The finale of MasterChef, naturally, was all about questions. Who would win? Would Christian’s attitude stand in his way? Would someone monumentally screw up a dish? Would Joe finally spit the food in someone’s face? What cooking utensil would Graham whorishly plug during the mystery box challenge?
Top Five Moments:
5. Deja-vu? The last pressure test was all about chicken again (remember at the beginning of the season when a giant truck revealed to be containing a single live chicken and everyone applauded it?). Adrien’s “technique of random cooking” (Joe Bastiani) brought him the win over Jennifer and Christian, who both wrapped their chicken in bacon but couldn’t convince the judges.
4. Average Joe? In the elimination challenge, the contestants had to cook with Joe’s favorite ingredients. Adrien chose octopus, partly to prevent Christian from using it, partly because it could really make him “shine” if prepared right. Christian chose veal, which left mushrooms for Jennifer. Cheered at by all the contestants who got eliminated so far, the semi-finalists went to task. Christian was predictably eliminated over an uninspired veal dish (“1982 just called,” Suzy smirked, “and they want their cauliflower medley back!”) and off Adrien and Jennifer went to the rotunda kitchen.
3. A Life-Changer? After the ex-Miss Delaware’s and the Mexican server’s families walked into the kitchen and MasterChef briefly transformed into a tear-jerker (“Families, please go to the gallery!” Gordon barked at them after a while), the finalists had two hours to prepare the most amazing! Appetizer! Main dish! And Dessert! Or in Joe’s words: “These next two hours will change one of your lives forever”.
2. Technique or Heart? Jennifer chose to prepare more “restaurant-style” dishes, while Adrien went back to his roots and chose dishes he learned to cook at home. With all her talk about having more heart than the purely technical Christian, this time Jennifer went technical and Adrien stuck to his heart. And of course, after a while, the editing made it seem like they were losing it right before that omnipresent Master Chef clock was running out. Jennifer was running around like a “headless chicken” as Gordon would have said on Hell’s Kitchen, and Adrien’s chocolate cakes were collapsing. But, the season taught us, the contestants always pull it together when it counts.
1. And the Winner Is… Because they were so talented, Jennifer and Adrien swapped places with the judges and stood at their place while Gordon unnecessarily filibustered before announcing the winner. Jennifer took it home, which wasn’t such a surprise given that she dominated Adrien on cooking technique all night long. He strangely seemed more concerned with plating than with concocting the most exciting dishes, and so Jennifer’s win wasn’t undeserved. In any case, all the dishes looked amazing and made me very hungry. Off I go to the kitchen to make myself a hot dog. Sorry my cooking isn’t appealing enough but I never pretended to be the next MasterChef.
Jan Cee
Contributing Writer
(Image courtesy of FOX)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
