Tag Archives: Masterchef Canada

Unlucky 13 for one MasterChef Canada home cook

After weeks of anticipation, cooking and crashing and burning, it’s down to the final two home cooks, who will battle it out in MasterChef Canada‘s season finale next Sunday.

In one corner is Mary Berg, the spunky vegetarian who has an uncanny ability to prepare tasty meats; in the other is Jeremy Senaris, who not only makes great food but is able to replicate intricate recipes with stunning accuracy. The duo will go head-to-head, with one emerging $100,000 richer and with the Season 3 title.

Sadly, “Only the Best,” resulted in Matthew’s elimination after two mistakes in the Pressure Test sealed his fate. They were minor gaffes to be sure—a liquid tart centre and missed croutons—but at this point in the competition a small error makes a big difference.

There honestly isn’t much to say about Sunday’s penultimate episode other than I was mightily impressed with what all three were able to accomplish. The Mystery Box challenge, involving 13 ingredients from the first Mystery test of the season, was an exercise in creativity and time management, as the home cooks were tasked with providing 16 identical plates to 13 of the country’s most influential chefs and Claudio, Michael and Alvin. Once again, timing threatened to derail Mary, but she created the tastiest offering of fish and chips and won a spot in the finale.

Jeremy, meanwhile, ran out of gnocchi to serve, landing him alongside Matthew in the Pressure Test. Their challenge seemed insurmountable, to make three citrus-infused desserts in 90 minutes. If not for Matthew’s errors, he very well could have beaten Jeremy.

Who do you hope wins during next week’s season finale? Comment below.

MasterChef Canada‘s season finale airs Sunday at 7 p.m. ET on CTV.

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MasterChef Canada’s Cathie James makes life difficult for the home cooks

Being a home cook on MasterChef Canada is tough. Not only have they left the comfort of a regular life behind to enter the competition, but they’re prepared dishes for three bona fide chefs in Michael Bonacini, Alvin Leung and Claudio Aprile. As if that wasn’t difficult enough, the contestants experience victories and defeats via Mystery Box and Pressure Test challenges in the studio and complex, intricate tests in numerous on-location tests.

Those challenges, designed to apply pressure to the contestants on the road to crowning a winner, are the responsibility of MasterChef Canada executive producer Cathie James, who reveals the details behind the tests and the challenges they have to make them work.

Certain home cooks get more airtime on the show than others. Is that because they are quote-worthy? How do you decide who to focus on week-to-week?
Cathie James: In other shows that I’ve worked on, you make those decisions based on who is the most charismatic. With MasterChef, what’s happening on the show with regard to the food and the cooking really pushes your decision in the edit because, in some respects, we edit the show backwards. Whoever wins the Mystery Box, for example, you want to see how it came together … the person who is eliminated at the end, you want to make the audience care about them so they may get a little more attention in the lead-up to their elimination. And if there is a jeopardy moment with a contestant—something goes badly wrong—we often cliffhang the action and focus our energies on it.

The storytelling really comes together in the editing suite.
This year, there were 14 people who make it into the competition and there are 10 cameras, so the amount of tape for day of filming was absolutely overwhelming. The decisions that are made in the editing really do shape the episode. That’s the case for any non-scripted television. And just because you construct the situation—flying 40 people in for auditions and putting them through a series of challenges—doesn’t mean what happens to those people and their reactions to them, isn’t authentic.

For the show to resonate with you, me and the viewers, what you see has to be genuine.

A huge part of MasterChef Canada are the challenges you put the home cooks through. I’m fascinated by the work that goes into the on-location tests. Can you walk me through the process?
They’re really hard to come up with and have worked with some really strong brands in Kraft and Unilever, so often they want to be a part of things. Not only are you looking for a location that’s beautiful and exciting and plays to a particular type of food or a theme … you’re looking to give the audience something that is really different and captures a type of cooking. We usually come up with six off-site challenges every season, so we start the summer collecting ideas and will come up with 10-15 ideas.

I have a challenge team that are logistical wizards. Once an idea has been approved by the network, the team takes it and makes it happen. The big creative process is, how are we going to reveal the winner? So we have the model on the runway with ether the red or blue dress or the pyrotechnic thing. Some work better than others. The pyrotechnic reveal, where the judges lit a fuse and it was supposed to go around the MasterChef symbol … that fuse was supposed to go around the symbol 100 times faster than it did. [Laughs.] We cut it, so it didn’t look so bad. You’re always flying by the seat of your pants with this and you can’t go back and re-shoot. We get what we get.

With 10 cameras, it’s impossible to see what’s really going on until we go through the footage. And then you have the confessional interviews with the contestants, where you get their perspective on what was happening at the time.

You’re three seasons into MasterChef Canada. Are you still surprised by the skill level of the home cooks?
I’m absolutely amazed and they keep getting better. This season, the food is better than it ever has been.

MasterChef Canada airs Sundays at 7 p.m. ET on CTV.

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Seeing red on MasterChef Canada

After taking over Claudio’s Origin in Season 1 and Michael’s Canoe in Season 2, it was Alvin’s turn to hand the keys to his restaurant to the Top 6 during Sunday’s instalment. The episode title, “Demon at the Pass,” certainly lived up to its name as Chef Leung barked orders to the Red and Blue teams as they cooked at Toronto’s R&D restaurant, launched by Season 1 winner Eric Chong (Rebel) and Leung (Demon).

And by the end of the episode, it was Dr. Shawn who surrendered his apron (and signature ball cap) and exited the competition. But back to the Restaurant Takeover for a second, where the Demon Chef lived up to his name by barking orders and refusing to mince words when plates delivered by the Red and Blue teams weren’t up to par. I felt badly for the Top 6, who not only had to learn and execute complex Asian dishes but served them to former MasterChef Canada competitors. Mary’s Red team of Veronica and April Lee gutted it out against Jeremy’s Blue squad of Matthew and Shawn and everything appeared to be evenly matched … until a second plate of wonky chow mein was sent back to the Blue kitchen. That spelled their defeat and sent the men to the Pressure Test.

Kudos to MasterChef Canada‘s producers for coming up with increasingly difficult challenges for the home cooks; making a Charlotte cake in just one hour seemed impossible and created some especially tense moments as Matthew’s glaze bled down the sides of his cake and Shawn’s lady fingers were chunky and child-like. The former edged out the latter when it came to taste, however, eliminating the good doctor from the competition.

MasterChef Canada airs Sundays at 7 p.m. ET on CTV.

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Astronaut Chris Hadfield blasts on to MasterChef Canada

The devil is, as they say, in the details. And, on a night when the home cooks were flying high after a visit from Colonel Chris Hadfield, it was Terry who came crashing down to earth and exited MasterChef Canada.

Terry was humble in his defeat, admitting fault after he and Shawn mixed up the filling in one hors d’oeuvre, and tearfully said goodbye. It was unfortunate to see Terry eliminated that way because it was a plating issue rather than one of taste. And Terry’s elimination was another instance of a plan backfiring on the contestant who set it up. Matthew stunned everyone (including himself, I think) by winning the Mystery Box challenge after Col. Hadfield and the resident judges deemed his smoked salmon parfait to be the best of the bunch constructed of space age ingredients. Matthew, who was awarded immunity for the week, paired up his competitors, putting Jeremy with Mary to slow her down and Shawn with Terry to help them out. Instead, Jeremy and Mary won the tag team and the other two faltered.

I must say it was pretty cool to see Col. Hadfield appear in Sunday’s new episode “Out of this World.” Not merely there for his star power, Hadfield helped taste and judge the plates and interacted with the home cooks while offering insight into how meals are prepared in space: a needle injects lukewarm or hot water into the plastic packets to rehydrate the contents.

As for the Elimination Challenge, I was impressed the home cooks were able to plate all 15 bites, let alone anything that would taste good. There were miscues when it came to mirroring the example set out by the judges, but nothing major. At least, not until the wrong filling was put in Terry and Shawn’s coronets. Now, with just six homes cooks remaining, it really is anyone’s season to win now that Terry is not longer in the hunt.

Next week, Mary and Jeremy are team captains for a Restaurant Takeover that, if evidenced by Alvin’s yelling, is tough for everyone.

MasterChef Canada airs Sundays at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

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MasterChef Canada home cook struggles with sickness

“Heads and Shoulders, Knees and Toes” was the theme of Sunday’s new episode, but it was April Lee’s tummy that became a part of the storyline. Not that her sickness—sweats and stomach issues—were a major tale; it was only during the Pressure Test that it was mentioned at all. Maybe the challenges are done on different days, but it was jarring nonetheless to have no discussion of her health until the latter half of the episode. And in the end it didn’t matter anyway, as the eclairs April Lee concocted during the Pressure Test were good enough to land her in the Top 7.

Not so for Mary and Jennifer, who were in the bottom. It was distressing to see Mary on the brink of elimination over the last few weeks. She’s a truly gifted home cook, and I think that knowledge is causing her to overthink challenges and aim higher than her competition. She shouldn’t be worrying about anyone else but herself … says the guy judging from the safety of his own couch.

Meanwhile, Jennifer’s culinary journey came to an end. After a weak, but inspired, performance preparing chicken feet off the top of the episode, her eclairs were overly small and lacking the taste Michael, Alvin and Claudio were hoping for.

I was really impressed with the plates the home cooks came up with during the team challenge. Despite the main ingredients being less than pretty to look at—grouper and pig heads, pig and chicken feet and frog legs—they put together beautiful plates worthy of pictures in a high-end cookbook. The Red Team of Shawn, Terry, Matthew and Veronica were steps ahead of Blue with regard to flavour and plating, but Veronica’s truly impressive and intricate Chinese soup dumplings with black vinegar caviar carried the win.

Next week, former astronaut Chris Hadfield appears for an out-of-this-world test.

MasterChef Canada airs Sundays at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

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