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Masterchef (US) - General Discussion

Meredith Quill

By Meredith Quill
in Masterchef (US)

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Samwise979
Samwise979

Oooh we're on page 10. The most epic page yet!! 😂😂😂 (I guess the joke doesn't go over as well if the page number changes depending on what device you're using but hey, I tried 🤷)

mlp
mlp

So Dorian makes a simple cake and sticks it in some glass thing she found and it's brilliant.  Subha brings up an interesting display with test tubes and Gordon says, "Really?" with a note of derision

spiderpig
spiderpig

I may be in the minority, but I'm completely uninterested in food as performance art.  I want delicious food.  Period.  Not something that looks like it needs to be scraped off a board with a palette

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cameron

cameron

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Hey, Shanika also has her "I know THAT'S right"/Mmm-hhh/smug face that she sometimes goes with. In any case I'm glad we're done with her until the next back to win season. And I'm a tiny bit glad that she outlasted Emily, although the show didn't play on their "rivalry" from their original season as much as I would have expected.

I will give it to the producers. Some seasons of this and other cooking shows make it seem like it is a long march to coronate a given winner. I could see any of the three finalists winning at this point. I would put most of my quatloos on Christian as it seems Gordon particularly likes him. But there's a good story to tell about Michael having improved so much over his previous season and becoming an award-winning cookbook author and one to tell about Dara having gone from a Masterchef Jr. finalist to a true Masterchef.

It's going to have to be an awful lot of padding, because there's just the last 5 minutes of cooking of the entrees, the Christina Tosi reveal and the prep and presentation of the desserts and the final choice. That shouldn't take more than 30 minutes. 

Christine Tosi looks really different since she last appeared on Masterchef.

Leeds

Leeds

2 hours ago, seacliffsal said:

My biggest take away is that Aaron is the only male judge without a sports coat in the finale.

Oh, and in the first hour, any time I get to watch Gordon cook I am happy.  I'm so glad they had the challenge in which they had to cook along with Gordon (and congrats on keeping up as well as they did).

It's difficult for Aaron to find a sports coat that fits over his chubby tum.

I could watch Gordon Ramsey cook all day long.  And yes, if you can come close to keeping up, you're a winner in my book.

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NowVoyager

NowVoyager

(edited)

Aw. I'm gonna miss Shanika. Her beautiful face & perfect makeup gives me Disney princess/James Bond villain w/ a heart of gold. But, her tortellini dish was incomplete. I also think Michael was stronger overall this season.

Watching the finale now. Don't know who to root for.

Edited by NowVoyager
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Yeah No

Yeah No

On 9/11/2022 at 4:56 AM, Diana Berry said:

I’m thinking that I know who wins based upon the amount of talking head time  they’ve been given.  Curious if my prediction is correct. 

I'm predicting a Dara win.  I feel like this is hers to lose.  I don't know, just a feeling.  I think they would love an MC Junior alum taking an adult MC season.  Plus she's been pretty amazing so far and that's in spite of her lack of confidence.  Personally I'd prefer a Christian win but I can't seem to shake the feeling that it will be Dara.

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Diana Berry

Diana Berry

16 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

I'm predicting a Dara win.  I feel like this is hers to lose.  I don't know, just a feeling.  I think they would love an MC Junior alum taking an adult MC season.  Plus she's been pretty amazing so far and that's in spite of her lack of confidence.  Personally I'd prefer a Christian win but I can't seem to shake the feeling that it will be Dara.

I think it’s between Christian and Dara.  Michael has had the least amount of talking heads,

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Chyromaniac

Chyromaniac

On 9/8/2022 at 6:50 AM, Chicago Redshirt said:

I will give it to the producers. Some seasons of this and other cooking shows make it seem like it is a long march to coronate a given winner. I could see any of the three finalists winning at this point. I would put most of my quatloos on Christian as it seems Gordon particularly likes him. But there's a good story to tell about Michael having improved so much over his previous season and becoming an award-winning cookbook author and one to tell about Dara having gone from a Masterchef Jr. finalist to a true Masterchef.

The nature of this season made it a little self-limiting as far as casting goes, and probably contributed to this being a more even competition than normal.  If you have to pick from former contestants, then you're choosing people who already know what to expect from the competition.  And, if they need to be people who have already started working in the industry, then their skill sets are probably at a more similar level than a random assortment of home cooks.

As for the winner's narrative - realistically, whoever won the competition won.  Whatever stories they choose to create from those results are just a product of editing and interviews.  As you say, there are compelling things they can craft about any of the three finalists - and they could've done the same for Amanda, Tommy, Bri, Derrick... anyone really.  I bet they could've squeezed a gripping story out of Gabriel if he had gotten this far.

If I had to guess, I'd say Christian is the most likely winner - he's had immunity twice, compared to one each for the other two.  He's also been on the winning side of every team challenge, placed highly a couple of times he didn't win, and has never been up for elimination.  He hasn't quite bulldozed the season, but he's been consistently good the entire time - unless he's just due for a screw up, I think he takes it.

Msample

Msample

After she nailed both the entree and dessert, it was pretty clear Dara was goin to win, and deservedly so. That said, I would have preferred Christians dessert over hers. As much as I like cilantro, not in my dessert please. She did make a smart choice in the short rib; not nearly as much risk as filet/lamb in terms of cooking temp. It did look better than the other two entrees.

vibeology

vibeology

7 hours ago, GaT said:

Not a surprise Dara won & Christian did not look happy about it at all.

Christian can look or be unhappy about it but he served filets at different temperatures. He wasn't winning after that, especially when the judges brought it up to him several times. And that's without getting into serving a fancy pudding cup for dessert. I would love to eat it, but it clearly wasn't as impressive as the other two desserts.

Dara had a smart menu and cooked all of it quite well. Each plate looked interesting and the taste was on point. Complaining about a sweet meringue was the best they could come up with. 

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rhofmovalley

rhofmovalley

Joe (or whoever said it) was dead on (IMO and no poor taste pun intended) when he said Christian's dessert could be seen at a buffet. I've seen banana pudding served in glasses exactly that way at more upscale buffets in Vegas. I'm sure it was delicious, but compared to the other two desserts it looked "home cook" rather than fine dining.

I'm happy for Dara. She comes across to me like a nice young lady who has the typical self doubts any 20 year old would have.

And Michael seems nice too. Christian may be perfectly nice as well but he just seems so tightly wound (again, to me).

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eel21788

eel21788

5 hours ago, vibeology said:

 And that's without getting into serving a fancy pudding cup for dessert. I would love to eat it, but it clearly wasn't as impressive as the other two desserts.

I was less impressed with Michael's dessert or at least the plating of it. He left 2/3 of the plate empty. If you served that to me in a restaurant, I'd feel I was being ripped off. Serving it on a smaller plate would have easily solved the problem. Then maybe Aarone wouldn't have noticed that one of his milk squares was missing.

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seacliffsal

seacliffsal

First of all, I would have been happy with any of the three winning.  Secondly, having written that, I am glad that Dara won.

Thirdly, however, is that Joe is always about "would I serve that in my restaurant."  Soooo, if I was eating in an expensive restaurant and wearing nice clothes, I would be livid if the dessert I ordered splattered all over due to how hard I had to hit it to crack it.  I couldn't believe the mess Dara's dessert made when the judges had to crack it.  So, no, Joe, I would not want to be served that dessert in your restaurant.  But, I probably wouldn't really want either of the other desserts.  Guess I would just order an after dinner drink...

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Taeolas

Taeolas

I'm fine with Dara's win. As noted above, her overall meal was "Just right". And she certainly got the winners edit. They seemed to try to get some criticism of her dishes, but it didn't seem anywhere near as strong as the criticism of the other dishes put out. It was so obvious by the Entree judging they probably could've skipped desert entirely. 

The only real flaw she had was over freezing Joe's meringue, so he ended up splattering when he broke it up; that might've been a good chance to add at least a bit of criticism to sow some doubt, but it was probably too little too late by then. 

As for the deserts, the banana pudding needed more thought. If he'd done more to it or around it, he might have been better. Maybe blowing a sugar bowl (or making a white chocolate bowl or isomalt bowl) for it instead of a standard glass bowl might have been enough to "elevate" it a bit higher and to show off more skills. (Granted doing that in an hour would have been extra challenging).

And the milk desert, the empty part of the plate was too much. They were going to notice the missing milk cube regardless, so he would have been better having three extra instead of being one short. I'm not all that familiar with the flavours, so I can't really say how appetizing it was, but it wasn't really appealing to me. 

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Daff

Daff

7 hours ago, KeithJ said:

I'm happy Dara won and was the only one of the final three that I wanted to win.  Personally, it always peeves me when a contestant constantly brings up a dead relative (Christian's grandmother) because it just seems like they're looking for some sort of sympathy vote.

I don’t think either Dara (her dad passed when she was six) or Christian were looking for “sympathy”. I believe they were both using their family ties/history to instruct their culinary direction (I chose this path, because…). You’d probably repeat your story, too, if everyone kept asking why you cook! There WAS one episode where I felt Dara failed in that because she tried to get some weird “French” mix (she didn’t SAY “fusion”thank goodness) with miso and bearnaise (?)! I was torn at the end because I wanted to see both Dara and Christian win. 

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Chicago Redshirt

Chicago Redshirt

13 hours ago, KeithJ said:

I'm happy Dara won and was the only one of the final three that I wanted to win.  Personally, it always peeves me when a contestant constantly brings up a dead relative (Christian's grandmother) because it just seems like they're looking for some sort of sympathy vote.

This is the first of the umpteen times when I've seen a chef say "I'm cooking this for _______" that the judges were super-unimpressed. Usually, they are like "Your favorite second cousin Frank would be proud of you today!"

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Yeah No

Yeah No

Well I predicted a Dara win and she did.  I said I preferred Christian but I am actually happy she won.  She truly deserved it so I can't criticize it or not appreciate it.  And Christian should have known better about both the doneness of the steaks and elevating the banana pudding.  Both he and Michael's offerings were clearly on a lower level than Dara's.  She has a bright future ahead of her. 

When I fell asleep after the previous week's episode I kept dreaming about the show and dreamed that she won.  It was almost not like a dream because when I woke up I was confused for a minute as to whether it had been a dream or something that I actually saw on TV.  I then realized that the episode didn't end with her winning and we had to wait another week to find out if she did.  So I knew it was a dream, but I was still convinced that she won nonetheless and posted here to predict that she would win.  That was a kind of spooky experience.

Madding crowd

Madding crowd

I wanted Christian to win because I liked it that all of his dishes reflected his point of view as a Southern cook and they all seemed like they would go together in the same restaurant, in other words a cohesive menu. I assume he was unable to get four steaks that were exactly the same size but maybe he could have switched to another protein. I do think he elevated the banana pudding and that is the only one of the three I would have wanted to eat. I didn’t like Joe’s sarcastic remark about the buffet, it seemed like he was saying Southern cooking is inferior.

Thought it was weird that Graham was sent up to the balcony for the last challenge like he was being dismissed. Still can’t stand Christina Tosi and I hardly think her cakes with cereal on top are fine cuisine. Happy for Dara however and she did work hard.

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Chicago Redshirt

Chicago Redshirt

4 hours ago, jabRI said:

I think Graham went up just because they didn't want to change the criteria of making 3 dishes? Assuming that's what they practiced for.

I mean, they made 4 dishes to include Graham IIRC, and they could have made them make 5 to have all the regular and guest judges at dessert. Or they could have had two of the judges split a dessert if push came to shove. (preferably, bring up 4 plates, but split one plate so that no one is double-dipping or what have you).

I think they did the way they did because Graham's an all-purpose chef, and Tosi is a top pastry chef.

One thing that was surprising to me: the finale didn't seem as padded as I thought it would be. One of the few moments that I thought was unnecessary were Gordon asking Emily for her opinions about where things were with the contestants. Who cares?

They also seemed to have departed from the traditional "exchange of places between the judges and the finalists" that typically happened with contestants. I wonder why that was. 

eel21788

eel21788

On 9/14/2022 at 9:21 PM, Msample said:

 I would have preferred Christians dessert over hers. As much as I like cilantro, not in my dessert please. 

I just came back from the grocery store after buying my first-ever bag of "forbidden" rice. I can't wait to see what it tastes like; however, I don't think it is going to convince me that it belongs in a dessert.

Daff

Daff

12 hours ago, eel21788 said:

I just came back from the grocery store after buying my first-ever bag of "forbidden" rice. I can't wait to see what it tastes like; however, I don't think it is going to convince me that it belongs in a dessert.

You never had rice pudding? With a dollop of whipped cream on top? Seriously, though, tell us how “forbidden” rice differs in taste from others (wild, basmati, regular long grain). 

Daff

Daff

20 hours ago, Madding crowd said:

I wanted Christian to win because I liked it that all of his dishes reflected his point of view as a Southern cook and they all seemed like they would go together in the same restaurant, in other words a cohesive menu. I assume he was unable to get four steaks that were exactly the same size but maybe he could have switched to another protein. I do think he elevated the banana pudding and that is the only one of the three I would have wanted to eat. I didn’t like Joe’s sarcastic remark about the buffet, it seemed like he was saying Southern cooking is inferior.

Thought it was weird that Graham was sent up to the balcony for the last challenge like he was being dismissed. Still can’t stand Christina Tosi and I hardly think her cakes with cereal on top are fine cuisine. Happy for Dara however and she did work hard.

I completely get Dara winning over Christian, because if she had drawn 4 filets of varying sizes, she would have immediately grabbed TWO pans instead of one! Problem solved! Yes, Christian wanted desperately to win, but he’s already a successful chef in an environment that completely appreciates his southern flair. 

eel21788

eel21788

On 9/17/2022 at 4:27 AM, Daff said:

You never had rice pudding? With a dollop of whipped cream on top? Seriously, though, tell us how “forbidden” rice differs in taste from others (wild, basmati, regular long grain). 

I've had rice pudding, and I hate it! As for how it differs from other kinds of rice, I'll get back to you after I try it. In the meantime:

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/forbidden-rice-benefit

Daff

Daff

56 minutes ago, eel21788 said:

I've had rice pudding, and I hate it! As for how it differs from other kinds of rice, I'll get back to you after I try it. In the meantime:

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/forbidden-rice-benefit

Thanks. Apparently, you feel the same about rice pudding as I do about anything with bananas (can’t even stand to smell them). 

On 9/17/2022 at 9:22 AM, Madding crowd said:

I don’t think we can know what Dara would have done or how successful it would be. 

Someone who has completed culinary school would understand that differences in the sizes of the proteins, all going to the same table, would need different cooking times. She also would be able to handle 4 different order preferences, per doneness (what if they wanted one well, one rare, one medium, one medium rare?). Two pans, in this situation, would have solved Christian’s problem, but it never even occurred to him. He could have staggered the drop times on the filets, he could have removed the thinner ones to rest, while the other two finished (competent cooks, not called “chefs” handle this every day). There were several other things he could have done which would have occurred to Dara because she’s been trained. If I can think of them, surely she would have. 

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Madding crowd

Madding crowd

Christian studied cooking at Dillard University and has been a private chef and cooking instructor as well as owning a catering company. Dara has less experience and I stand by my opinion that we cannot predict how she would do. I like Dara and think she is doing great at age 20 but she also had lows during the competition and is definitely not more educated or experienced than Christian. 

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Yeah No

Yeah No

1 hour ago, Madding crowd said:

Christian studied cooking at Dillard University and has been a private chef and cooking instructor as well as owning a catering company. Dara has less experience and I stand by my opinion that we cannot predict how she would do. I like Dara and think she is doing great at age 20 but she also had lows during the competition and is definitely not more educated or experienced than Christian. 

For me predicting Dara's win had nothing to do with her background, education or experience.  Just from looking at her cook I felt that she was cooking on a higher level than the others.  Not a hard science for sure, but I did predict her win earlier in the thread before the finale.  So it wasn't impossible to predict based on an educated hunch and perhaps a strong premonition.

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