MasterChef Recap: Killer Seaweed!

After a year's hiatus and a move to a new location, I'm finally back in the land of the recaps. Helping me out is Fox's decision to scatter the seasons of Hell's Kitchen and MasterChef so I could take on just one at a time instead of two. So, without any further ado, let's get on with the show.

Before anything really happened on MasterChef's premiere, two big things were evident: One, that Graham Elliot left half of his body on the most recent MasterChef cruise (order your tickets today!) and two, that we were skipping over the first round, where we got to see people trying out in a big, intimidating factory-floor-looking room. Frankly, I almost didn't want to go on. Half the fun was hearing these bizarre backstories and then watching Gordon choke down macaroni and cheese made with breastmilk. Remember Johnny B's lobster crackerjacks last season? You know somebody served meatloaf ice cream and we all missed it.

Instead, the top 30 arrived to the MasterChef kitchen, with dreams of $250,000, their very own cookbook, and, most importantly, an ugly trophy dancing in their heads. However, don't fret about missing people cry over Joe Bastianich handing them a nondescript apron - these folks still had to earn their aprons by serving their signature dish, and thankfully they were provided a cutting board mirror to remind themselves who that signature dish is supposed to represent (SPOILER ALERT! It's them). The judges also reserved the right to eliminate people in the middle of the cooking process if they didn't like what they saw. Indeed, they did toss out Gavin, notable for his bowtie and complicated-sounding dish, and Tanya (Latanya?), not at all notable for any reason (sorry, Tanya/Latanya!).

After the judges made the rounds, testing various dishes, they selected 17 people to move forward. Some of the selected:

• Courtney, whose five jobs couldn't support her through college and led her to work in a "gentleman's club." Her on-screen descriptor calls her an "aerial dancer," which is one of the most impressive euphemisms for "stripper" I've ever heard. Anyway, Courtney is a fan of her Italian heritage, made gnocchis, and celebrated with some choice four-letter words that made the FCC think it was editing Hell's Kitchen.
• Big Willie, a pleasant-looking guy who leaned on his Southern roots for his dish. His performance in the pantry was one of my favorites, as he frantically rushed from side to side, trying - and failing - to not knock people over with his girth. 
• Tyler, a hunting aficionado who overcame a subpar chimichurri sauce because the man knows how to cook a deer.
• Elizabeth, whose attempt to make a fancy version of PB&J made Gordon scoff but was apparently successful.
• A bunch of other people.

The remaining nine had one more chance to earn their aprons, but this time, things were a little more complicated. First, it was kind of a Mystery Box challenge but sponsored by an appliance company so it was a Mystery Refrigerator challenge. The "mystery" was that it was all food you could find right now in any person's fridge except mine because bacon doesn't last more than six hours in my house. Mostly, the challenge was for the contestants to come up with the most creative way to say that they're serving chicken and mashed potatoes. Second, they had to cook alongside Gordon, in a move that was supposed to either intimidate or inspire them.

After everyone gushed at how a world-class chef could produce a world-class dish in an hour with no pressure, five more contestants earned aprons. They were:

• Little Gordon, whose seared chicken breast and potato puree got decent reviews but whose retention on the show is really a thinly veiled excuse for the judges to refer to him and Gordon Ramsay as Little and Big Gordon.
• Leslie, a 56-year-old stay-at-home dad who dresses dapper and likes to trashtalk in a strange, polite sort of way, like if your nerdy uncle got a little too caffeinated before playing Scrabble. Uncle Leslie served enough chicken breast and mashed potatoes to feed his 75 children but it was good enough for Joe to overlook the terrible plating.
• Astrid, whose biggest claim to fame was that she kept throwing her food trash on the floor while she cooked. She was running around amid onion skins and peeled potatoes before Joe figured it out and yelled at her. Somehow she didn't get eliminated on the spot and she redeemed herself with seared chicken and potato hash. (Side note: I can't be the only person for whom the name Astrid only brings up The Office, right? And then you spend the rest of the night thinking her name is actually Astird? No? OK. End side note.)
• Francis. We learned a lot about Francis right off the bat: He has a hard-to-place accent (Scottish, maybe?). He favors full-bodied plaid suits. He looks a little like Mycroft Holmes. He's pals with Big Willie. He enjoys chemistry and cooking with chemicals and sciencey-equipment. That last part might have been his downfall in the first round, when the syringe he brought from home broke and he was forced to create something out of an eighth-grade science fair to compensate. He kept things complicated in the second round, making spinach pasta from scratch and then plating it in a way to make it seem like the shrimp are running away from seaweed (represented by the pasta). Needless to say, I'm a Francis fan. 
• Elise, who just wants to escape her cubicle farm in real life. Elise's expertise is clearly pastries and after not passing muster with mini blueberry pies in the first round, follows it up with chicken pot pie in the second. Seriously. Two pies. There is a 100% chance she has a "365 Pies" page-a-day calendar on her desk at work. The chicken pot pie might have been one of the least appetizing things I've ever seen, but either it tasted amazing or the judges were charmed by her desperation.

So there are our top 22, all aproned out. We lost eight along the way, but the producers did a fine editing job to ensure we didn't get too attached. Although I think we all enjoyed seeing the proud Idahoan improperly cook a potato. Next week, we get right into the Mystery Box challenges and team challenges and elimination challenges and all that fun stuff. So who do you like? Not like? It's pretty early and we haven't even met half the people yet, but I guess if I had to make an early pick to win, it would be Courtney, although I'm not loving my choices so far. 

Dish I'd Most Like to Try: Francis' shrimp-escaping-the-killer-seaweed-pasta. I'm in favor of any dish that involves murderous plantlife and an exhaustive backstory.

Fancy Dish I Made Myself Today: Cereal. With milk!

Mmmm, Donuts

If God serves donuts in Heaven, and I think we can all agree that He does, they come from Mrs. Murphy's. For anyone in the greater Hampden County area or northern Connecticut, go there. Now. Don't even finish reading this blog. This blog sucks. Go eat donuts.

Photo courtesy of waymarking.com

For those unfamiliar, or who refuse to submit to the decadence, let me explain. Located in Southwick, Mass., not far from the borders of Westfield, Mass., and Granby, Conn., is a little donut shop. I'd give you directions but you don't need them because you can smell the glory from miles away. The donuts are homemade each morning, as are the muffins, croissants, or whatever other baked delight you might favor on the way to work. They're all good - I'm a big fan of having a bacon, egg and cheese on a fresh-made croissant - but really, you want a donut.

The types are your typical varieties - various forms of glazed, cinnamon, powdered sugar, etc. They're gigantic and beautiful. Don't believe me? Well, here:

My relationship with Mrs. Murphy's is such that I've had to limit the amount of times I can go there. Now, it's only special occasions, like Christmas morning, days people stay over our house, and, as was the case today, when I want to do something for the students who work in our library. This weekend is our college's commencement, which means that it's the last day of work for a lot of our graduating students. Some of them have been working here for ages and are practically members of the staff. They're all great. I like to bring them treats on special days, holidays and when I have to work weekends as a thinly veiled excuse to buy myself SO MANY DONUTS. 

I regret nothing.

Why I Run

Making like Forrest Gump

If you had told high school me that, by the time I was 26, I'd be a regular runner, I'd have rolled my eyes. If you said that when I wasn't able to run for a year, I'd miss it like nobody's business, I'd laugh in your face.

Running was never my thing and there are a number of reasons for that. I was born pretty severely pigeon-toed, which made running long distances painful. That didn't get corrected until after my freshman year of high school, which made for a fun summer of two broken legs (in related news, I'm an accomplished cross-stitcher now and have used up my lifetime allotment for watching Maury Povich). At that point, I probably could have played sports, something I always liked to do, but the girl who mercilessly bullied me in elementary school played on multiple teams so I went back into my introverted shell and hid behind Little Debbie snack cakes.

It took until I was an adult to really start running, when one day I woke up sick of being overweight and out of shape. A friend had sold me on the benefits of the Couch to 5K program, which slowly builds a couch potato up to someone who can run 3 miles without stopping/collapsing/bleeding out the eyes over about two months. I went even slower than that, doing each week twice. I signed myself up for a road race a few months in the future so I'd have a deadline looming over me. That race - the Worcester Firefighters 6K - was the first of many and I soon had a hobby.

I won't say that I ever grew to LOVE running, as the process of running is long and painful and I spend most of it wishing I was watching TV or eating a sandwich or not running. But the feeling at the end is phenomenal. To get back to my house and say, "Hey, I just ran 5 miles!" is amazing. To finish a 5K with a new personal record makes me feel great.

Then I got pregnant.

Now, I know that there are women out there running marathons while being nine months pregnant, and to you, I say, "Gah, no." I've always been prone to side stitches and before I exited my first trimester, I was getting them regularly after less than a mile. So I did what I could with walking until I was put on bedrest.

My son's birth was complicated (as I've written about ad nauseum) and so I spent the two months after giving birth living in a hospital and subsisting on food purchased in the cafeteria, at the Au Bon Pain in the lobby and at the Bertucci's across the street. You know, health food. When we finally came home, I was trying to figure out caring for a newborn as a first-time parent, plus all the special care that he came with.

I returned to work in January and figured I could get back in the saddle then. After all, I work at a college with a brand-new gym and an indoor track. Lunchtime runs was how I got in shape to begin with. But the thing about colleges is...people LOVE LUNCH MEETINGS. A lot of times, the best only way to get people to attend something is to offer food. Frankly, I don't know where I'd meet one-on-one with anyone if we didn't have a Dunkin' Donuts on campus. And so during the semester, I'd say that two out of five workdays have something scheduled during lunch. Before, that wasn't such a huge deal since I could go to work early or stay late and go to the gym then, but with a little guy at home and a husband who needs to go to work himself, that option wasn't on the table.

BUT NOW classes are over. Most of the students are gone. Commencement is this weekend and my lunch meetings are dwindling to once every couple of weeks instead of every other day.

Going back to square one with my running is hard. It makes me sad that I can't do the thing that made me feel so good for so long. When I ran, I lost weight. I was toned. For the first time in my life, I didn't hate my body. Now I have closets and drawers of clothes that don't fit me anymore. I tried to run a (thankfully untimed) 5K a couple of weeks ago with my friends and felt bad when they had to slow their own pace to let me keep up with them. I used to be pretty good. Not first-place good, but more people finished after me than before.

Today I ran 3 miles in 32:27, a good six minutes slower than I was once able. That's OK. It would be crazy to think I would be back where I was a year and a half ago. I'm just happy that I have a chance to try.

Welcome to TV Tuesdays

Because I live in the land of DVR, everything I watch is at least five days old. I don't think I'm alone in this, although I do find myself avoiding social media after certain shows (even though I'm not really the type to get all bent out of shape by spoilers. If I know something awesome is going to happen, I still want to see how it shakes up).

So the season finale of Bates Motel aired last Monday, a good week before I got around to watching it. I always feel weird watching Bates Motel nowadays, since most of my TV-watching takes place with a fussy baby on my lap. There's nothing weird about watching a show about a mother and son's obsessive, co-dependent relationship that you know ends with the son becoming the mother and murdering guests of his motel with your infant son, right?

"Yes, Joey, a boy's best friend IS his mother!"

For anyone who hasn't seen the finale, you probably should stop here. But I have to say that this show is becoming one of the ones I really look forward to watching. Yes, it's kind of campy, but it's also immensely clever. The innocent teen Norman we met in season one is now coming to grips with the fact that he regularly blacks out and murders people at the urging of some internalized, extreme version of his mother. First it was his father (who kind of deserved it); then his teacher (a sketchy woman but not so deserving). He also killed his friend's dad, but I guess we gloss over that one since it was kind of self-defense. All it took was a few days locked in Nick Ford's water pit to realize his dark side.

The best parts of this show come in the nods to the movie. After Norman realizes he sleep-murders people, he decides to commit suicide. But not before making a fine checklist that includes making amends with his buddy Emma, cleaning up the mess in the basement, and eating apple pie. He also makes things right with his mother, and as they have an impromptu, slightly bizarre waltz in the living room, a taxidermied owl watches from above. Very Psycho.

While the first two full seasons worked to develop the characters of naive Norman, overbearing Norma and misfit Dylan (along with the rest of the most corrupt town in the world), we're now moving on. The drug trade (by far the most boring part of the show) is on the back burner. Dylan is in good with his family again. Norman smoothed Emma's hurt feelings of being left out of the Bates' family drama. And Norman has embraced his dark and murderous side. We know Blair Watson is only the first lustful woman Norman will kill in his life. The question is, how many exist between her and Marion Crane?