Masterchef: The Professionals - Burhan, Baby Burhan

Often of an evening, one finds oneself alone in the residence. The household staff have scuttled back from whence they came and one's faithful houseboy, Chu Me is regularly up in his quarters watching his specialist nature DVDs.  From the sounds one can hear, he clearly enjoys mimicking the creatures he is watching, judging by the panting, groans and screams one can hear oscillating down the corridors.

In such circumstances, if one is not in the Holly Johnson Room running one's perfectly manicured digits over the ivories of the old Joanna, one reclines elegantly on the chaise, by the well-packed drawers of the bow-legged tallboy in the Dr Christian Room with one's eyes  glued to one's 42 incher. One says glued ... with the nonsense they have been putting on while Rona has been ravaging the world, the attention has only been slightly tacky at best.

One of the programmes that one has taken a fancy to, in our pandemic gripped world, is Master Chef: The Professionals. First of all, it's refreshing not to have John Turd accompanying Greg.  Previously, in his chef's challenges it always astounded me when he would cook something and say, "It's important that the ingredients can be tasted and identified. That's the secret of a great chef", as he looked smugly towards Wallace.

Greg would then sit, with eyes and mouth open wide, as Turd went about his culinary expertise; "Wow" ..."Phwoar!" ..."You know how to make my mouth water John ... apples and pears" (or some such fancy). Then, without fail, if he had cooked fish the contestants would say "Definitely chicken". Likewise, some piece of meat would be artistically arranged one a plate with vegetable fanciness and glossy droplets and it would be, "I can taste the cod... definitely cod".

One has a confession. One was never a great fan of Marcus Waring or Monica Galetti in the past, however one must say that one adores them both now. Monica is simply delicious and now that one has seen Marcus smile, the world seems in balance again and they certainly know their onions, do they not.

In this current series we've certainly had our fair share of hotties. One immediately thinks of the delicious Burhan. A stunningly gorgeous poppet who, with one pout to camera, has one's undergarments dissolving like the finest meringue upon a eager tongue. 

An array of skilled chefs are filling our screens as the competition unfolds and those less so. One, poor poppet attacked the Chef's challenge quite unexpectedly. One lost interest after a short time, so cannot recall his name but one's quite sure he had one. The challenge? Crepes Suzette. Experienced in making just such fayre on cruise ships, he proceeded to annihilate the dish with gusto  for our expert judges. Each crepe was more with an 'a' and without the last 'e' and one never new segments of oranges could be cremated in a pan in such a short space of time. Needless to say, in the next round,  Signature Dishes", when Sean I-can-give-a-nation-of-women-and-men-an orgasm-with-my-voiceovers Pertwee purred, "For his main, [whatever his name was], has served ..."

One looked up form one's Wordsearch, "... A can of beans, dear?"

To cut a long story short, it wasn't a great success. The traditional 12-long list of flavours in his dish ended up as two slabs of meat and a chunk of sweet potato, accompanied by a bit of green dust and a plate.  As you may have already guessed Monica already had his taxi booked as he went back to his workstation.

In critics corner most recently, the Marmite of critics Jay Rayner and his fellow critic Tracey MacLeod. Both clearly affected by the pandemic, in that they had no access to a hair brush prior to filming. That or they had stumbled across a hedge on the way in and were brutally dragged backwards through it. Sitting stuffing their faces with the product of our chefs, both, on the whole, surprisingly positive about all of the dishes, which , let's face it, makes a change from the usual scornful sarcasm oozing from their lips.

One of course shall continue to watch but, alas, without the knicker-crumbling deliciousness of Burhan, will it ever be the same?

The Anthropological Wonderment of Masterchef

Yum! You're next:"Keep him talking, I've got the ketchup

behind my back"

It has come to one’s attention over the past year, that the Masterchef competition has maintained its popularity and embedded itself securely into the nation’s stomach.

Though one preferred the contrived Englishness of Lloyd Grossman, one now has a relationship of tolerance with the current presenters, John Turd and Greg Wallace

It always mystifies one why - when speaking into the boom microphone or talking to each other during their consultation process - they have to shout so much. Particularly when engaged in the latter. It all seems rather redundant to send the sweaty contestants out into the waiting area for them to deliberate in secret, when even the chip shop on the corner of the street can hear every word, as it rumbles over the cobbles like thunder!

It has also came to one’s attention that despite His Divine Majesty Sir David Attenborough educating us that certain animals have the ability to dislocate their own jaws to consume food, one never knew there were humans that could perform the same feat.

When dear John and Gregg sample the contestants dishes, they too dislodge their jaw bones (and no doubt create a feeling of terror amongst the camera crew). One often wonders why they even bother with a fork, when a simple lifting of the plate, tilting back of the head and gravity would suffice.

This was demonstrated quite clearly in a recent heat on the UK Food channel. One rather talented contestant had made a plate of scrumptious food and utilized the spicing skills he had acquired in a top Indian restaurant. The restaurateur had advised him that you know when chilli is not cooked properly because you can feel it in the back of the throat.

Little did our competing poppet realise that both Mr. Turd and Mr Potato-head
were to feel just that! Mind you, this was hardly surprising, considering their taste buds didn’t have a fighting chance of sampling the finished dish. Instead, they could only look on in despondency as the shovel glided over them and dumped the fodder straight down the back of their screeches.

The poor dears mustn’t have eaten for a week!