With the instant restaurants over, the contestants were split into three teams and set their first challenge. They were sent to the Ronald McDonald House at Starship Hospital to cook a three-course meal for the families living there. A beautiful charitable challenge to start the competition, and a great way to reunite with all of our old favourites. Dan had whacked his head on a pole and a got a suggestively evil-looking scar. Steve was wearing a checkered cheesecutter. Ben Bayly was wearing a relaxed knit with a zip on the front. Everything felt good.
Several of the teams took it upon themselves to cook supremely healthy food that they thought would somehow cure the kids of their ailments. What they forgot is that healthy food is famously very very yuck to the taste. The kids would be voting for their favourites, and most kids/rational adults do not wilfully vote for a black bean brownie over a delicious chocolate cheesecake.
The Black Team’s Modern Day Hippies went as far as chucking a whole lot of foraged weeds in their spanakopita. Nothing like some urinated-on weeds from the side of the Southern Motorway to improve the ol’ levels. The Social Media Buddies followed this up with fried chicken crumbed in more fried chicken, just for nutritional consistency.
The Red Team featured hard-asses Dai and Dal, Josh and Aaron, and Steve and Maura. They seemed to be nailing it straight out of the gate, doing a 10000 layer cheesecake, two kinds of spring rolls, fried noodles, and chicken tenders. Dai showed everyone who was boss immediately, setting the Corporate Dudes many chopping tasks and constantly checking up on Josh to see if he was doing everything right. Quite rightly though, she looked away for one second and he went oil crazy and split the mayo. Always listen to Dai. I want her to be New Zealand’s first female Laoatian Prime Minister. She mopped Aaron’s sweaty brow which was also funny.
The White Team was my favourite of the night. Ian and Sandie. Jessie and Ricki. Aaron and Heather. What a force to be reckoned with. Aaron had thrown together an outrageously fancy beef stew thing that didn’t seem super kid friendly, but this was balanced out by the Cuties’ amazing fairytale Ambrosia cheesecake. I think as a general rule, if it looks like it could be made out of Play-Doh, kids will probably like it. Here’s three reasons why the white team were the best (even if, spoiler, they didn’t win the challenge
1)The Cuties got up to some typically cute stuff in the kitchen:
2) Heather made a small cream-based remix of a Kanye track:
3) Ian did a spot-on Borat impression
The red team triumphed with their spring rolls, noodles, chicken tenders and triple chocolate cheesecake. Unsurprisingly, the black team with the bean brownie and the weed-filled pastries scored firmly last. Even the probiotic ketchup couldn’t save them. The Social Media buddies were the first on the chopping block, and will face another team in a sudden death round.
The moral of the story: don’t serve kids weeds.
Watch My Kitchen Rules on TVNZ Ondemand here