I’ve been watching the current series of Masterchef: The Professionals via iPlayer. It is interesting to see the dishes the chefs come up with, especially now that the early rounds are past and those left in the running are confident performers under the pressure of expert examination and a TV audience of millions.

The problem is that good food is an art and art is not something comfortably judged by a knockout competition. Some of the dishes have been disasters and you wonder if the chefs did their homework; perhaps the rules of the competition prevented them from being properly prepared. Others have lost out largely down to the matter of whether they food they presented appealed to the tastes of the judges. At least they are experienced gastronomes and their opinions carry some weight but a lot still relies on what they like and dislike.

Whatever next? Someone will come up with the crazy idea that you can judge music and other performing arts in the same way and set up TV shows attempting to find the “best” results by a similar knock out style. Oh wait, they’ve already done that. I think the quality of the results speaks for itself!

ps. I have not done any more practise yet on sugar spinning but still plan to build that skill for myself.