Here we are in East Gippsland, a place where our farmers are affected by the ongoing drought. Today, our contestants will be feeding the farmers, their families, and people who volunteer their time and resources to get supplies to the farmers.
A great challenge for two reasons:
- It’s great to give back to the people who are the reason we’re able to eat Australian produce.
- All the contestants feel like they can’t fuck up.
Today, George is wearing a white shirt and a black jacket. Matt is wearing a grey suit with a white shirt and an orangy looking cravat and pocket square. Finally, Gaz is in a blue shirt with a white shirt, that I think can be described as checked? I failed the sewing class at school, so I have no idea. He’s also wearing glasses again today.
The contestants are split into two groups by George, which ends up being the red and blue teams.
Anushka is wearing white glasses that don’t really go with the outfit, but I guess maybe she’s run out of glasses. I don’t know, I was expecting her to bring a new pair for every single day.
Anyway, the groups are forced to choose a leader.
Blue choose Larissa, and she’s quick to be a leader. Red choose Tim, because he’s from the country.
As Gippsland is close to the coast, or something, the teams will either cook a protein from land or sea. They’ll be chosen by drawing knives.
Tim pulls land, and Larissa gets sea.
The montage starts and everyone begins cooking and agreeing with what they’re going to serving today. They have to do three mains, three sides and a dessert. It’s a serve yourself situation.
The montage today is cooking, broken up with people saying how important today is for them.
Honestly, cooking really goes over my head, so I don’t understand any of this stuff. Frankly, I don’t really care. I’m here to look at Anushka’s glasses, judge the contestants for crying, and salivating at the end result.
Towards the end, everyone starts to arrive, and the contestants get frantic. They realise they’re not even close to being done.
Finally, time is up. Everything was put out in time, and there are no dramas.
First to be judged is the blue team. They’ve done a smoked salmon with crispy skin, fish and chips, curry prawns, bread, Thai salad, a potato thing, and sticky date pudding.
The trio of judges say what they think. Matt says each dish is clearly done by an individual and doesn’t work all together. They enjoyed it nonetheless.
There’s a quick clip of people saying what they liked about the dishes.
Next is the red team – lamb shoulder, pork belly, eye fillet, green salad, beetroots, carrots, and an apricot crumble.
The judges like it. They like that it’s a mix and match, and cohesive. Overall they like it as well. They ooh and aah at the crumble.
Another clip of people talking about what they liked.
“Wow, red team. Unbelievably good,” Matt said. “Everything we love about food on one serving table.”
The contestants all come together and Gaz gives them the feedback. They were both great – the best offsite cook on all of MasterChef. But Red was just that bit better than blue, so blue is up for elimination tomorrow.
Felicity Feiner 
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