The
finale of MasterChef Australia Season 7 was unique. You had a contestant in 23-yr-old
Billie McKay who was extraordinary in the way she could read a recipe,
compartmentalize it in her head in such a way that she knew she would have to save
one hour of the unprecedented five-hour time allowed for a Heston Blumenthal
recipe, and showed she had enough of a heart in that machine-like execution of
a dish to turn around and try to calm Georgia Barnes at the same time.
This,
by the way, is also the difference between MasterChef Australia and MasterChef
US. The Australians in the show have always distinguished themselves as
friendly, ambitious without being competitive, and supremely talented. No one
quite knows how talented the Americans are because it’s buried under an
avalanche of malice, temper and self-obsession. It could be marketing but it
doesn’t do the country’s national reputation any good whatsoever.
But
what was unforgettable in the Australian winner was the way she kept an iron
control throughout the months of competition - until the moment when she tried
to blow that damn sugar bubble for 45 minutes (of the one hour she had allotted
herself). Still, she brought herself back from the brink and nailed that
b*&%h. It was such a tour de force, something we had never seen before. And
that was what led to another first in MC history – the on-the-spot offer of a
job from the great Heston himself, at The Fat Duck no less.
While
I have never envied anyone’s happiness, I am almost mired in envy thinking how
lucky you have to be to own your passion and have the rest of your life like an
open road in front of you. All you have to do is walk down it, stopping to
smell the bloody roses on the way. Anyone who says it’s only talent and hard
work and not luck is seven kinds of idiot.
I
am now off to grapple with that other b*&#h: Karma.
No comments:
Post a Comment