Posts from — May 2011

Read this blog post with the music of Love Is In The Air going through your head, as Farmer Wants A Wife again proves that long term relationships can be found through the show.

As I have said before ditch RSVP and apply for this show.

Scott and Clare from series four of the show have gotten hitched. The Woman’s Day who had paid for the exclusive of the wedding say there was a Top Gun theme.

They are honeymooning at the Hope Estate in the Hunter Valley, where they met for the first time in April 2009 while filming the show.

In other news one of my favourite couples Farmer Damien and Rachael are having a baby. The couple who live on Damien’s farm in Tasmania are having a boy which is  due in June.

Tonight the immunity pin challenge was on Busselton Pier and it was visually fabulous, but whoever decided to shoot the cooking challenge there had obviously never heard of the “roaring forties” as it was blowing a gale.

I would love to have known how they kept Matt Preston’s hat on, and for once George Calombaris must have been glad he was bald.

Tony Howell the Executive chef from Cape Lodge was competing with Jay, and they were cooking Western Australian Seafood Stew. Jay had 70 minutes to replicate it

The whole episode was about the adductor muscle, which was pronounced abductor, and “inductor” by George.

Tony had used the wrong scallops not the ones with THE muscle off so in the last few seconds he was scrounging around trying to cut them off.

Jay’s plate was judged first.

The marron was cooked perfectly, however scallop over cooked and the “inductor muscle” was still on it. But they did like his bisque better.

Plate 2 was Tony’s:

Again they found an adductor muscle in it, and there was not enough aioli, but guest judge Hadley Troy said the cooking of seafood on plate two was better.

Jay scored 22 and Tony scored 23, therefore no immunity pin for Jay.

Jay

The winning red team were showcased tonight down at the Margaret River region of Western Australia. The episode must have been sponsored by WA tourism as they mentioned the Margaret River 50 million times. But I don’t have a problem with that if it gets the viewer interesting challenges and locations.

In fact The Block should take lessons from Masterchef on product placement. Tonight there was no elimination, but the opportunity to get a double immunity was up for grabs. First you got to miss the next challenge in the Masterchef kitchen, and also grab an immunity pin in the celebrity cook off.

First the ten chefs had to draw to see which protein they were going to cook with. Kumar pulled the proverbial short straw and got the emu eggs. He was a bit unsure what to do with them. He did make me laugh after he finally cracked the egg that “It was like seeing a child born”, what did his kids look like when they were born?

Sun the former vegetarian that cooks meat did not want the venison and also for the judges to  ”stop looking at her as a vegetarian who cooks meat” She was going to stuff it but Gary advised her it might be a cooking issue. She took his advice and just seared it.

Peter spent the whole 60 minutes shelling his crab. And Kumar spent all of his 60 minutes making egg crepinettes.

I loved the guest judge Jake Drachenburg – talk about saying it like it is. His views were articulate and constructive.

Rachel – Lamb rump on rainbow chard with roasted beetroot. Her lamb was over cooked.

Jake said ” beetroot not peeled, and lack of seasoning”

Jay – Garden of Marron – poached marron with baby vegetables plate looked very high end.

Jake said “Great job took a beautiful product and turned it into something better.”

Matt Preston said “Restaurant quality dish”.

Peter – Crab Salad – George said spectacular just needs a bit of re- plating.

Sun – Venison in a Red wine sauce with roast beetroots and pumpkin and potato mash.

“Simple precise with really good flavours, done it justice, ” said Jake. Matt thought it needed a killer sauce.

Kumar – Roasted Garden vegetables with an egg net. George said I like it but I don’t love it. However Gary loved it. I would have queried whether he showcased the main ingredient enough.

Adam made a lobster bisque – “lobster well cooked but flavour

Ellie  who mad pork was told “more crackling it would have been a great dish”.

Billy had  veal and he was told he had detracted from the core ingredient because the the sauce was tart.

Dani  got told from George. He said “Glad you didn’t over cook it, however never ever chop up a scallop like that again.”

Michael – “Olive oil poached goat is spectacular,” said George Calombaris

The best two dishes were Michael and Jay’s.

And after a to camera piece by Kumar predicting Michael will be the winner, Jay won.

Clearly Joey and Richard don’t believe in karma, as Joey brushed away her overtaking Mel and Alana in last week’s episode as “some people are just too emotional”. There was some karmic payback when they got the dodgy taxi driver from Hong Kong Airport who took them to Aberdeen Tunnel, rather than the Aberdeen dock.

However from then their luck did turn for the better.

The teams had to fly from Vietnam to Hong Kong get a taxi to Aberdeen Marina Club and then get a ferry to the Jumbo Chinese Restaurant where their own table was awaiting them with 1000 fortune cookies on them with one cookie holding a clue.

Tyler and Nathan were the first of the teams to leave the pitstop. However, all the teams were on the same plane from Ho Chi Minh so it was a level playing field.

The farmers were finding Asia not their scene. One drawled “I could handle the pace of Melbourne after this”.

Sam and Renae the models from WA were saying they we are not blond bimbos, however they did not prove it when they said “Where is Hong Kong? Singapore?” Wouldn’t you inhale an atlas if you knew you were going on the show?

The first ferry to the restaurant left the dock leaving Christina and Anastasia at the there – did he say the f word?

“Left muscles and Bambi their shaking their fists” said Dave from biker couple. I am loving their laconic sense of humour.

All the teams caught up at the Jumbo Floating Restaurant after biting into the cookie they then had to read out the middle.

For Team entrepeneurs or as I have termed the Team Fuckwits this was inspiring as it was all mantras. She was yelling out “you will be a winner” and unfortunately she found the clue first, and it was a fast forward which meant if they did it they could fast track to the pit stop if they completed one challenge.

They are clearly not well liked, as one team yelled out “come on guys someone has to follow them.” And it was Mo and Mos. I love Mo and Mos, but I would not be putting money on them to win the race. They bumble around at the bottom of the pack most of the time. Put it this way I was not feeling hopeful they would catch them.

The fast forward at the temple was the first team to get their head shaven would win the fast forward and then race to the pit stop. Joey who confessed she loved her hair so much she had brought her hair straightener on the race was all for doing it. But the way she said to the monk “I have hair extensions” in a bad chinese/french accent as if that makes it so much easier to understand…..NOT.

Of course she had to yell “bring it” and do fist pumps while it was being done. I would love to know what they think of their edit.

The pit stop was the A Ma Cultural Village and of course Richard and Joey were first to arrive.

All the other teams went for the detour it was a choice between Dancing lion or Kung Fu, both involved learning moves and replicating them, however Kung Fu had the added issue of breaking six tiles.

Mo and Mos had to go back to the detour, as they said “we were so in love with coming in first” they had automatically gone on the Fast Forward but missed it.

Tyler and Nathan meanwhile were at Kung Fu and they were struggling to remember the routine. As were most teams.

In fact Ann-Marie and Tracey left Kung Fu to go to the lion dance.

Nathan and Tyler ended up being the first to leave the detour, and head to Macau unlucky for them a lot of the teams caught up with them on the ferry terminal.

Mo and Mos were doing the dance and were hilarious they said “I had to stick my head near parts of body I don’t want to stick my head near”. Once they got to the gambling tables at the Casino they again said “they were not good muslims.”

I was amused that Sam who was a VIP dealer at the Perth casino had no idea how to play baccarat. Actually even after seeing them all play I still don’t get it. By the way props to Renae for the way she smashed the six tiles back at the detour.

At the Casino Alana and Mel were the first to get out of there. Renae and Sam were the next, but they got the bad taxi driver .

The Roadblock was having to put the the Chinese Astrology in order. Alana and Nathan worked together and completed it efficiently and ran to the pitstop. Making them second and third. Dave and Kelly were team number four, followed by the Farmers.

Renae and Sam cracked at the Roadblock and used their express pass to get through. Personally I thought they panicked. Mo and Mos gave up and did not complete the Roadblock and took the  4 hour time penalty. Meanwhile Ann-Marie had to keep on plugging away but decided to default as well and her and Tracey were eliminated from the race.

Mo and Mos when called onto the pitstop said there is nothing to celebrate here. It was a bit of a lacklustre finish by both of them. They will have to get lucky next week as they will start 4 hours behind the eight teams.

Well the over forty surfie chicks and Track Magazine fans could not keep surfer Mark Occhilupo (Ochy) on the show any longer. It was his time to go, but boy did Samantha Armytage dodge a bullet her and Channel 7 staffers must be hitting the phone lines. Her performances have been mediocre at best.

We can see by Brynne Edelsten’s dancing she was never a Las Vegas showgirl, as she does dance like her legs are filled with lead. Who cares vote for her she is fabulous and likeable. However, I thought it was a bit strange that Brynne’s mum did not sit next to her son-in-law Dr Geoffry. She scored 16.

Again Lara Bingle, Manu Feildel and Brynne danced in the last three spots to ensure everyone kept watching until the end of the show.

Dan Ewing and Luda kicked of the show, and Dan said he was having the “most fun I have ever had with this beautiful lady”. That  is not going to kill those romance rumours. In yesterday’s paper she denied romances with both Manu Feildel, and Dan. Go for it I say.

How much longer can Samantha Armytage stay in? Her Rhumba was the most unsexy every. She needs to find her inner flirt. Contrary to newspaper reports her partner did lift her.  The Sunday Telegraph wrote he was refusing to do lifts as her as he had a dance competition in a few weeks. Which was code she was too big to lift and he was scared of pulling a hamstring. I think she looks fine, but he body shape is one that would make some of the higher lifts awkward. Not every one is 45 kilos like Luda, I am sure I have carried backpacks heavier then that.

Joshua said about Sam  ”he felt he was getting the same mediocre performance each week”.

Todd’s score said it all he gave her a two.

Damien Leith’s  quick step was fantastic he really does have some rhythm, and the Fred Astaire type routine suited his gawky style. They scored a high 27 points.

Nick Bracks certainly knows that he has to beat Dan Ewing in the hunky young things stakes. And this time he took his shirt off. He definitely shows he got his father Steve Brack’s hotness gene. I find it ironic his chosen charity is Beyond Blue the depression organisation is the one former Liberal Premier of Victoria started. They scored 21.

Occhy’s quick step was very average but hell not as bad as Sam Armytage’s Rhumba, clearly channel 7 staff had been told to hit the phones to keep her in.  He scored a 15. He looked like he knew he was walking the plank.

Hayley Bracken is breaking to of the golden rules of Dancing With The Stars. One you cannot have had too much dance training and you have to be celebrity. For those reasons I feel she should not be in the competition. She did amp up the sex appeal this week and scored a high 28 which will keep her in for another week.

Manu Feildel is the best performer,  in the competition, and he looks at ease in that environment. It was not the best routine of the night as he did look like he was doing a disco routine at one stage when it was meant to be a quickstep.

I didn’t think Lara Bingle’s routine was that bad, Todd thought it was messy and that the choreography was thrown together. I was hoping her wig would fall off in the lift. She scored a 17.

Bottom two were Luda and Dan, and Occy and Jade. And no surprise Occy was eliminated.

Again Masterchef Australia showcased Hayden as the young hottie. Tonight he was filmed running, he just happened to be the one who came across the envelope after his “run”. The envelope told the teams to pack their bags as they were off.

They ended upat the Sunrise Dam Gold Mine in Western Australia. As they were standing in the middle of the mine (awesome shots), I thought this better be a proper cooking challenge. And it was as George Calombaris said one of the hardest challenges yet. They were to work for 24 hours, in shifts and produce dinner, breakfast and lunch for the miners. In the intro they said it was 3000 meals, but the figure they gave at the end was not as high as that.

What I did not understand about the blue team was why in such a big challenge you would make the Captain and Vice Captain the two young people of the team Jay and Dani.  I would have wanted someone with a bit more life experience. As some of the mistakes they made were due to lack of work experience. I probably would have put Peter in charge.

Firstly Jay’s consensus approach was a problem. Giving everyone two minutes to have say about the menu was just time wasting. Get people to brain storm and then refine their ideas. Gary had to step in and say hurry it up otherwise they would have no time to prep. Also they still did not have breakfast or lunch menus decided.

The red team put Danielle as captain and Kate as vice captain, and they appeared to have a better work plan and menu.

Matt the goth food blogger thought Rachel had an advantage because her husband had worked at the mine for 10 years and she had eaten there. Not sure I agree.

Rachel who I really like came up with one of the best lines of the night when showing Ellie a photo of her husband at the mine she deadpanned to camera saying ”I am really impressed to be showing a photo of my husband… in a rubbish bin.”.

Both teams had to do soup, salads, roasts, dessert and one short order item.

One  of the issues the teams appeared to be having was producing the large amount of portions. They ran out of food pretty quickly. I thought Gary and George would have guided their teams better in that regard.

It was heating up in the kitchen,  Sun who gets pretty tense for a Hare Krishna was getting uptight accusing the red team of turning of their burner under the curry. She needs a tambourine to use as a stress release.

Kumar  who was on her team, then ‘fessed up and said it was him who had turned it off.

Danielle was probably wishing for someone  had done that for her chicken cacciatore as it burnt. After some tears, Gary told her it was not totally ruined and they managed to plate most of it.

The issues surrounding lunch were:

• Red Salad’s were not ready at the start of lunch service;
• Broccoli for the blue teams salad was raw.  Jay tried to back Dani in but I interpreted that they ended up flicking the salad;
• The grilled fish on the red team being frozen in the middle because Andrew just did not have the griller on – Cleo would not have made that amateur mistake;
• The blue teams fried fish was sent back as it was raw, at one stage the show had appeared to have morphed into Hell’s Kitchen with the dishes sent back and Matt Preston at the pass ticking off the team.

Dani had a really bad challenge, she had stuffed up the roster and the only person rostered on was Rachel for cleaning, compared to the many red team members. But Rachel did make me laugh when she said “I have never seen these pots, what ever happened to washing as you go?”

I found it ironic when Dani was doing her shift doing the pre-breakfast prep she was whinging “It is really fun working one against four”. Well you were in charge of the roster!

And the Blue team were in chaos as their consensus approach didn’t create a menu for breakfast or lunch. So it was very disorganised. Dani had to go and wake Jay up to discuss the menu. I note the cameramen only gave a head shot of Jay, but when in the previous evening Jay had to wake Dani they made sure they tried get the full body shot of her in her knickers.

Even though the blue team were badly organised with their menu they managed to get their food ready on time.

Unlike the red team who fell behind, when the miners arrived they did not have any food out. So they were unable to vote for the red team. I think this cost them the challenge. The blame really had to go on Kate who didn’t keep on top of it. Maybe their menu was too ambitious. The spiced porridge was late and then she burnt it as she was not able to continuously stir it.

In the other culinary disaster of the day Jay deep fried the bacon. I was surprised Gary Mehigan thought this was a negative, I thought he would have applauded the innovation of making fatty food even fattier.

It did look pretty disgusting.

Matt from the red team said “I think it helped us get some votes.” Unfortunately he was wrong.

However surprisingly the blue team won. It was very tight, however Matt Preston thought Kumar’s mushrooms would have pulled in some extra votes.

In one of the dumbest lines of the night Matt Preston said “If this was an election it would have been a hung parliament” I am not really sure I agree with that, as there were only two teams which means whoever got the most votes would get the power.

The winning team goes on a two day trip to the Margaret River, and the losing team will battle it out again and someone will go home.

Jeff Conaway who managed to star in two seasons of Celebrity Rehab and also Grease has died of an alleged drug overdose. I can neither confirm nor deny that it was not until I was 20 that I realised there was a pregnancy situation happening between Rizzo and Kenickie in Grease…

Anyway Showbiz Spy reports:

The actor — who was famed for his role of Kenickie in the 1978 filmGrease, which also starred John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John — passed away at a Los Angeles hospital today as doctors failed to revive him after he fell into a coma two weeks ago following a reported drug overdose.

His family are understood to have decided to turn off his life support machine yesterday although ex-girlfriend Vikki Lizzi — who claims she has power of attorney over Jeff — tried to block the move.

Jeff — who is also known for appearing in Taxi — was taken to a Los Angeles hospital after reportedly laying unconscious for 10 hours and was found to be suffering from pneumonia and sepsis, a potentially lethal blood infection.

This is not the first death of a cast member on the show. Mike Starr from Alice In Chains died of an overdose in March.  (NY Mag).

Which is interesting as the question has to be asked does Celebrity Rehab really help people with their addictions or are they just exploited for the TV show? Probably a bit of both. Most of the people that have “starred” on the show have been at pretty low ebbs so to be able to access rehab may have been a positive thing. And no rehab has a 100% success rate, however here is a very interesting article in NY Mag about how the show is filmed.

Dr Drew has said it was not a drug overdose that put him in a coma, but this New York Daily article says it may have been too many pain killers.

The new season of The Block is premiering on the 20 June and will be in the 7.00pm time slot, which is a good move by Nine, as it means people can go from The Block to Masterchef Australia. Because in my mind people only watch reality TV and no other genre….

What can we expect this year from the show. Well it looks like there is more renovations this year. There appears to be additions at the back of the houses. Also being set in Melbourne will give the show a fresh feel.

The street they are in is opposite a car park, where they park the many vehicles associated with the production. A local contacted me to say it was now difficult to park there. However I suppose it is better then on the street parking.

Click here for a preview of the show, and if anyone knows any of the contestants contact me.

The Block will start on NINE on 20 June at 7.00pm.

The Cleo controversy continued today, and one had to wonder if the reason to cull her was to create such a media tsunami.

I entered the fray commenting on a story for ACA – if you are interested in watching it click here.

I actually disagree with Marion in the ACA story where she says after she was eliminated she managed to get a cookbook deal and make her own range of sauces. Being kicked off at number 20 is different from going at number six. The amount of air time Marion had compared to Cleo made it so much easier for her to launch her post-Masterchef career.

I had not read this article on Nine MSN before I went on. But it did clarify  one issue which was why didn’t Cleo restart the ganache?

She said:

She said it was impossible for her to restart the ganache, as judges asked her, because producers had removed the ingredients from behind her bench.

“Each contestant had a box and there was no additional ingredients,” Kerameas told ninemsn.

“Someone came from behind and removed the ingredients so I couldn’t restart the process all over again.”

“In my head I thought, oh well that’s finished.”

Which raises the question why were the ganache ingredients removed when the challenge was still going and it was the last of the elements to be made. Was it sabotage?

Anyway in other media news I was on Aust Media Week with the acting editor of The Australian discussing TV. If you want to lose an hour of your life you can listen to it here.

Yesterday there was a great article in the Sydney Magazine about a day on the Masterchef Australia set. It is quite long but I highly recommend it.

The author Stephanie Woods spent the day on the set when Peter, Sun and Craig went head to head with Adam D’Sylva.

Some of the highlights of the interview are:

• The contestants are given $500 a week to cover expenses they may have outside the house;
• The contestants have relinquished their mobile phones and have no internet or email access while they’re in the competition. When they return from the set to the house each night, they’re not allowed out.
• Once a week only are they permitted to call loved ones. In a rare concession to family ties, 36-year-old Orange resident Kate Bracks, one of two mothers of young children competing, gets to meet her husband and children — aged eight, six and three — in a park once a fortnight.
• “Everybody on the show is an extrovert; like you wouldn’t be here really if you weren’t,” says Sun, a 32-year-old Queenslander who was raised a Hare Krishna and, until recently, was a vegetarian.
• Sun, Peter and Craig first stride through the doors of the set at around 9.15am with a whirring, swooping pterodactyl of a camera tracking their path but it’s not until just before midday that they start cooking – after more than two hours of shooting and reshooting the intro, as entrances, exits and lines are endlessly repeated.
• Caroline Spencer [producer] confirms that the judges are directed to taste elements of dishes as soon as they are cooked — straight from the pot — that would suffer if they were cold and defends the process with another argument: “The reason we use real chefs and real experts is because their palate is developed enough that they can judge it.”
• The MasterChef camera doesn’t lie: in fact, it understates the extreme physical and emotional demands on contestants. “A Stockholm-syndrome kind of situation” is the way Sun describes it. “Like being bipolar,” says Craig. “You have these extreme highs when you’re so excited; you’re doing a team challenge and the adrenalin is pumping and you’re just so excited and then you get these ridiculous lows if you lose.”