I started cooking, I mean really cooking, long time ago and, during the years, I added a little bit of style and class to my final products and developed in that five stars gourmet cook. And this because, as we all know it, us Virgos cannot exist outside excellence and perfection.
For several years now, I watched many cooking TV shows...too many I guess, but again, without putting me in a box, remember my three highlights: Virgo, blondie, girlie!
I am still mesmerised by those amazing chefs creating culinary masterpieces, so I watch their shows with loyalty and passion. I also watch Masterchef.....and I still don't get it! So let me explain myself.
For me, time management is important. A well done job, sorry, an excellent job, requires a certain amount of time, so I plan and strategically follow the procedures I created before starting the job. I call it the strategy of being always on time. Last week for example I had 15 people for dinner. Simple menu, 2 curries, one veggie, one seafood, plus some rice and naan breads...enough to feed the crowd. I had no more than 2 hours to complete the job, starting with picking all the goodies from my veggie garden and continuing with cooking the Indian feast, sipping my wine (a good chef always has a nice glass of wine handy....as seen on TV!), washing the dishes, making my home presentable and wellcoming for my guests.... and of course putting my face on with what ever that involves....Two hours not even a minute more. An hour before my proposed deadline, I was already all over the internet, facebooking, tweeting, instagraming and pinteresting. The smell of my curries was lingering in my home, which, by the way, looked clean and tiddy. What am I saying? It looked stunning, the home of an OCD girlie that I am.
Since then a question keeps bothering me. If I, a person with no Michelin stars, can cook for 15 people and do the job in an hour, why a heck those skilled and trained aspiring chefs, competing for a Masterchef apron, need 90 minutes for producing a bloody toast sandwich or one so called a-la-carte poached egg. Maybe because it is served with 2 perfectly simetrical sliced tomatoes on the side or maybe because that invisible sauce apparently sprinkled on the plate needs time inventing it. 90 minutes that don't include cleaning up the storm they made whils cooking. That's probably the producers' or maybe the audience's dutty! Ridiculous! So, I'm just thinking: am I a superwoman, which I am not, or are they, the aspiring chefs, just part of a setup steriotypical reallity show, one that we follow without thinking. Either way, my hypothesis (that meets my conclusion too) cannot be more than the fact that us, women...and sometimes men (not very often though) are kind of busy thiese days. We have a limited time to muck about in the kitchen and, in that short time we have, we cook. I mean cook! Prepare the food that feeds our families just by following the recipees our mothers, grandmothers and their female ancestors used. We do it in time and on time! The chefs we adore started the same way. Gordon, Jammie, Nigella never needed 90 minutes for a toastie! They've created masterpieces in less than that! So please just give me a break Masterchef! I love you but I chose to don't believe everything about you! I will though when you can proove that you invented the hole in the macaroni!
Always yours, :)
Brigitte
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