Friday 6 February 2009

Like being given a big kiss by a lemon

MC update:
After being prodded here it is:
Someone rang up just as MC was starting and I try not to be so shallow as to tell them to ring back after I’ve watched some with bald bloke eat a meringue. So I pressed record and then watched it all a bit disjointed, the second half first.

Reading about the original designer of Playmobile Hans Becks who died this week I found out that he had strict rules as to what they could depict in 7.5 cm plastic.

"no horror, no superficial violence, no short-lived trends”

(which could be good advice for all contestants on MC!)

So in honour of that I decided to instigate “the Playmobile Masterchef employment test” i.e. you can only go on Masterchef, if you have a job depicted by a Playmobile figure.

So builders, policewoman, fireman, nurses, famers all ok, sports pr, advertising consultants and publishers probably not. This does mean however that Pirates, Vikings, lion tamers and even the Devil can go on the show hurrah!

Last night they would have passed the test with flying colours as we almost had all the village people. All except that is no member of Lakota Sioux chose to serve up a “fusion” Bison meat Thai curry. We did have a Fireman, a Policeman, the obligatory hapless student and a farmer’s daughter.

Sadly we also had a publisher called Morag, who was obviously more at home ordering in restaurants than cooking in them. Morag fell at the second hurdle partly because the British public won’t march on parliament because the banks have nicked our money but we will burn down number 10 if someone wins Masterchef with the sole intention of turning their ill gotten holiday home into chi-chi B & B serving “Franglais” food!

Last night’s show was surprisingly about food and a rare thing happened I actually fancied one of the dishes. I know this sounds odd but unlike other cookery shows I rarely think watching MC that looks really tasty. But last night “train engineer” Martin (you can definitely get the Playmobile figure of him with a hard hat, a big spanner and an appealing tiny little clip on inspection lamp) made a herb and vegetable soup which just look great really fresh clean and tasty.

Maybe it’s the way they shoot the food or the way Crockett and Tubbs force whole mouthfuls of food in at once. Crockett sorry Gregg seems to get the handle of the spoon to almost touch his forehead as he tucks into another pud, his eyes rolling into his head like a bespectacled Essex shark in a suet frenzy.

But no I often don’t often think “mmm that looks good” partly because after having seen some Kite-surfing web designer sweating into his chocolate fondant it’s not always that appealing.

Down the market: I know it’s the law for all food programmes to film at Borough Market but it is getting a bit dull. Nice place and all that but there must be other markets. I know budgets won’t stretch to a day in Bury buying black pudding but west London must have somewhere that sells the odd conference pear and cerrano ham?

The way it’s going you half expect to see the customers in the background of a shot to be Rick Stein, Jamie and Heston all with camera crew in tow enthusing over the same packet of pigs trotters. I think the only chefs never to film at Borough are “Big Chef little Chef” and that’s only because the snooty types in Neal’s Yard dairy refused to make a picture of a cross channel ferry out of bits of stilton, cheddar and Staffordshire oatcakes!


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

it was a good one last night - a big lads' cook in.

liked the weepy geordie bloke, and was a bit disspointed he didn't win though

lil said...

I find watching G & J tasting the food on MC revolting!

I missed MC last night, but I think it may have been more fun reading about it here?

Excellent idea re: Playpeople criteria!
My Brother had loads of those when we were kids.
(Boys always have the best toys!)

Cocktails said...

The question is do Greg and John go every week to that cafe in Borough Market to shout at each other about the contestants? Or do they do it all in one go, just changing shirts every now and again?

al_uk said...

I have the devil!!! Took a while its quite rare...nearly as rare as Styx on white vinyl

BLTP said...

I've got one too

Unknown said...

Was meaning to say about MC - runner-up quote of the series t'other night - said with Gregg's low growl: "There's no room for pink food on Masterchef. There's no room for pink food in the world. (The leader so far, which you rightly spotted, has to be "I really love your cakes").

Also managed to put my finger on an expositional point which has been bugging me - I love the way that each episode during the shouty bits they have to explain the format of the show to each other yet again.

"WE'VE GOT THREE GREAT AMATEUR COOKS OUT THERE AND NOW WE'VE GOT TO CHOOSE ONE OF THEM FOR THE QUARTER FINAL."

"YES I KNOW, I HAVE BEEN DOING THIS FOR SEVERAL YEARS NOW, YOU KNOW."

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
BLTP said...

PB:
it's shame you removed your double post as that would have made a good joke about MC repeating itself.
Yes I'd not noticed but they do labour the intro a bit. the title alone must give you a clue as to what's going to a happen see alos crimewatch, mastermind, playschool, but strangely not the "the Bill".
and as for the pink quote I'd missed that one, it's a cracker.

al_uk said...

This endless repeating is increasingly becoming a trait of many BBC programs. I fear its a trick for when they sell the programs (I originally typed pogrom a freudian reference to the hegemony of MC?) to US or satellite stations. When they put advert breaks in they need re-caps for those people who channel hop.