MasterChef – Heston Week starts – Sun

Finally, it’s Heston Week. Hopefully he’s perkier than than last season.
Blurb says: Heston takes the top 12 contestants on a road trip through regional Victoria; the first stop is the mighty Murray River in Swan Hill.
On Ten from 7.30-9:10pm.

Oh gawd – the screams whenever Heston talks to the contestants have me hitting the mute button. Although perhaps they are just delighted to no longer be trapped in a house with each other.
The MC bus pulls up at Swan Hill, where outdoor kitchens have been set up and the three judges await (no bus travel for them).
Presto looks particularly fetching in his pale teal suit with orange pocket square with black polka dots. It’s freaking me out a little that I can see Heston is obviously cold under his thin white T-shirt – or he’s really, really excited!
Heston’s mystery box contains: Corn, olives, oranges, Murray cod, currants, saltbush, oats and snails. Heston reminds them he’s famous for his porridge (tickets, much!). MC contestants way back in 2010 had to make his snail porridge, so you’d think he’d have moved on by now.
Because it’s Heston the contestants get agar, liquid nitrogen (bingo!) and a few other cheffy ingredients.

Karlie of the croaky voice is making saltbush cakes with cod and I’m thinking she could well end up in the finals. She is usually in the middle or the top and seems to have a good grasp of flavours and especially Asian food.
Callan is doing salted porridge ice cream with snails and he compares Heston’s arrival to that of Santa.


For once, most of the contestants get a talking head describing what their dish will be. So far Karlie, Callan and Diana have had the most airtime, with Ben, Sarah and Eliza also in the mix.
Sam appears to be struggling – the judges tell im he’s on the wrong track, hot oil spatters him and he sets a cloth on fire. Still, this is the time to stuff up – it’s not an elimination.
Eloise is making smoked sweetcorn ice cream because we haven’t seen enough ice cream this season.
Teflon Tamara is using the red moulds of death and she’s spherifying jelly, but she doesn’t get much airtime.
Karlie’s saltbush cakes look a lot like Chinese shallot pancakes.

Gary calls out the first dish to be taste belongs to “Diane”. Diane? Sigh – what you get for being a brunette, Diana. Luckily for him they have their names on their aprons, so when she gets to the bench he addresses her correctly. They like her steamed cod.


Sarah is next with poached cod and corn. They like it but, as she feared, the fish is a tad under.


Karlie is next – Callan is going to be sooo sad. They love her saltbush cakes and the “interactive experience”, also known as “eating”.


Diana wins – yay! She gets an extra 15 minutes to cook and they have to do a “water” theme. The bottom two miss out on the rest on Heston Week and go to elimination at the end of the week. Nicole and Callan get talking heads about how devo they would be to miss out – does that mean it’s them?

Diana wants to make two cocktail-inspired desserts, interpreting the water them as a “by the beach” concept. Heston is not so keen but tries to give her advice in the pantry.
This is where the extra 15 minutes can actually be advantage for the non-advantage winners, because they have time to think things through.
The contestants get to wear hats! Nicole and Sam have white baseball caps. Not fully sunsmart but better than nothing.
No hat for Georgie, though, and he’s pale for a bald Greek bloke.
Ben dashes down to the Murray River and grabs a muddy potful of water to pour over dry ice purely for the “aroma”. Sounds right up Heston’s alley.


Even Ben is wearing a hat – he’s going to get hat hair, despite the hair spray!
The judges also don’t like Diana’s cocktail idea, because they are in the bush, not at the beach.
Tamara’s dish is inspired by ocean spray – will they tell her off, too? She’s got the red moulds, again, this time filled with meringue.
Little Mich is inspired by the fallen logs beside the river and is making a cheesecake log; Arum cooks fish; Sarah yabbies.
Callan is doing lettuce water and foam on white chocolate rocks.
Diana is having fruit leather woes and Sarah – after undercooking her fish – has overcooked her yabbies.
Sam is getting a fair bit of airtime for a dish that doesn’t seem like much, and Tamara’s cucumber foam doesn’t set so she can’t use it.

The judges taste
Little Mich’s cheesecake logs: (It looks cool.) Presto steals the leftovers. Heston says it’s delicious and vibrant. Is this the first great dish we’ve seen Michelle put up since the Golden Ball audition?


Arum’s cod: Gaz says it’s his best dish so far.


Eliza’s jelly with sorbet: Heston says it’s the best sorbet he’s tasted on MasterChef. (Quick, Eliza – launch your own range of sorbets endorsed by Heston!)


Ben’s sous vide trout with bowl of river water: Georgie is impressed by the theatre of it. They like it. (Ben is probably the strongest male cook – and definitely the strongest male – left in the comp.)


Sam’s mousse with salted sand: Sadly no pix on the MC Twitter feed. Heston says he’d be happy to eat it at a top-end restaurant. Well done, editors, on making me think Sam was in trouble.
Diana’s pina colada and mojito dessert: At least Gaz gets her name right this time but he bags her out again for her theme. It doesn’t taste good and Heston says the flavours aren’t reminiscent of the cocktails. The advantage curse strikes again!


Tamara’s meringue: Again, no pix – and for the next few also. The plate looks messy. The judges say it’s very sweet and not good.
Eloise’s tomatoes and basil: It looks to be some kind of fresh tomato consomme but for once there was no Eloise airtime, so I’m not sure. It’s a hit.
Nicole’s yabbie with wasabi snow: Another hit.
Karlie’s beach chilli sand with sorbet: Heston says it’s visually stunning and exciting to eat.
Sarah’s yabbies: They are undercooked, so they can’t eat them. Oh boy – she’s screwed.


Callans’ lettuce water: Georgie applauds his braveness. They say he should be proud.

So the worst three dishes would be Sarah, Tamara and Diana. Tamara will be safe, because she’s the Chosen One. And, yep, that’s how it goes down. A shame Sarah and Diana miss out on the other challenges but at least neither is a molecular gastronomy fan, like Callan.

Tomorrow night: It’s an “earth” challenge in teams of two, cooking a main and a dessert. And they’re wearing caps AND Heston has a panama hat. Must be hot. It’s filmed at the painted silos of Brim. You can read about them here.



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51 Comments

  1. As if Heston is such a big surprise!!! This is Series 9. And most of them travelling with their pilows Far Out

    • I would take my pillow – loathe sleeping on strange pillows – and they make sleeping against the bus window so much better during boring road stretches.

  2. My heart sinks every time I see those red moulds. I have flashbacks to the girl who made parfaits every week last year.

  3. Heston is not impressed by Diana’s dish. Blabs to Gary who can barely contain his glee that Diana is one step closer to elimination.

    • Totally agree with you Terese. No over the top reaction. Just very polite when they prsised her fish

    • When Heston was explaining the concept to Diana I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. I never understand the ‘themes’. I would be stumped if I was in the competition.

      • Dont worry. You are not the only one. Hate these kind of theme challenges. Didnt someone just cooked something related to their childhood in an earlier episode and met the brief.

  4. I’m watching on about a half hour delay. Have just seen Gary setting Diana’s water dish up for a fail. He is such a pig of a man I really dislike him.
    Usually we just see Nicole with a vacuous smiley face but today we’ve heard her say how much she doesn’t want to fail in front of Heston so there’s a good chance of her being one of the two to sit out. I hope Diana is not the other one.

    • Thanks! We eat with our hands all the time at my place. Next time I grab pizza or a wrap I will marvel at my creativity of the interactive experience.
      Recap is up, gice.

  5. Tamara will live another day. Gary just couldn’t help himself and kick the boot into Sarah now that her stumble will save his beloved Tamara.

  6. I know Sarah has an undercooked yabby but to say the yabby is not related to water is double standard. Some of the other dishes have no connection to water

  7. What if I serve some cubes of ice over a fire to create a flow of water into a plate. Will that meet the brief?

  8. Tamara’s dish looks disgusting! But of course as I read above they save her. And what a load of crap Eloise’s tomato dish. Every time you think it can’t get any more ridiculous it does.

  9. It’s so disrespectful to the viewer to expect us to believe Gary is judging with his palate when it comes to young blondes.
    They really need a change of judges of they expect viewers to watch next year.

    • Well, Ten is going to need to save its pennies in the future. They can keep Matt but I’d be happy for the Gs to make way for fresh blood.

      • Also they can ditch Heston. Its getting very predictable with Heston. No more surprises. Last night epidode didnt improve their rating.

  10. Wow, MC is practically unwatchable now. We always knew it was pretty much fake and controlled by producers, but this is ridiculous. Two people who can actually cook are in elimination, while the useless ones are safe?
    Hello Nicole, Eliza, Tamara, Eloise, Sam, Michelle …
    I’m not watching the silly Heston love-fest for the rest of the week. Pointless.

  11. I really felt for Callan when they didn’t pick his dish. I wonder if it was awful since they tasted it earlier.
    These challenges with obscure themes are bullshit. Even if the dish tastes fantastic if they didn’t ‘meet the brief’ they are gone. Half those dishes didn’t have a water theme. I really felt for Diana, the judges were so rude to her. Even Heston. Usually the guest judges are more polite. I thought Tamara would be in the bottom 2 till damn Sarah had undercooked yabbies.

  12. Couldn’t be bothered watching Masterchef or House Rules tonight. Usually Sunday is good for both but the blatant rigging is insulting on Masterchef and I just wasn’t in the mood for HR.
    Reading the comments here sounded like it played as expected and Tamara cocked up but clearly was never going to be in danger. Gary and George were dicks. Was Heston happier this year?

    Sorry to hear Diana is in elimination- I like her, but sadly she’s not blonde or gushy enough for MC success.

  13. What a pity that sarah did so badly otherwise tamara would have been in bottom two. And what diane s two cocktails had to do with water is anyone’s guess. Dont think i can watch rest of the week.

    • We can only hope that some of the others will be in elimination as every night 2 more will go into elimination. Only one for WED night.

      Thus 7 will be in elimination on Thurs.

  14. These challenges are deliberately ambiguous so they can start removing the contestants they don’t like. i.e. it is horrible or it doesn’t meet the brief.

  15. These earth, wind, fire themes are so naff. I much prefer basic themes like chicken, roast dinner, Indian etc

    • Things aren’t what they theme on Ma$terchef. Oh my Cod.

      How about Callop?, I mean Callan.

      Any dead sheep in that river water would surely enhance the “aroma”, Ben. Just a friendly warning.

      Thanks for the recap, Juz. Hope I guts out the encore.

  16. Callop has just shat himself when Heston walks in. The wheels on the Ma$terchef bus go round and round. These amatas are behaving as if Heston has cured cancer. The Magical Mediocrity Tour.

    Heston will part the mighty Murray.

    This is truly embarrassing stuff.

  17. I needed Carly to explain that Saltbush has a rather salty flavour. These amatas are so knowledgeable.

  18. Either no flies turned up to this challenge or the clever producers have edited them out.. I’ve seen one on Ben and that’s it so far.

    The standards of cooking (best evah) can’t attract viewers or flies.

  19. I was embarrassed for the contestants at their reactions to the appearance of Heston. No doubt they were told to be enthusiastic, but jumping up and down and screaming like teenyboppers at a One Direction concert was way over the top. Heston looked a bit disconcerted at the bottomless adoration.

    Does she-who-is-named-too-often always have to be in the front row/at the front bench/in the front seat? I’m so tired of her face.

    It’s going to be a boring week if all Heston does is issue challenges, while the contestants pretend they actually have the ability to come up with something innovative.

  20. I see that Gary is doing a chocolate ad with Georgia. I wonder if the blondes all laugh behind his back. When the show was done in Sydney Gary’s daughter went to our local primary school. I gather a lot of the mothers were besides themselves when it came to drop off/pick up time. Idiots.

  21. On The Road Again With Heston.

    On the road again
    Just can’t wait to get on the road again
    The life I love is cooking garbage with my friends
    And I can’t wait to get on the road again

    On the road again
    Goin’ places that I’ve never been
    Cookin’ things that I may never cook again
    And I can’t wait to get on the road again

    On the road again
    Like a band of failures we go down the highway
    We’re all Heston’s friends
    Crawling up his arse at every opportunity
    It’s a dead end

    0n the road again
    Losing cash for Channel Ten
    The life I love is cooking garbage with my friends
    And I can’t wait to get on the road again

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