This week, auditions continue to find the final contestants for the first ever season of MasterChef USA. Is a new meanie emerging on the judge’s panel, one that can perhaps even eclipse Gordon Ramsay’s famed foul-mouthed attitude? The cruel bird-like eyes of chilly gastronome Joe Bastianich may prove more fearsome for our home cooks than any of Gordon’s shouty rants.
It’s the second part of the audition process to find the final 30 contestants who will compete for the title of the first MasterChef USA. Gordon says that the winner will receive $250,000.00 and will ‘sear their name in culinary history’. The first part of that statement is true, but the second part is deeply questionable.
A number of the contestants, like Jamaican born Tamar, make the mistake of trying to present their dish ‘restaurant style’, when all the judges are interested in is their raw cooking talent. Gordon tells Tamar her dish looks better in the pot than her attempt at haute cuisine style presentation. Despite his criticisms he says yes to Tamar’s curry and is surprised when his co-judges, chef Graham Elliot and restauranteur Joe Bastianich disagree with his assessment and deprive Tamar of a MasterChef apron. Gordon gently bullies Graham into reconsidering his decision and when Graham relents, Gordon tells him ‘if you’ve got any balls you’ll go give her an apron’. A sheepish Graham heads out to the waiting area and gifts a sobbing Tamar with her apron and gets a hug from Gordon for having the chutzpah to admit his mistake. Although, I think Gordon’s championing of Tamar has more to do with his wounded pride that the panel didn’t agree with him than his true belief in her cooking abilities.
Graham immediately takes a liking to construction worker Jake, mostly because he is rotund and tattooed like himself. Gordon and Joe aren’t impressed with Jake’s dish, which he says is inspired by his Italian heritage. Graham desperately wants to keep Jake and pleads with the other two like a child begging for a pet. Joe takes his voice box out of the freezer and coldly tells Jake say that it’s frankly insulting for him to call his dishes by Italian names without the proper technique. Ramsay backs up Bastianich by saying Jake has set himself up for a big fall by preparing Italian food for an Italian. Oh phooey! Who died and made Bastianich the Julius Caesar of Italian cuisine? Shouldn’t cooking be an ever-evolving process? Just because Bastianich likes his grub on the traditional side doesn’t mean everyone has to prepare it that way. Graham coerces Joe into saying yes to Jake, against his better judgment. The competition seems more about the egos of the three jostling judges and Bastianich and Ramsay vying for control.
Joe makes mortgage broker Tom nervous straight away by telling him that his dish, the unfortunately named pasta fagioli, is a classic, the essence of Italy and it has to ‘deliver that message and passion’. A quivering Tom starts explaining his process and the judges are SHOCKED to learn he has used canned beans in his dish. Oh the horror! In one instant the judges are telling the contestants to cook to their strengths and stay true to their style, but in the next moment they are criticizing them for not using correct technique. Some pretty mixed messages for our amateur cooks. Having said that, his dish does look frankly unappealing, and perhaps to distract them from his bowls of sludge, Tom gifts each of the judges a terrifying, shriveled carved apple head of themselves, embedded with googly eyes. The googly eyes of Gordon’s apple head are extremely deep set and he is not particularly grateful for his unflattering fruity likeness. It’s not looking good for Tom as the judges wince at the taste of his meal and Gordon says his shrunken apple head tastes better than his plate of pasta fagioli.
Mother of two Jennifer prepares healthy meals for her special needs children and presents a vibrant chicken salad for the judges, which apparently tastes good but looks rather revolting. Gordon likens it to a tadpole but it looks more like her red cabbage has a bad case of trailing diarrhea. Adeliz gets pulled up for ‘pretentious presentation’ and is sent home to start all over again. She has two hours to get home and back to the studio to cook something authentically Mexican. She whips up a batch of deep fried Mexican chile relleno, which go down a treat. Adeliz is grateful for the second chance and says it helped her to understand what the judges were looking for.
Darryl has three fingers on each hand and two toes on each foot but doesn’t let it hold him back from following his passion for cooking. Unfortunately, he makes the mistake of trying to prepare ribs in just an hour, a feat that is not entirely successful. However the judges appreciate his passion and dedication and he gets to make his grandmother proud by donning the MasterChef apron.
The thirty contestants have been chosen and the challenges start next week. It looks pretty intense with cooks sent home left and right in the first few minutes. The troupe will be trimmed down to fourteen in the very next episode and the race towards crowning America’s first MasterChef will begin!
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