My Kitchen Rules Recap: I Looked, and There Before Me Was a Pale Horse!
It’s always exciting at the start of every season of My Kitchen Rules, when we’ve yet to meet the new set of teams and find out who will be thrilling us with culinary skills ranging from the abysmal to the fairly OK.
Of course, every MKR season has its standard set of characters, the roles that the teams fall into as the contest develops:
- the dickheads
- the wankers
- the arseholes
- the pricks
- the pieces of shit
- the morons
- the guys who seem kind of OK but later on they turn out to be bastards
- the old crying ladies
Of course, the season premiere starts in predictable fashion, with the voiceover guy punching himself in the hernia repeatedly to achieve the desired timbre. A quick — well not that quick — montage of things that we are going to see in the future, making watching the actual show mostly unnecessary, and one thing is already clear about MKR 2018: these people have some really weird faces. One of them prepares to meet Manu by manhandling her own breasts, but there’s not much she can do about the fact she looks like the top of her face has been bitten by something tropical.
Also, we get a hint that later in the series, the teams will visit Pete and Manu in the house they apparently share.
But on to the first instant restaurant. Nic and Josh are Italian brothers from western Sydney, and you know what that means: we’re going to be hearing the word “nonna” a lot. Nic and Josh were brought up in the family restaurant, so letting them be on MKR is clearly cheating. Also they find the word “womb” extremely funny, so that’s endearing.
And they play soccer. MKR is pretty keen to give us the impression they play soccer for 14 hours a day, the other 10 being spent making pizzas.
“There is nothing like walking into an Italian deli,” say the brothers, and I guess that’s technically true. I mean there’s bound to be minor differences between that and walking into other buildings.
Cut to Pete and Manu examining the menu. Manu is looking to be even more incomprehensible this year, and has been practising his fake accent all summer. The judges agree that food that has been made well is good, but food that has not been made well is not as good, so it’s to be hoped that the food that Nic and Josh make is food that has been made well. They are in furious agreement on this point.
Meanwhile Nic and Josh are buying some fresh goat, which they will sacrifice to their dark god to ask him to bring them success in the competition. Manu hopes the goat will be swimming in a lot of sauce, but what he doesn’t realise is the goat is already dead.
“As soon as you say panna cotta, people think Italian,” says Nic, and he’s right, because he said it in a ludicrously over-enunciated Italian accent.
The brothers’ instant restaurant is called Calcio e Pepe, meaning “Football and Spice”. It is an incredibly unappetising name, so it matches their personalities.
With two hours to go, Josh and Nic are dressed to the nines and ready to enter the kitchen and splatter food all over their clothes. “Let’s make mum and dad proud!” Nic cries, but if they haven’t up till now, I don’t see why anything would be about to change.
They prep dessert. “Panna cotta’s like a beautiful woman,” says Josh, presumably referring to the fact that both are thickened by gelatin.
The main course is a dish they learnt from their mum, which is something they keep harping on in the apparent belief that anyone else should care.
Here come the guests. At the front are Roula and Rachel, who proclaim their competitive spirit. “We might look pretty,” says Rachel, which is her first mistake. I don’t know what she said next: something about not having any friends.
Alex and Emily’s first impression of the brothers is that they have good energy, which just goes to show how wrong first impressions can be.
The guests sit down, and Jazzey — the paralysed girl with the boobs — notes that there is “fresh ross-merry” on the table. She says it like that. “Ross-merry”. What’s going on there? I hope we get some closure on that.
Now it is time for a get-to-know-you montage with Alex and Emily. Alex begins by calling himself a “tallywhacker”, so we are in for one hell of a ride. Alex calls himself a “drinks consultant”, because he is a bartender suffering massive self-loathing. He explains to the other guests that he doesn’t like to use the word “mixology” because it’s “a bit wanky”. That is why he calls himself a drinks consultant instead. To avoid sounding wanky. That is why.
Another introduction: Kim and Sung, mums from Melbourne who are at pains to emphasise how much they dislike their children. They don’t actually know where the kids are tonight, and they sure as hell don’t care. Maybe they’re dead! Hahaha!
Back in the kitchen, Josh and Nic are cooking, so who gives a shit.
Back in the living room, we’re introduced to Jess and Emma, sisters with enormous faces. Jess is thirty-one, and Emma is “thirty-ish”, the word she uses instead of “sixty-five”. Jess is in real estate, and Emma is sculpted out of fibreglass and filled with inert gases.
Next we meet Stuss and Steve, “a coupla knuckleheads from Queensland” who are every bit as boring as you’d think from that description. Steve is an archaeologist, so the Indiana Jones theme plays while we watch him examining fossils and dinosaur bones, which is something a palaeontologist does, rather than an archaeologist, but presumably the producers didn’t think footage of him doing his actual job would come up well.
And now, Roula and Rachel, who have very high standards apart from their own personalities. “My family call me the psycho in the kitchen,” says Roula, “because I can’t tolerate anyone in there but me when I’m doing my thing.” Her thing being murder.
Back in the kitchen, something about gorgonzola.
At the table, we meet Stella and Jazzey, two waitresses who fake laughter to stave off the looming despair that colours their every waking moment. “Some are going to think we’re young and dumb,” says Jazzey, but actually they aren’t all that young.
Then there’s Ash and Matty, who like going to the beach and grinning unsettlingly. Matty can’t cook, so it’s no wonder MKR wanted him on the show. Sadly, his inability to cook is the most interesting thing about him.
In the kitchen, spinach and ricotta dumplings are being discussed. The brothers begin singing “Volare”, because it’s in their contract that they have to reinforce at least four Italian stereotypes per minute.
Back in the dining room, the guests discuss the sexual allure of Manu while Jazzey stares blankly into space and casually wets her chair.
Speaking of Manu, he and his deranged friend have shown up at the house, unshaven and looking an utter shambles. Jazzey is so aroused by Manu’s presence that she has to fan herself and then she kind of has a little nap.
Josh and Nic present the menu. Emma doesn’t know how she feels about gorgonzola dumplings, worried they might react badly with the two dozen acorns she is storing in her cheeks. Jess reveals she hopes that one of the brothers will marry Emma. It is uncertain at this time whether Jess and Emma are aware that they are talking out loud.
Entree is served. Pete sniffs his bowl, revolted by the presence of bread and dairy products that no healthy person should ever touch. Remembering his salary, he tucks in. “That was absolutely delicious,” he lies, selling out the entire paleo movement on the first course of the year.
Manu loved the dumplings and the sauce, but thinks the bread didn’t need to be there. Well actually he says “the bride” didn’t need to be there, but from context I think he means the bread.
Steve expresses a wish to drink the gorgonzola sauce, as he no longer finds any joy in living. Most guests like the dish, except for Roula, who says she doesn’t “do fried food, because I like to look good”. I have such bad news for Roula.
Jess tells Roula it’s not nice to say she can’t stomach the food. Roula says that’s just how she rolls. Jess tells Roula that she would like to pick Roula up and throw her out. Roula retreats to a cutaway, where she explains that Jess is just jealous because she likes Roula’s dress and wishes she could fit into it. Roula is what experienced MKR viewers will recognise as “the bitch”. Also, she uses the word “sister” and “beef” while waving her finger in the air in a way that confirms earlier suspicions: she thinks she’s black.
Back in the kitchen, polenta, oven, whatever.
At the table, Jazzey is using text-speak out loud and maybe Roula isn’t the worst person at the table. Emma reveals that Jess fell in love with a goat yesterday, after taking her son to a farm. It’s not explicitly stated, but the implication is that Jess has exchanged her human son for a goat.
In the kitchen there is agonising over polenta. Nic tells Josh to think of the soccer. It’s unclear how this will help, but after thinking about soccer for several seconds, the brothers apparently now know what to do.
At the table Ash tells her fellow guests that she once ate a guinea pig and then laughs hysterically for far too long, the bloodlust quite apparent.
In the kitchen Josh and Nic don’t have enough sauce, but through the magic of water, make more sauce happen. This causes the bits of goat to be wetter than they might otherwise have been, which as I understand is desirable. With main served, Jazzey is struck by how much like pieces of goat the pieces of goat look.
The judges eat their goat, like a couple of goddamn savages. “There’s just something missing on this plate,” says Pete, probably referring to mastodon shavings. But the flavours are all there, and the goat melted in the mouth, just like M&Ms.
However, the guests are divided on the merits of the goat: Stella and Kim enjoyed it, while Emma didn’t like the texture, but then she’s one to talk. We then cut to a bizarre conversation between Jess and Emma about Michael Jackson, which adds more evidence to the theory that the sisters are not actually aware of when they are talking.
Meanwhile Josh begins drinking.
Alex reckons panna cotta is underrated as a technique, but he’s a drinks consultant, not a dessert consultant, so what the fuck would he know. Matt isn’t sure he’s ever had a panna cotta, but you get the feeling Matt isn’t sure whether he’s ever worn shoes.
Suddenly Stella and Jazzey start clearing the table, and nobody quite knows what’s going on. The unnerving atmosphere is enhanced by the fact that Jazzey appears to have been unconscious throughout the night, giving her actions a voodoo-zombie sort of flavour.
Josh and Nic prepare their panna cottas, while the soundtrack plays “You Sexy Thing”, foreshadowing the inevitable: Josh is going to fuck the dessert.
Afterward they serve it to their guests.
Pete and Manu eat their dessert. As a committed paleo adherent, Pete will naturally abhor panna cotta and all it stands for, but as a greedy liar, he tells them he loved it. Manu says, “Panna cotta is so Italian” without explaining what he’s getting at. He doesn’t think the dish made sense, but loved it anyway. Like Twin Peaks.
Emma finds the plums accompanying the panna cotta too sour: “It’s turning my face inside out,” she says, although I don’t know how she could tell. Matty enjoys his first ever panna cotta. “It’s bonza,” he says, before going on to learn how to write his own name.
Time for scoring. Guest comments range from the bitchy to the baffling — Matt refers to the panna cotta as “bonkers”, showing that in his quest to use adjectives in speech he has flown too close to the sun. Overall the guests gave the brothers 41 out of 70, the sort of score anyone with low self-esteem would be proud of. The judges give 46 out of 60, ensuring the guests know how contemptible their opinions are. That translates to a final score of 87 out of 130, a nice middling score for some nice middling brothers.
Tune in tomorrow night when the big bitch fight that Seven is promoting won’t happen, and you’ll see more promos for it.
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