UNPACKED REALITY - MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA - LOURDES

It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week that life. Hi guys, welcome back to TV Reload. I want to thank you so much for clicking and downloading on today's episode with Lord s the sixth the limited contestant on mastershef Australia, which is on Network ten from Sundays through to Thursday nights at seven point thirty. Growing up in Melbourne, Lords is fortunate to have had a heavy Spanish influence in

Hello, Hello, Hello, Hi, how you going.

I'm doing really well. I wanted to say to start off, congratulations on your Master Chef journey. How exciting.

Yeah, it is very exciting. Even though it's over now, I feel like it's still just beginning at the same time. Yeah, it's all been a big whirlwind.

I want to know from you like to watch the show back because we all know it was filmed a few months ago and you've got sort of the stress of worrying about how it's going to look. Do you have to drink a lot of red wine to watch this? What's the process into sort of calming the nerves?

Yes, I will admit I got quite drunk of my first viewing party.

Uh huh.

To be honest, it's very funny watching it all back because you know what's happened, but you'll also forget at the same time because there's so many little moments that you don't know have been captured, sometimes embarrassing little moment, sometimes funny moments, and to have people you know commenting on them, being like last night you did this, and you were like, what night I did that? I was

Well, you kind of set yourself up here because now I want to know what your number one most embarrassing moment is from Oh my god, I just I'm sure there's lots, because we're all very self critical, but like, I want to know about you, what's number one?

Oh, number one embarrassment? I think this is very niche I think I wasn't captured, but when I did the Vick Market Challenge, we all were sprinting towards our benches and I was trying to show off and thought it would be funny to sprink faster than the rest of my team, and I ended up just absolutely crashing onto the floor, flipping over, hurting my arm a little bit. So that was pretty embarrassing because karma kind of got me in them pretty badly. I filled out very very hard.

That'll show you find to prove that you're the youngest. You know, you're like, yeah, I mean two exactly.

I know I got the body of an eight year old, So yeah, it didn't really work out.

I thought you looked very glamorous.

I thought you looked very gorgeous on this show, so I don't think you have to worry about that.

Thank you.

When you turned up on the show, my best friend and I were watching it together and we have been wondering, and I said to my friend, Chrissy, don't worry, I'm chatting to them. I'll get to ask this question. But were you named after Madonna's daughter? Because that's our theory. That's our theory.

Okay, absolutely not. Sorry to just follow any ruins. I was not. My mom is definitely not a Madonna fan.

Unfortunately, we did the maths on it, so we were like, oh, wow, they're the same, They're around the same age. This is very clear to us that your mother is a mad Madonna fan.

And that's heaved got the name. But no, what's the story?

So much more boring than that. My mom's Spanish, so she's from Catalonia, and she wanted to give me and my siblings, but mostly me, a European name. So even though I'm sunished, she went with a French name, which is lud so it's a place in France and it's a very common name in Spain as well for girls. So yeah, I got chosen to have the most random name on the internet. And I've seen some good food articles by authors commenting on it quite a bit, and

But and then you just tell people call me DEAs, which is like the most butchered version of the European Oh butcher.

Oh my god. When people started calling me dead, I was like, you do realize I found like a great eighty year old gum like Uncle jaz Do. I not like it's the furthest thing from what my mum imagined. You know, the start of sophisticated latter.

Is dead money.

She's ever in the room people call it, I know, oh literally.

When did you realize that you had a passion for cooking, because you know, at twenty two years of age, I don't know if I knew much about what my passions were and what my interests were.

I was always into my cooking a little bit because my mum was an amazing cook and which I would just spay quite a few times. So I was very connected to from my Spanish heritage and cooking through that. But personally, I think it was just I was propelled into cooking

Is that how they found you? Though?

Because I know that with a lot of these shows, I mean, you do need to apply most and particularly Master Chef it is one of those shows that mostly people get on by applying. But didn't they see your work on your tiktoks? Is that how they came to you?

One of the scouting people did, yeah, see my mistakation reached out to me, and then I thought, yeah, why not apply? It doesn't sound like fun.

Is it a long conversation or were you like did you have to come home and talk about it? Like what was the first, like when they approached you.

It was more just online, and then you know, I kind of took it from there with the applying online. So yeah, I kind of took it into my own hands kind of thing.

How hard is this competition though, in comparison to what you prepare yourself with mentally, Oh.

It's pretty hard. I mean I tried to treat it like an exam and study a lot and memorize recipes of course, because you know, you don't have any recipes in front of you. But still at the end of the day, you cannot know everything they could ever ask for you. I mean, if they were to say, today we're doing you know, Korean challenge and you hadn't ever learned Korean dishes or knew about Korean cooking, you were

And you're good at following recipe I noticed, which you know. I mean, maybe didn't look that way last night on the cook but from what we see and what we know of you, you're good at following that, you know. I was going to say though, I had lil on the other day and we were talking about the comparison to the English version and the Australian version of Master Chef,

Oh no, we're kind of just for you to do. If we have some time. You know, you can spend it how you want, since it is a very stressful environment. If you wanted to read a cooking book, you could. Otherwise you could phone a friend. But it's mostly just time for you to relax a little bit and you know, go to the bathroom or eat a bite of food or something like that.

You know. What also was funny for me was I love it when Master Chef goes on the road. And I thought it was lovely because I spend a lot of time in Bendigo. My partner's found all there, so I love it, and so I love the world to see that you guys weren't there. But is it for my brain? It might be distracting to be outside of

Yeah. Absolutely, I mean we'd just gotten us to the huge Master kitchen where there's so much equipment and you're always running back ten times a cook for like an

My Smacks ice cream because I've made ice cream, I mean not for a very long time. I'm forty four and I remember attempting ice cream and all I can remember about that process was that it was much longer than what I'd anticipated, Like I was having to go back and try it, and it was just taking I think it took like twice as long as I expected.

I know what was I thinking? What was I thinking? I think I just you know, you get into a thought bubble and you're like, right, I'm going to do this. It's going to add this image in my head of them like bring apart the ice cream sandwich and the caramel kind of drizzling over it, and then just being like, wow, olive oil. I this is delicious, And that did not

It's kind of when you think about it, you're like, it's a really hot day. I want to be the ice cream lady, you know, the kids that hands out of the ice cream. I mean it does meant yeah, you're mister whipping.

Exactly. Yeah. Oh no, I hope that title doesn't stick.

Well, let's hope it doesn't.

What how did you think about the women that you were cooking with? Because I liked watching.

I don't know.

Maybe it's because most of my friends are female. I don't know, but I loved that there was these four excellent women, and the judges even called it out to say, this is the toughest group of girls going into this. What did you think about it when you looked at these three other faces standing next to you.

I was so happy, I mean girl power. I absolutely love my ladies, So I was really happy. I mean, they're all such supportive, amazing women, and yeah, I thought it was a super fun cook We're all in it together. It's funny even though you're competitors and you're all not the one who wants to go home, You're still you bond really quickly in Marshift, and you've kind of become like a little family. So even though you're sad if you're going home, you're so happy that they get to

I mean, what is the hierarchy when you start cooking in that? Being that experience with the truffle Kerfuffle, I think it was the way it was explained, you know, did you was there a hierarchy in your mind about who was the better cooks going into it?

Oh, it's hard to say. I mean, I think Nat, having won the immunity pin at the beginning of the competition, she I expected her to be a strong cove contender. But I think they're all very strong cooks, so I didn't really see it as a hierarchical being just you know, I can't have to try really hard to beat them all, which did not happen.

So did you think Nat? Did you? I thought Nat may use her immunity pin.

And the reason why I was trying to ask you about that was that this is how I work, like when it comes to a competition. I'm always looking at the numbers and looking at the odds, And I wondered whether or not you were technically looking at it as though you're competing against two chefs, because well, she can use an immunity pin, so I'd kind of push her to the side and just feel like I'm pitting against too, if that make sense.

Yeah, I get you. Honestly, it was in the back of my mind. I wasn't even thinking so I feel like you're just concentrating on yourself in the cook I wasn't really thinking about NAT's immunity pin, but knowing that, I wasn't surprised she didn't use it because I think she would only and this is what I would do in most people, I think would do only use it if she really needed to, And in the end she didn't.

So I'm stressed about that because you know, these shows, like whether you've got an idol on survivor whether you have a pin on Master Chef, you're you know, these shows, you do go home on a whim. You know, it's not like, yeah, point judging you on a resume, do you know what I mean? It's literally that moment. And so yeah, I guess for me, if I got a pin or I got an idol or whatever it was on these shows, I feel like I'd flush it straight away, you know, I just don't know.

Yeah, No, that's true. I guess you have to have a strategy in place then and just be really careful. But you're right, I mean, you don't want to hold onto it for too long and then not use it and then go home. That would be awful. So yeah, I totally get what you mean.

Would you have used a pin in that cook because I don't know if I would have if ill, because I actually thought your dish to me and who am I? I'm a cook that can make the bolonnaise at home or do I? But like I didn't pick you as the person going home even when they were tasting it, so like I didn't know whether or not you would have used it.

Yeah, I wouldn't have used it until probably the last like two minutes when I overcooked that egg. And then maybe at that point I would have been like, okay, it's time to pull the pin quite literally.

Had you worked with truffles before, because I've never worked with that, And whilst I loved truffle salt, I'm not a big fan of truffle in a restaurant.

Oh quite rich, So.

Completely with you. Yeah, I love truffle oil. I love putting on pasto, pasts and stuff like that. True trustles themselves. It tastes like dirt to me, you like, so.

Like, how would you like to eat this? Probably found on the ground? No, thank you, I'll pass.

So yeah, I haven't worked with truffle as much at all, and I wasn't sure, you know, to my taste, but they tasted the inside of my feeling and ifa well, but definitely trufly. I can definitely taste trouble. And then they commented that it was not I was strong enough truffle taste. So it just shows how subjective it is and how if you like tufle, you need a lot and if you don't, you don't want a lot. So, yeah, that was my first time using real truffle, which may have added to my disadvantage.

Yeah, I mean it looked delicious. I mean the smoked egg yolk raviolo. I thought, you know, with the truffle and asparagus, it looked delicious.

It looked impossible.

But did you get to try it, because I mean, is this something you would normally want to eat? Like, did you make enough for you to be trying along the way or did you get to try it once it was done?

So we tried it at the beginning just to like taste, you know, what we were looking out for. But I tried like some of my element elements that if there were any spare, like the jew and stuff like that. But I didn't try my passer at all because I think I literally just made one raviolo, and that was the one that went to the judges. No, I didn't try most of my elements.

Okay, Unfortunately, I did love the noise that you made when you got the pastor out.

You were like, ooh, this is pretty you know, yeah, it was.

So pretty old. The stripe path, Yeah, I thought that was starting up quite excited to make that up at home one day when I'm less traumatized.

Back when you're less traumatized. Yeah, don't go back anything that's going to give you immediately PTSD. You know, yeah, exactly exactly. I thought, you know, when you were reducing the jew, I was like, because I've tried to reduce you before, and I've put it into the frypan and then it has gelatinized. Was it really that running that you thought you could put it back into the because I mean, being an expert as you are with following instruction, you kind of cooked that enough.

I felt anyway, Like I think if.

You'd sit there for a while, it would have solidified more than, you know, just a little bit more to the level that you wanted it to do. You think that's the issue was that you thought, oh god, this is too runner. I've got to try and clag it up.

Yeah, I think it was just a lack of knowledge. I've never really cooked a joo, so in the competition I mostly cooked sweet foods and at home I mostly do baking, so I've never cooked a zoo, so I wasn't really sure exactly what I was for. I mean, I try Liam's dish, of course, but I totally should have let it siff because it was pretty hilarious last night when they picked it up and it was just like a jelly It was so funny. But yeah, totally

You know, I love asking really random questions about the Master Chef experience. You know, we've got four new judges there, and I was curious, you know, the clicks amongst them, Like is Poe hanging out with Andy? Was like, what's there? What's the relationship like with all of them on set? Because I kind of think that John Christoph he's seeming like a bit of a lone wolf and is more by himself going around giving instruction. What's the dynamics like amongst those four?

From what I can see, they're all definitely friends that are always laughing and you know, taking the peers and stuff like that. I think Sofia and Poe have built up a strong friendship. They always seem to be like on social media and stuff and talking about how close they are. But I don't think there's any divisions at all. Everyone seems really friends and everyone need to get on well. So I think, you know, clicks always happened between the past and between the judges, but they all seem to

Who did you learn from out of those judges the most?

Like?

What was the I've been asking people. I just realized before when you mentioned did you listen to Lil's chat that I've been putting people under the pressure? Well, who's your cap? Who's your favorite judge? Who's your favorite contestant? Can you oblige? Can you help me with the answers to those I can?

I would have to say, hands down, Poete was my favorite judge. All the judges were great, but I really liked her. I think she was very genuine and being a contestant herself, she had a real interest in helping us and supporting us. You know, she'd give us advice. When the competition ended, she gave me some career advice, which was really nice, and I talked about, you know, how she runs a jam bathed market stare. I talked to her about starting my own baking market store one

And then the favorite contestant, like who who did you click with? Well, who do you want to win?

Who do I want to win? Oh? Can I pick two? Or do I have to pick one?

You have to do one. It's like Sophie's choice with Meryl Streep. Have you seen that movie?

I actually haven't.

You should watch it. It's awful.

Okay, and Chest to pick between two of our children, so like, you know, oh my god, you pick one was impossible?

Okay, Okay, I am going to pick David. I think David. He's lovely. He was one of my closest friends on the show. But I also think he's just an amazing chef. We can see his brain like ticking over whenever he cooks and he does experiments. He plates up beautiful, aesthetic looking food. I mean what he did in the French elimination challenge that was just like stunning, and I think it was really interested and entertained people seeing how he buckpacked one part of the apple and then left the

End of the day, do you think there's something wrong with me that I really enjoy asking that question every time and people are.

Like, no, I want to mention, and I'm like, no.

I think it's smart business. You know, it's what goods the views. So yeah, you're doing it.

Okay.

So at the end of the show, when we saw you being eliminated, you sort of mentioned that you want to use this drive and ambition to get to where you want to go with your cooking and what you've learned. Well, what is the dream? I mean, you didn't really say what the ambition was at that point. And we've had a bit of time since you've left the kitchen in real life. You know what's happening? Where are you going?

My dream is two parts. I think. One dream, as we saw in the first elimination challenge, is to publish my own cookbook. I'm obsessed with cookbooks. My question is so large you can barely fit at my parents' house. I just loved looking through them. It's what insis me to cook. You know, beautiful pictures, beautiful rest is the introduction by the chef at the beginning. I love it all. And then secondly, I would love to one day either

Say, without having really any experience. And now I'm putting on my judges hat there's a lot of ideas there, so like pick something I know and just process because it's so easy.

You know.

What's so interesting when you come off these reality shows, there's like this rush that happens and then you kind of overwhelm yourself with where you want to take it. And it's really interesting from my knowledge of it, how many people don't need to win to then level up. And it's usually the because they've started with something small you know.

Yeah, that's so true and getting a.

Rolling because yeah, but yeah, but from I know that, it probably seems a bit strange coming from me, like who am I?

But I just think that I know you're absolutely right and I'm really apprecient that by it, because I should pick one. It's hard, you know, you have all these big ideas and then sometimes they might not go anywhere, so you just have to choose one really and run with it. So yeah, I should put some proper thought into it sometime soon and get it going.

Okay, So before you go, It's something I ask everyone who joins the podcast, is what is something from behind the scenes, something that we didn't get a chance to see, kind of like what it's a bit of a behind the scenes secret of what it's like to be a contestant on Mastership Australia.

I would say santry days. Let's say when I did the when I was up on the gantry with immunity, I was standing in that gantry for quite a few hours because it takes testing. It goes for a long time. You know, they don't show every cue, but it goes quite a few hours. And my god, you don't understand even though I'm twenty two standing up there and classing for hours. You're back. You know, there are stacks and

Yeah, and who are going to apply to this show that it listened to this podcast? Go on, buy one of those next thing, you know, one of those back breaths we see on Instagram advertised.

Those high camping chairs.

You've got it here first look.

Thank you so much for taking the time and being so generous with your time and talking with me today.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching you on the show.

It was lovely. Yeah, it was good to chat