found a time machine (one I had forgotten about actually), in the Wayback Machine - which had archived bits of one of my first websites: The Hellsing Crucifix.

Ahhh, I loved than anime. Judging from the text, I also loved smileys.

Ok, I still do. :P

It's all about the cooking!

There are very few "reality" shows I get into, and Masterchef Australia is one of them. This is really strange since I don't cook at all, but am slowly being encouraged to try. Prior to watching it, I didn't know who Heston Bummenthal was, nor Nigella Lawson, Tetsuya, Adriano Zumbo, Matt Moran, Gary Mehigan, George Calmobaris and certainly not Matt Preston among a host of other names. I didn't know that there are people who can hold hot pieces of iron and meat straight from the oven with their bare hands, or that something called a croquembouche was a desert. I didn't know what the terms molecular gastronomy, shucking, and caramelisation meant. I didn't know there were an almost infinite amount of ways to prepare food, and that there were crazy chefs who worked out things that needed to be cooked then baked then frozen then cooked again then fried - what the hell man, was that just trial and error? O_O

And then came Masterchef Australia. A spin-off of the original Masterchef UK (some of which I also watch now), the Australian version focuses quite a bit more on the amateur cooks themselves rather than the cooking. This makes it somewhat less impressive for foodies sure, but I think grabs quite a few more of the non-cooking demographic like myself. The format is ye olde contestants facing a variety of challenges which sees them depart one at a time and the last one standing wins. It's a formula that seems to be working too, as it is now in the 3rd season of the show, with a very awesome Junior Masterchef season thrown somewhere in the mix as well. It also airs 6 nights a week during primetime which gives you an idea of how much pull this "little cooking show" has.

While there certainly is a lot of cooking - there's quite a bit of this too:

If you haven't seen any of it yet, you can find all their episodes online on the main MasterChef Australia site.

Just as amusing as the show itself are the forums that recap it daily, giving their own (usually hilarious) spin on the transpiring events. The two I visit most often are Reality Ravings and Shuckittome. Definitely something to have a little taste of if you haven't already! ;)