Category — Come Dine With Me Australia

Granada is casting for season five of the popular Come Dine With Me Australia series.

Go to the website to apply. They are also casting for Four Weddings and Top Design. I am not sure how important your cooking skills are, but you won’t be able to defrost pizza. But please be interesting. Season Four of the show was great except for one dull week involving Melburnians.

It has been a great week so far, with some interesting Brisvegas characters mixed with some ok cooking. Apologies for not blogging on it.

But I just want to say one thing, someone needs to say to that gluten intolerant contestant.

“Look we have made our meals gluten free, but you still won’t eat my meals or turn your nose up at everything, what exactly will you eat?”

It was Lachlan’s turn to cook and his menu was :

• Grilled Jimbaren prawn skewers with mango salsa.
• Miso Fish with caramelised pumpkin
• Little tiki pavs with tropical fruits and cream.

Lachie’s stoned surfer persona was not diminished as slowly did his prep and ran out of time. In fact he was very laid back throughout the whole evening.

However his presentation was amazing, and I have to confess his Jimbaren prawns is about the only recipe I would contemplate getting off the website.

When the guests arrived they had to mix up a cocktail. What amazed me is that after drinking five cocktails before their entree they were still standing.

Then with the 2 hour wait for the main the drinking continued, in fact I am amazed they even made it to dessert.

Vanessa was struggling and fell over and looked liked she was about to pass out over dessert.

If he had been better prepared I think he would have had a chance of taking the price. He ended up with a respectable 30.

This will be a quick recap tonight, and just a few thoughts about the episode, where it was Anita’s turn to host.

She surprisingly did an OK job, and continued to get the air time with her quirky personality.

A few thoughts:

• Was that an Ed Hardy frock she was wearing whilst she was prepping the meal? Or was it Versace which does do a bit of a line in high class slutty.
• Her apartment was amazing, but over the top with Versace. Does her or her husband have the importation rights?
• How old is Anita, and what do you think her age is and what is the age difference between her and her husband?
• Vanessa so has a crush on her? I think she would have gone for the pash in the pantry;
• Vanessa also decided they were soul mates;
• Again Warren’s jokes were poor, and Lachlan barely spoke;
• I would love to know what Sheila thinks of Anita and Vanessa’s shenanigans;
• Why do people even bother with cabbage rolls it is all stodge;
• Her food was OK, but I was still not convinced that she actually likes cooking

However she got a respectable 31 points.

Anita is officially my new favourite reality TV person in 2011, but I actually think she is Brynne Edelsten in disguise.

She has blonde hair, is from Victoria, everything is Versace, her dress sense is slapper classy, but also  appears to be able to take the mickey out of herself. Love her.

I could not stop laughing when she said “having a shit on a toilet” was funnier than wannabe comedian Warren.

Clearly I have a different definition of comedy than Warren, as nothing he say is remotely funny. But then he seems to think so.

And won’t he be pissed that Anita has managed to monopolise the air time, and be funny at the same time.

It was Sheila’s turn to host tonight and put on one of  the best dinner parties in the three seasons. It had a level of sophistication, mixed with a lot of fun. And the food was even good.

To start was tomato pesto tarts, followed by Saffron-French Toast with Smoked Salmon and Caviar. For main she served seasoned lamb cutlets with glazed mint jelly , served with rosemary pan fried potatoes, and green beans tossed with Prosciutto, stilton cheese & walnuts. For dessert she made sicilian Orange Cake served with Grand Marnier ice cream.

But the food was the side show tonight. At one point on the episode I thought the dinner was going to turn into a swingers party, with Anita perving on the models and rubbing herself against the primitive art piece with a large appendage whilst wearing Sheila’s burlesque lingerie.

I actually think Vanessa would have been happy to participate as she hopped in the lingerie as well. All I can say thank christ there wasn’t a spa or the producers would have had a situation on their hands.

After all that shenanigans Sheila received a kick-arse score of 35, which will unlikely be beaten this week.

You just know as the week goes on that this group of contestants  are going to go off. I would expect nothing less from the Gold Coast.

There is Vanessa a very personable vet, Sheila a sophisticated lady who sells lingerie, Lachlan a little bit dull surfer and teacher, and  Warren an art gallery owner, and wannabe comedian. And quite frankly if the footage from his open mike night is anything to go by a wannabe he is going to stay.

I thought Warren exuded a smug sense of superiority at tonight’s dinner party something I hope Anita belts out of him by Wednesday. Anita is a director of a security company and she has the expensive skank look down pat. She seems a little be nuts but I wonder if she is playing up to the cameras.

Anita may not be that bright, but she got Warren in one when she said “Warren wants to be heard, and we are all hearing him.”

Vanessa was hosting tonight, and according to the website, she says she is an average cook, but she produced a nice menu, and let’s face it no ones meal is going to be worse than Aimme’s in week one of this series.

Her menu was Pan Fried Scallops With Pea puree followed by marinated flank steak with jus, green beans, roasted cauliflower with creme brulee for dessert.

Anita may not be that bright, but she got Warren in one when she said “Warren wants to be heard, and we are hearing him.”

Anita gave a seven, Sheila gave a 7, Lachlan also gave a 7, Warren gave her a 6 for a total of 27. A solid start to the week, and if she hadn’t used skirt steak she may have received an even higher score.

If you watch Come Dine With Me you will love this, if you don’t then probably not so much.  Thanks @johnathaningram3

With Doreen, Lachlan, and Tony being a bit quiet and dull is this week going to be all about Cheryl?

I really like her but I am hoping to see more of the others personality’s in the group.

Tonight it was Donna’s the software executive to cook, and she was a bit high end both with food and in drink. The girl loves her Verve. However I thought her menu was very rich. Her appetizers were prawns and oysters, that was nice however the guy she brought in to talk about wine did not exactly get the party started, but he looked like he could mix a mean espresso martini.

Then her entree was risotto with chestnuts, porcini mushrooms, and truffles, followed by duck confit. For dessert she made chocolate meringues with berries.

Again their food quirks came out. Donna did not eat her own seafood, Tony doesn’t like rice, and Doreen doesn’t like poultry that looks like poultry.

The meal did not hit the heights as it looked like it was going to,  and I am not sure what I think of  Donna. She seems slightly superficial and materialistic, but she does seem nice and fun. Cheryl did not take kindly to the sarcastic swipe Donna made about her excessive talking. However it did not effect the score she gave her. However others were not quite as generous and she only got a 30 in the end, which was good but not as good as Cheryl’s 32.

The first episode of each week of Come Dine With Me Australia, is always the one where mostly they are on their best behaviour, and they are getting to know each other. By episode three it can all start getting a bit ugly, thankfully.

But Cheryl’s night would have been one I would have loved to have been at, as it looked so much fun. Cheryl was the former Wonder Woman of Asia. Something she was keen to tell everyone even though that career highlight was about two decades ago.

Regardless of that she was a lot of fun, and her somewhat “simplistic menu” looked fantastic.

Now what of the other contestants, it appears if you want to be cast on the show you have to have some quirk related to food.

There was Doreen a hairdresser, who is poultry phobic, but is on a high protien diet as she is a body builder. Tonight she came across as quite dull.

Tony the train driver, and artist who does not like to eat when he is entertaining but likes to watch other do so.

Donna a software sales person who does not like seafood, and lastly Lachlan a real estate agent, who does appear to like everything. But then the week is but young. Apparently he single, and so is Donna so narrator James Valentine is implying there could be a love match. Interestingly they don’t consider setting up Cougarlicious Cheryl with him or Tony the train driver. But is Tony straight? My gaydar is so broken these days it is embarrassing.

The menue:

Entree Crispy Chicken, Pork Spring Rolls.

Main – Finely sliced scotch fillet in soy sauce and asian vegetables, and James Brown I feel good fried rice.

Dessert – Lychee and Mango Sorbet with a mango tango cream

On paper it looked a bit ho-hum but it translated nicely once it was on the table and she ended up getting a very competitive 32. I thought Donna was a bit stupid giving her a 10 as it gives her no room to increase her score if someone gives her a better evening.

At the moment I like most of the contestants, but they all seem a bit grey and flat after the sparkly Cheryl. Hopefully she will get drunk this week, because I reckon she will go off.

There were two things I got out of this episode. Firstly I am absolutely gobsmacked that Aimmee wanted to be a chef? She seems to think she cannot get a job because of her size but I am thinking her culinary skills could be the main issue.

She did not think it was an issue to dish up bruschetta, pasta bosciola, and tiramisu. I understand that she may not be as wealthy as the others but there are other cheap dishes she could have served which could have showcased her “culinary talents”.

The other thing that irked me tonight was Lance and Leonie giving Aimmee such high scores for such crap food, she did not even serve up a salad. Personally I thought it was condescending to Aimmee. By Lance and Leonie doing that it basically said they did not consider her an equal, as they did not treat her as such.

Also the cask wine was a crack up. I wonder if anyone twig. Points to Shane for realising the wine was shite. But if she thought it was ok to serve up cask wine why not just claim it. By the way sometimes cask wine is just as good as the moderate priced bottled wines.

Anyway by the end of the week I am still no clearer on who I like and don’t like out of these five episodes. Yes I like Lance but was disappointed with his scoring at the end of the week. Yes at times I dislike Shane, but at least he was honest and what you see is what you get.

Do I see a great love affair occurring between Mary and Shane? No she will think she can change him and she won’t, and his money his her aphrodisiac never something that will lead to a solid long term relationship.