* pasta seems to be extraordinarily "in", again. It seemed that only a couple of episodes (and there were many, many episodes) didn't feature at least one of the team making their own pasta, using the tortuous pasta machinery that 99% of Australian households cannot be bothered with, given the range of fresh and dried pasta available everywhere.
* smearing stuff on plates still seems to be "in", despite my hearing a restaurant food critic in Brisbane on the radio earlier this year say that it was definitely "out". But, I guess, given that the same critic said that fine dining was generally "out" too, in favour of more casual, relaxed (and cheaper!) eating, who would know.
* not enough people understand the magic of serving food on wood platters. These made a disappointingly small number of appearances on the show (actually only once that I can recall now - I notice because I do tend to loudly assure whoever is watching with me that the food must be good because of that.) What is it? Because MacDonalds use them on their "create your own" burgers they are now too downmarket?
* cauliflower is way "in". One of my least favourite veges tastes pretty good as a quasi chip, apparently. I would never have worked that one out myself. A recent article in The Guardian also confirmed the cauli's rise.
* never try making your own gnocchi on a food competition show. It only ever seems to work right about half of the time.
* no one in the universe thinks a meal of one giant meatball on pasta is a good idea: except for that (normally more sensible and somewhat funny) woman on MKR.
* chefs (or at least wannabe chefs) really touch the food you're about to eat an awful lot. I'm not sure I'd even be comfortable within my family as to the amount of direct food massaging on the plate that seemed to go on this year, but from these strangers? I hope professional kitchens use plastic gloves more than that.
That's all I can think of for now. Ben Pobjie's final comedy review about the show perhaps wasn't one of his strongest (like the judges, he does start to run out of steam by the end of the season), but I liked the opening paragraph:
And so it has come to this. Who would have thought, when this season of My Kitchen Rules began, that it would one day end? And yet, after sixty-eight months of intense culinary competition, laughter, tears, success, failure, drama, failure, suspense, failure, heartbreak and some more failure, we come to the 2016 MKR Grand Final, the night of nights for people whose friends once told them they were good at cooking.
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