Mastering Master Chef- blues

I'm suffering withdrawal. 

It's pretty simple... months of Master Chef Australia madness has come to an end. 

What the hell am I supposed to do with my time now? 

What on earth is going to re-cap in the background while I make my own Master Chef dinner mess in the kitchen? 

What is going to cause my friends to have ongoing and heated discussions where no-one gets to be right? (Julie vs Poh vs Chris...)

And what is going to fill the void of food porn that I had come to rely on to finish my day?

OK- it's not quite that bad, but I am left with a huge sense of loss now that the familiar faces and crazy culinary challenges are gone. Not to mention that as an avid Chris and Justine supporter I was less than satisfied with the final show-down. For me, it was a disappointing end to a show that had sneakily sucked me in despite my best efforts.

It's not that I don't like Julie or Poh- after all, they both pulled off dishes that I'm unlikely to attempt in my wildest dreams, let alone on national TV with celebrity chefs watching. So well done to them and snaps to Channel 10 for a slathering of feel-good in an otherwise bitch on bitch reality TV-scape.

It's just that I developed my affinity for Chris and his nose-to-tail, beer swilling finesse early on, and like a footy team I wasn't swapping that up for nothing. 

Then my grudging acceptance of Justine settled in when I finally realised that yes, you can be beautiful and cook. Some people just have all the luck, so you might as well embrace it. 

As far as I could see, these two were the real contenders... with Lucas not too far behind. So I guess once they had gone, I was never really going to be happy with the outcome. 

Nothing personal. It's just so tricky when the judging is all in the flavour, and until we develop smell-and-taste-o-vision, we'll be creating our affinities with cooking contestants the best way we know how. For me, that was looking for things I could identify with; Chris's single minded vision and Justine's passion to grow and learn.

Good luck to them all, the best of them will certainly have a great head-start regardless of where they pulled up in the comp. And let's face it, no matter how you felt about the finale, it was certainly a tantalising ride. 

As one chef friend of mine put it when asked what he thought of the MC phenomenon; 

"At the end of the day, it's got people talking about food, and that can only be a good thing." 

Now, what to do with my evenings. I heard about these magical things once called books...