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Spoilers for MasterChef S2E16, do not continue if youwant to watch it but have not yet.
I do not know what drew me to this show because I do not cook. By that I mean I have failed boiling water three times, twice with supervision. For Christmas one year I got How To Boil Water by Food Network Kitchens. I’ve watched head judge Gordon Ramsay completely tear into chefs on Hell’s Kitchen, throwing food and cursing them out and let me say, he terrifies me. Yet somehow, like a guilty pleasure, I cannot stop watching his shows.
On this episode, the contestants ran the LA restaurant Patina. There are only six chefs left and once again they divide into the blue and red teams. Suzie and Tracy captain the teams. Suzie’s team with Ben and Christian wins the challenge, saving them from the elimination pressure test. Cocky Christian did manage to put his cooking where his mouth was this episode and even if he hadn’t, he would have been fine in the pressure test as someone very skilled with seafood.
The pressure test was to scale, cut up, and cook king salmon. Poor Tracy didn’t get the tail off her fish and didn’t get the salmon in the pan in time, serving up an under cooked dish. The teary goodbye from the stands showed that the other contestants loved her as much as I did, but the heartwarming surprise came after her elimination.
Usually the judges say goodbye, sometimes with words of encouragement and sometimes not. For Tracy, it was a resounding, you have the skill, you’re just not there yet. Before dismissing her, told her they were giving her complementary cooking classes MasterChef Enthusiast classes for a year. Upon completion, they offered her a job at any of their restaurants. It was a tearjerker moment.