TV Review: MasterChef, Episode 12

Jax (left), Stu and Nadia are quizzed on their cookbook concept in last night's semifinal. Photo / Supplied

Lordy, in life it's the little things that can be your undoing. Or, in this case, Stu's undoing. Who'd have thought that a mere bread roll - sliced or not, buttered or not, on top of the soup dish or beside it - would unseat Stu Todd in last night's MasterChef semi-finals.

The teacher from Dunedin had been one of the dark horses of the competition, emerging from his anonymous Guys in the Middle ranking in the early days to start hammering in some wins in the later stages of the show.

He led the men in Blue to victory in the horrendously unfair kids birthday party challenge in episode 7, showing that his skills, calm orderly manner, listening to what customers want and nailing the pitch might just get him into the front-runner position.

He'd somehow fluked a fabulous curry in the Indian challenge, calmly worked his way through the steps on the chocolate Tower of Terror and showed equal calm in the face of the German Terror in the Langham room service challenge.

Sure, Melbourne was nearly Stu's un-doing with his rather average ideas for the Red Emperor fish, but I could have sworn the judges were thinking about more than gender balance and telegenity when they kept him in as one of the three semifinalists.

This semifinal challenge is the crux of the whole MasterChef season: give us the idea for your book and execute three key dishes to show us what you mean.

After all, the whole point, apart from the nice swag of goodies, is to launch a food career with a terrific cookbook.

The nice producers and people at Random House know there are hundreds of new cookbooks on the market every month, so boring and average and 'me-too' just won't sell 10,000 (or, blessed Annabel Langbein, 150,000) copies. Same as last season, I am slightly shocked, then, when a competitor has simply not thought through their book concept, or the dishes going to win the judges and the market.

It's no longer about solid and steady, then, it's about flair and winning stories. In a way Friday's masterclass would have been better spent coaching the semifinalists in Publishing 101 rather than clever molecular gastronomy.

Instead, the three were left to a wicked three-sentence summary of a successful food media career by the doyenne of clever cookbooks, Donna Hay.

Love her or hate her, you can't argue with 18 books selling 4 million copies and a magazine that sells in 82 countries - nor salivate in envy at the glimpses of her gorgeous white and marble kitchen/studio/headquarters.

Donna's rules couldn't be clearer: fast, fresh, simple food with a sprinkle of creativity; drop-dead-gorgeous cover photos with "tons of lickability", and a really catchy title.

Stu missed the beat on all three counts. The beef dish was just so simple, Ray McVinnie pointed out, that you didn't need a recipe at all; Josh Emett and Donna were itching to restyle the chicken pie and nobody wanted to lick it. And while it was a cunning move to re-work the pea soup that had won the Euro challenge for him and Nadia, Stu knew he had stumbled by producing average bread and - sin of sins - not styling it properly.

Nadia, despite sins of overstyling her looks and massively over-complicating her dishes - a silly mistake for anyone who had spent more than five minutes reading Ray or Donna's books or magazine pages - had a clarity of vision that won over the judges.

I'm not sure I'd buy a book that tells me to eat smarter (too worthy by half), but I'd be straight down to the bookshop to order Jax's "A Grateful Plate". I thought her adorable back story would have her winning this challenge; the dishes were certainly interesting and doable. Give that girl a stylist and a patient photographer and the presentation would sing and dance - as she promised in her audition.

Stu, however, has a certain career as a great chef - forsaking the fame and lack of fortune of a media career for the grunty end of 18-hour days in a kitchen producing food that people love to eat. I am sure that was a job offer Simon Gault was slipping him as they shook hands. And wouldn't we all like to eat good food rather than merely lick it off the pages?