This little piggy - the challenge. Six ingredients, simple tools and 30 minutes – COOK!

I wrote this the week after my brush with reality tv, the program airing this week may put all the pieces together...

I’m not very good, at not being very good at something.

So much so, that as I lay in the recovery position (okay catching up on sleep) in my bed after the craziests of weeks, I could not help but think (okay dream) about how poorly I did at my one chance… it wasn’t that hard. Use these ingredients with this equipment and make something delicious.
My self imposed restrictions were to also make something different to the rest of the crowd and make sure I represent myself well by making my food look ‘hot’… well that’s were I stuffed up, you no doubt would say it was fine, if it makes it to tv but it definitely was not inspired.

So with a couple of hours of self prescribed therapy, I reproduced the challenge (nearly) and put myself back to the test.
Could I do it again but better, in a better time, with a better result and a better looking finished dish?

Following the same thought processes of the day I recreated the same dish but here dear readers you get to see how it should have looked, should I not have plated it in 10 seconds (oh god I know; a food stylist plating their food in 10 seconds, what was I thinking??... “Must cut all the pith from my lemon zest”… oh, so we learn!)

So here are the ingredients and equipment (please note, I used a normal stove not a camp stove and am not sponsored by scanpan or global so my Circulon and Mundials will have to do!)

The six ingredients (unnecessary ones not used...), the basic equipment and my 30 minute count down timer

Whipping a mayonnaise (egg yolk, salt, lemon juice, olive oil) with a fork. In the challenge I also boiled an egg as a backup dressing in case the mayo split

Marinating the pork chop

Prepared salad components; cabbage, apple, lemon zest, parsley to be mixed with the mayo, just before serving

Cooking the chop

Resting the cooked chop

The finished dish.
Lemon zest pork loin (well rested and cooked properly this time), apple and cabbage 'remoulade' (well that was a mistake... I'll explain if its aired...), pretty dressed apple bits and a lemon cheek (lets not bring that up either...)

The finished dish with 5 minutes still on the clock. And yes I took all my own photos at the same time!

I think I then ate it in the remaining count down...

Three minutes to go...

One minute to go...

Finished and the chewed bone, that I had cut the loin off.
Wonder what would have happened if I served this? Perhaps I would have actually made it onto the tv.
On reflection I should have eaten it, as we were not served lunch until nearly dinner time.

The food takes over, the final days

Part 3 - If you haven’t worked it out by my absence, no I haven’t been last minute invited back into the reality tv fold, I’m just a little bored with it. I keep twisting and contorting my words; what is the meaning of all this? What is it really about?
Well I still don’t know, and quite frankly I’m bored with it. I couldn’t be bothered to waste any more time right now torturing myself recounting a week in food hell.
But for the sake of a happy ending, I realise I must share. I know there are unanswered questions (yes, they were all asked of me at the recent bloggers get together). So let’s go, lets finish this off… for now at least. I do have something else up my sleeve for what could be an interesting week in April once this all goes to air…

Day 4 - Wednesday
Today appeared at first to be an interesting day. It had been overheard that the contestants that who had failed at the challenge the day before were up earlier than the rest for a special excursion to an iconic Sydney food destination. The rest of us winners (though once we learnt of their adventures we considered ourselves losers, as we wished we were taking part) were up a little later for breakfast before the studio. As I ate my scrambled eggs and as much tinned fruit as I could stomach, I was glad we could change outfits and more importantly shoes today, the standing, no seats provided, was killing my legs, I just felt so stiff for the lack of exercise.
Upon arrival at the studio we were ferried to our little windowless room that we shared with the chocolate bars and soft drink. Stuffed full from breakfast still, I popped down to the internal café and ordered my uninspiring coffee. No doubt the café staffs are getting very sick of the fussy coffee people in the white aprons!

Shortly we were shuffled into the studio and saw the first of our small victories for the day; rows of stools! Cheers of excitement rang out as you would expect from a class of children in an underprivileged school, we could sit today. But a waving red flag crossed my mind, if today is so different from yesterday and the day before, that we get stools for how long will we be perched and is it the opposite hell to standing in the same spot? The answers developed slowly, painfully slowly as we sat all day in the same position being animated about food we could not see and judging that we could not hear. So much for the opportunity to learn from others mistakes.
Lunch crept up on me today, it must have been the excitement of a stool that filled in a few hours, as next thing I knew I was presented with another cold lunchbox filled with another chewy roll and more of the same as yesterday. The chocolate basket also featured packets of jubes today and the soft drink, well, how exciting can it be?

The afternoon rolled on with more of the same and we were shipped back to the hotel by 7.30pm, I immediately got changed and headed to a local gym to have my treat for the week, a pound on a treadmill. The cardio theatre was full of news of the bushfires that didn’t mean anything to me at the time; I was still under the impression that a few houses were lost and people missing. Returning home to Melbourne a couple of hazy days later, brought the rush of exhaustion and grief for the week of Victorian horror that I knew very little about.

Sweat laden and finished at the gym yet still strangely wired, I headed to a late night book store in Paddington, were I pretended for an hour or so that I was at home flipping through some new cookbook purchases in my lounge room. As a tool of fantasy food porn, my couch and some cookbooks was not too far off the pinnacle of my desire. A now sleepy but hungry cab back towards the hotel reminded me I was in Sydney, and in the same neighbour that I called home for a few years, I asked the cabbie to detour to Goulburn St and I reminisced about my experiences in Sydney over a bowl of combination short and long soup and a Tsingtao beer at BBQ King. Finally dinner. Followed up on the short stroll home, by a cup of bitter chocolate sorbet from Gelatissimo, so rich it reminded me of being in Spain the year before. I love how flavours can alter your mood.

Day 5 -Thursday
Today brought with it the knowledge that it was the final challenge for the competition so far, and the excitement that nobody was going home, so no unnecessary bag packing this morning. Breakfast was losing its appeal, same stuff different day, but at least I could put together a nourishing meal that satisfied my some what deflated food soul and stomach.
Today became known in polite circles as the day of the pig, some won and some lost and I can tell you whom the biggests losers were and that day it was definitely the judges.
Fancy tasting some 37 combinations of the same ingredients, some cooked only an hour before, some cooked a lengthy six (yes, SIX!) hours before tasting/judgement. I sincerely felt sorry for the judges, no wonder we didn’t break for lunch until 5.30pm (thank Christ for the scrambled eggs this morning), the main driving force behind the breaks – the talent - were full and so, not interested in eating anything more than what the queue of plates in front of them.

Now at this stage I want to briefly depart from my little food world here and beg of you, should you actually get to see my finished dish on tv, please don’t hate it, just feel sorry for the judges that ate it 6 hours after I prepared it, it had a brief encounter with the fridge, a sheet of paper towelling and a spray bottle, but how is anything to look or taste good when its that old. Unfortunately I was judged third last…

The most interesting thing about the extended filming today was the sugar doing the rounds, bags of snakes materialised from thin air, (is the natural confectionary company another sponsor?) Cokes were guzzled, cherry ripes were nibbled at, and all while our second victory in two days waited for us in the lunch room… the boxes were gone and the items were plattered in like groups so we could pick and choice the components we wanted, the bread was room temperature and the salads cold. In a nut shell, a victory for us, nag power does work! Our keepers were using our strategically wired chests for good not evil (this time at least).

A few more hours of filming saw us then head back to the hotel. The feeling was quite jovial, no one had just been sent home and we were all in the same boat in regards to our topsy-turvy feelings about the final judgement the next day.
Feeling heavy headed, I complied with the opportunity for a beer at the pub across the road. We tried not to talk about the pig, but she kept rearing her head. “So would you have done it differently?”, “How boring was that one, and they loved it”, “I’m sick to god of talking about pork chops, lets talk about bolongese…” ha!
As can happen when you’re exhausted emotionally and physically, one beer became two and then I bailed quickly before it was suddenly four and a hangover to boot the next day.

Not being bothered to actually travel anywhere for good food (note; another out of character foodie experience), I headed into Chinatown in search of chicken soup for my soul. I stumbled across a shiny looking Vietnamese pho joint and stumbled in. I knew just from looking around that it just wasn’t going to be mind boggling good; those moments are saved for scary looking hole in the wall places at 11pm when you are lost in Hanoi… The soup was fine, but what did I expect. Melbourne has coffee and Vietnamese food, Sydney has Thai and lots of top-end dining. Lets not compete on these, we know they are facts. I can live with it, and love it.

Day 6 - Friday
My soon to be determined last day as a guest of the production company was a jumble of emotions. I had a feeling it wasn’t right and that I’d be going home (the to-be-selected Top 20 were staying another night for briefings etc). I had reflected and realised that I had got my tv ‘persona’ all wrong. I should have done the challenge differently; I hadn’t performed within the guidelines expected of me…
It was also the earliest rise of them all, up at 4.30 to be in the foyer by 5.30am all packed and ready to go, breakfast was to be served by the infamous catering company at the studio. Oh I wished I hadn’t said I was bored with it yesterday now!
Well after, let’s just say a little hiccup, with our arrival and a hour plus wait in an idling bus outside of the studio, we finally arrived and were shuffled to our room. In came our breakfast, egg and bacon rolls. Sounds alright? Well it funny enough as if they were trying to amuse me for one last time we were served rolls with egg, and, rolls with bacon, yes individually and in the same quantities that you would expect if they were together; one piece of bacon and a table spoon of scrambled egg, separately! The cook that put these together must have been a robot to not have worked out the error. Some of my fellow contestants, took the liberty of putting the components of two rolls together for themselves, and then others blindly took an empty roll and then complained of the lack of anything but greasy bread. It really was quite funny. I positioned myself with my ordinary coffee and watched for entertainment as this happened over and over again until more rolls were delivered –correctly filled- just mere moments before we were whisked out of the sugar room.

Judgement day brought a new room, set up with prop furniture that I am familiar with from those overpriced hire companies. Weird bright vases with no flowers, OTT stuffed cushions, it’s meant to be comfortable yet if anything I’d feel more comfortable now in a cement room and a hard stool.
Today I’m feeling emotional, I think it’s the lack of sleep catching up with me, I am watching the people I have come to know quite well, get told yes or no. Most cry, which makes me strangely teary as well. It’s not like me, I should have found this inner sook earlier and perhaps I would have gotten a more positive response when my turn came in front of the judges. Again, you may not see me; my shoes were the real star that day, if you see some killer black platform numbers –their mine!
Lunch was a blur of party pies (without the party) and sadness for the very emotional room. Poor form by the production company saw people bribed with access to their phones, so they would talk on camera to their loved ones. Others stood firm and denied the immediate access to family and waited to talk off camera later. Others that were on a dip of emotions, tiredness and far too, too, much sugar balled and wailed for the cameras. I to my embarrassment had a couple of tears, mainly because the waiting room could not believe me when I said I was going home, not selected.

As I sit here now, I’m so grateful at this confusing moment. Perhaps the judges did me a knowing favour, I’m not sure but should I have been given a thumbs up it would have been a very big ethical decision to accept or not.

Dumped at the airport with four hours to wait for our flight home (don’t worry the lovely Qantas people altered it for us), some people were mad, some relieved, all exhausted. To appease my now very dry sense of humour, we were served some dinner of steamed-rice-and-brown-curry airline food on the way home. The world can be a cruel place.



A while has past now since my brush with reality tv, I have remained in contact with a handful of people and have recently learned of the happenings in the Top 20 ‘house’. I feel absolutely relieved in the knowledge, that I don’t need to wake up in the morning with a camera crew in my face… or deal with bullying games/tactics. Thanks George, Gary and Matt; you made the right decision, it’s not for me.

The highlight of my trip funny enough, happened at the airport on the way home, the weary judges (all from Melbourne too) awaited their flights. We jovially chatted like real people comparing notes from each side of the fence. I asked my loaded question, so what were the judges eating while we ate all this? Well the answer surprised. Just the same as us.

Day 3, as evil food takes over

Latest update to Good food equals love, bad food equals...?
Warning this is a long one so settle in, there will now have to be part three as well.

Day 3- Tuesday
Breakfast was more structured this morning and the tables where the food was stashed in stainless steel trays the day before, are now neat buffet warmers in a row.
I eat as much as I can of the provided scrambled eggs and wholemeal toast, filling up on some protein to make it through the day. I was now cautious from experience that it could be a traumatic food day, but also cautious that I had done no exercise for 3 days and didn’t know when I next could actually move more than back and forth to the studio loos.
Again today, lunch was served in cute the little lunch boxes. I was hopeful as soon as I saw them but my catering experience instantly told me that the chances that we would be having the same lunch as yesterday would be minute. (The caterer enjoys the opportunity to ensure the diners palate is kept wondering or tortured, whatever the brief maybe… and yes I was questioning this brief by the end of the week!) The boxes felt cold to touch as I picked it up, again not a good sign. As I gravitated back to the same table I lurked at yesterday, I took a peek inside and it wasn’t good news. There was a small chewy baguette with some processed meat, two mesclun leaves and too much seed mustard, served freezing cold obviously straight from the fridge, a rather strange salad of chickpeas, cannellini beans, spring onion and wait for it, chopped mushroom. The salad was squished into the box next to the baguette and dark brown, mushroom ‘juice’ had stained that side of my already unappetising roll. On top of the salad in the same box was an individual quiche that easily was the saddest attempt at something edible in a while. The French would riot in the streets if they knew how badly their classics; baguette and quiche, were being abused. I picked at best, ate the meat out of the roll and headed for the fruit basket. The crunchy nashi pears from the day before were gone (yes there was some smart foodies in the room) and some uninspired red delicious apples were in their place…
I stood staring at the table, realising that I didn’t have much of an appetite anyway and I was actually eating out of boredom and the fact that ‘food’ was put in front of me, something I rarely do. I decided to instead play coffee Russian roulette, so who will be my barista today…

Later that afternoon as my appetite did actually appear, I was tempted by that evil chocolate basket, I took “a break and had a kitkat”, the first for a very long time and reminded myself why I usually don’t bother, I ate it and was still unsatisfied but now also guilty that I had given in to the sugary dark side. I ‘mentally noted’ my out of character incident and convinced myself that I must be stronger and find the good(ness) in what’s offered for lunch.
Tiredness is setting in as I realise its already pushing 5.30 and it doesn’t look like we are going anywhere soon but to my surprise we were back in the bus heading to the hotel by 8.30pm.
Feeling like I have an early mark of such, as soon as my feet hit the street I am thinking about were I can head for dinner and end up convincing two other exhausted yet wired ‘Top 50’ to join me for some tapas at Bodega, in Surry Hills for some late dinner.
As I lay in bed later that night, I realise that an hour and half at Bodega has readjusted my outlook. A familiar feeling place, such as a restaurant, has made me feel somewhat normal again (or was it that extra glass of sherry helping?). Talking about food, drinking wine and some good company; yes that’s what I have missed.
Oh and I did taste some rich Bolognese sauce before lunch today, perhaps it was all the speculation about its ingredients that turned me off my meal, actually no on second thought, it was the lunch!

The end to this sorry saga to come over the weekend. Was I tempted to the dark side again, will it cause me to cry for the cameras, or was that just a 4.30am rise with 4 hours sleep again?

Good food equals love, bad food equals…?

Last week would probably count as one of the craziest of my life, up there with packing my belongings in my car and driving across Australia with a guy I’d only known for a few months… luckily 11 years later he ended up becoming my Permanent Dining Companion –PDC. So I got a good thing out of that craziness, but I am still trying to figure out what good thing I got out of last week… and trust me it wasn’t a foodie experience, though perhaps it was meant to be…

Without going into all the gory details (you can read about that on other blogs –just google!), I realised the cold hard truth about my relationship with food. Apart from thinking about it for a living, I treat good food, the food I feed myself, family and friends, as evidence of my love.

For example, if I was to have you over for dinner, I’d plan a meal that I know you would like because of your personality, i.e. a busy person, with not enough hours in the day would appreciate a 12 hour braised dish. A friend that doesn’t get out to as many restaurants as they may like (god, who does!!) may enjoy a reproduction from my favourite restaurant.

Good food, takes thought and love to get right. I also realised that the food I feed myself allows me to be me; if I eat well, frequent my green grocer and fishmonger, chat at the bakery and get enough exercise I feel well, healthy and satisfied. If I don’t… well last week will happen.

So, I spent the week in Sydney as a guest of a fancy television production company – yes, you can no doubt work it out – one that is making, what I thought was a cooking show for amateurs.
Fantastic I thought as I applied, a chance to talk about food to a wider audience than PDC, my friends, work colleagues and you my beloved Eating with Jack readers. (ok yes, I do talk about food a lot, but thought this may give me the opportunity to talk with more(!) people about more(!) food)

But the sad truth was that I have never, for longer than I can remember, felt more dis-attached from food than when I spent that week in Sydney, supposingly working on a food program.
I think I have worked it out though, there was no love; we ate badly, doing long very boring hours, doing no exercise apart from frequent toilet runs (to cut the boredom!) and just felt like cattle bussed in and out, with very little contact with the outside world. And wait for it – shock horror – no phones as well!

Now, you may well blink and miss my presence on the program when it goes to air in a few months, as no doubt I was not interesting enough to cry and freak out for the cameras, or slice my fingers open with a knife or throw hot oil down my chest (a great plan though, now thinking about it! ;) But since this is my food blog and I like to share with you the stories about what I eat, I chronicled my meals at the stone face of reality tv… so here it is (but remember if you want to apply next year – and why not, you may have that certain little something more than me - make sure you byo everything!)


Day 1- Sunday
Breakfast out with PDC, before he ships me off to the airport at 10am
Economy airline food, “no thanks but can I have some water please”.
A post briefing beer at a local pub, as I watch some of the younger ‘contestants’ hoe into a bucket of KFC. The food snob in me is already out, but if I’d known perhaps I would have stashed a piece for dinner the next night!
Early dinner/late lunch at Spice I am, you can see my post from last year here and soon I’ll post images from this experience, needless to say as good as its always been.

Day 2- Monday
Rise at 5.30 to preen for the cameras, breakfast to be served at 6.30 before the bus departs at 7am. Well what a debacle for the poor hotel. Obviously they hadn’t been told that 50 plus hungry anxious people would be arriving for breakfast at the stroke of their opening time.
Very little food on display, no plates and bug-eyed staff running around. I’ve been there, I felt sorry for them and grabbed what I could and headed around the corner for a coffee from a chain store. (1st out of character foodie experience of the trip…many more to come) Mental note to self, must remember that I am in Sydney and ask for strong, warm lattes at all but a few known ‘safe’ destinations.
Lunch served in our little retreat room was the best of the week. Individual lunchboxes, with mountain bread wraps, frittata and Caesar salad. Served with a very large basket of debaucherous chocolate bars of every kind, enough softdrinks to sugar high a primary school and a basket of fruit that was barely replenished during the week. An urn for instant coffee and tea bags in paper cups sat in the corner mostly unused.
After lunch I headed down to the internal café (unfortunately run by the same catering company) and ordered my Sydney latte (ie “a small, strong caffe latte, just warm please”) not scaringly bad but a life plummeting jump from my usual Wall 280 one everyday.
Dinner was a disappointment in many ways, especially the thought that they were feeding us so we could keep filming; the hotel was not a likely destination anytime soon. As we queued into the room we were offered “lamb, or beef curry” on closer inspection, as I stood aside, the options were actually labelled ‘lamb rogan josh’ and ‘beef curry’ so much for choice. Two very similar dishes, served on plain steamed rice with under-done carrot and zucchini chunks in a plastic takeaway container. I looked at mine with despair, ate the cubes of brown meat in brown sauce, the crunchy, unseasoned vegetables and pushed the rest aside. The basket of chocolates and lollies doing its evil work on the room, as kit kats and cherry ripes replaced the bland dinner so many people pushed aside. As a martyr to this blog, I selected the other meat option as a taste comparison, ate the dull vegies and made a cup of plastic tasting tea. From the highs of lunch and the first day of filming to the lows of dinner and many more hours in the studio to come, we finally departed for the hotel at 12 midnight, a cheeky 17 hours under-our-belts for the first day. A kitchen worthy effort.

Days 3-6 to come. Including a small victory in the lunch room, many, many more lollies. Oh and wait for it... what did the judges eat while we ate this? And a hopeful contender for my dish of the month.

Next installment in a couple of days. Promise.