(Don't) Hurtle This Turtle

About 15 months ago, the Israeli version of My Kitchen Rules, an Australia-based cooking competition reality show, approached me and my son about auditioning for their show. We watched an episode or two to see what the excitement was all about, put together our competition dishes (cajun shrimp infused mac n cheese and fishcakes), practiced a bit, assembled our fare (no working kitchen on the audition set) and trooped off for our 10 minutes of fame by proxy.

The thing that I most remembered from our audition was the effort of various personnel to rattle us, get us nervous, excited, whatever. Having recently viewed a few episodes, I think I get it. They are looking for drama, for characters who get engaged with the hype, who freak out a bit by stress and timetables, and the like. I remember saying in the interview, “look, the two of us are very driven internally. We thrive on competition. But you probably won’t see that. Our southern side of our persona hides that quite well. We might not be your ideal candidate.”

The truth of the matter, as with most things in life, is a bit more complicated than that. If things go wrong in the kitchen and I’m on deadline, you probably won’t want to be around me. That’s all I’m saying. I prefer the at least outward pose of what Israelis call “shanty.” Oh yeah. We didn’t make the call-backs.