UNPACKED REALITY - MASTERCHEF AUSTRALIA - MIMI

It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast Last Weep Neverlin. Hey guys, welcome back to TV Reload. Thank you for clicking and downloading. On today's episode with Mimi, one of the eliminated contestants on Mastership Australia for twenty twenty four, I had a technical difficulty on Monday, and while we could have just let this chat go to the gods, so many people were demanding I circle back, and I think that has

This week. We will dive deep into the idea that you.

Can control your edit and what you're thinking, and I think people will really enjoy Mimi's behind the scenes secret that involves some pranking that happened during the season. There's actually so much to unpack with Mimy as I always say, so sit back and relax as we unpack her time in the Mastershef Australian Kitchen.

MORNI, Hi, how are you? Hi, Ben?

How are you?

I'm doing very well.

You know, this is the only time I've ever had to re record a chat with anyone. But interestingly enough, when I didn't play your chat before, Harry, I had all of these Master Chef fans coming for me and they were like, how very dare you?

Oh?

Well now I'm feeling very special.

Yeah, for people who are listening to this podcast, this is a do over, but I did not want you to miss out on being able to hear some tea from Mimy and to unpack her time on the show. So welcome back, Mimy.

Don't give Ben too much grief. He's a good chat. I'm very happy to do it again.

Well, I just think it's good for me to talk to you pretty much every day because I'm such a big fan. Maybe I'm just like you know, your hype girl in the background.

I love that.

I feel very good about myself with you and my hype girl, and I got to talk to you every day.

Well, it's quite interesting because I think I can only add further information to what we were discussing the other day, and so many other people that were so many people that watch the show were saying that they could see that you are this deep thinker. You're not somebody who stands on other people. You're just who you are, and that made people feel like they were represented by you, which I think is quite an amazing thing to hear.

It certainly is, and it's not something that I it's not a compliment that I get given often. But when I think back to my experience on the show, it was very important to me that I represented myself in everything that I did as much as possible, because you know, as a high school teacher, that's what.

I do day to day.

But going into this experience of competitive cooking and working television, I think as a deep thinker. One of the promises I made to myself was to make sure that I stuck to my guts as much as possible, because everyone has an opinion, and everyone has a thing to say, and everyone has a way of approaching cooking and how to navigate this competition. So from day one, that was just something that I said was important and I stuck to it.

It's so interesting because this has never happened where I'm talking to someone a couple of days away.

From the experience. I'd love to know what's.

It like when you're looking back a few days later and you've had more time to unpack it, Like there were a difference between how you're sort of looking at the whole experience to how we spoke about it the other day.

Look immediately, I think you're still I was still imbued with so much of the anxiety in fears of what other people would think or say with the outcome of the competition, especially in my placement.

You know, it's just my brain voice doing.

The worst case scenario thing, which it happens to a lot of people. But over the course of the last few days, I actually had a lot of my colleagues call me asking, you know, how I am, and that they were super proud of me, And I think it was kind of a bit of a wake up call.

The whole time, one of.

My fears was thinking that I had disappointed a lot of people, But a lot of the feedback.

I've gotten from fans and from friends and family was just, you know, a huge reminder of what an achievement this is to just even be a part of the show and let alone make it this far.

And now, you know, I'm just thrilled and super excited to go out and create all these new things. Much of my attitude on experience now is just trying to take the best of the poise in the competition and the creativity that I had during it and apply it to my profile of work.

Now, what do you think we're so hard on ourselves? Because I don't think you're I don't think you're alone. I really don't. I think that when you put yourself out there, and this is a different sort of thing to that saying putting yourself out there, This.

Is literally putting yourself out there. You are national television, you know what I mean. But why when we in.

Everyday life, when we put ourselves out there, do we allow this self doubt.

To creep in?

Because there must be something in our minds that tells us that we did a good job.

This is a very complex question, but I think my self doubt has always been a safety need for failure.

I think that's true in a lot.

Of cases with the students that I see every day as well. It's like you doubt yourself first so that you prepare yourself for what's worst. And you're much less a fool if you prepare to fail than if you're prepare to succeed. And I think that's how that's how society wishes it to be. It is that people are humble and down to earth and not filled with pride and ego, and we kind of let those voices get to us. And I have to say, you know, this whole journey has been as equal about food as it has.

Been about my own confidence.

And I think a lot of times I did come across as super bubbly and unfazed, but behind the scenes there was a lot of hard work put in to make sure that I could put my best foot forward in that way as well. Espe in those first few weeks, the self doubt was so intense.

It was so intense that I even.

Struggled to be my fuller self because I was so stuck into considering my own mental health and how it was going to affect the people around me.

And yeah, it's not often.

Spoken about, but I think it is important to touch on that. You know, we are human beings at the end of the day. And yeah, I'm just really glad that it's after a few days from elimination.

I'm really glad I can look back on it with a smile. Now.

Maybe we've just become really good at masking things. Because it's funny. Some people will say to me that I come across a certain way because I sound quite confident at times. Probably not all the time, but people will see that, and in actual fact, my Mum will say to them, no, out of my children he's the most insecure. But I've also perfected that, you know what I mean, I've perfected the art of making sure people can't see

That's very interesting, and I really appreciate you first sharing that then, because I just there was actually so much turmoil of me considering that, because I really wanted to

Good moments, bad moments.

You then just have to factor in the part where you have to announce what you're feeling in announce the changes in your disposition, and it then just becomes extremely complicated, to say the least, It was definitely an incredible journey of self discovery, and you know, I'm very glad to come out of this with a brand new kind of like a like a Mimi version that all.

Maybe it's three point zero in your life. Yeah, you know, I often say that to my friends. I say, maybe it's, but you know what it's while while you finish up on that point, I want to say, whatever is happening behind the scenes, or whatever happened behind the scene when you're a master chef, it must have been the right level of something because you work quieter in some ways throughout the show, but you resonated harder and faster than

Yeah, I'm really glad it came up that way.

These topics are very definitely, very interesting to talk about because it's not like I didn't realize the kind of archetype. I was feeling it when I go on something like this with ethnicity, race, gender, all those things, and I guess I just wanted to do it right and also just wanted to pay respects to everyone else in the room as well, with all things considered.

Yeah, yeah, you can't help it be like that.

You know, you sometimes feel like when you go on televis it can come across like you're trying to say to your minority. I guess that you're being the spokesperson for it, or maybe you then start to feel the pressure of feeling like you must represent them and you have a duty of care, where actually, maybe it's none

That's so that's so incredible to here, that's a very refreshing here.

It's a funny.

I have a funny reflection on this topic where I was speaking to a friend about, you know, some specific cooks on the show, and they were like, you know, what's interesting to me is that your best cook was one much later on in the competition, where you were cooking a dish that was derived both from your upbringing in Cantonese culture, but also having experienced so much of Australian food that you could tell that you didn't have this,

Greater, which I undoubtedly was.

But my best work came to me when I was reminded that, you know, I'm not just what I represent and what people see. It's also just what I choose to be and what I choose to do. And what is universal here is that I think I want to call it a youthful curiosity in it and a devotion to being creative and having fun.

Sometimes.

I remember thinking after doing Big Brother, I was like, oh my god, I felt like I had to represent the queer culture. I was like, I'm a queer person.

I get that feeling a lot sometimes.

And I'm like, who am I?

And I then realized that it's me that's putting the pressure on myself to represent this community, it's not them putting the pressure on me, you know. And just doing the job and just getting up there and asking the questions and sometimes not always knowing the answer turned out to be my escape back of that pressure. It's a hard one. And you know what's also funny about doing a podcast about yourself is you never get.

To talk like this, do you know what I mean?

In society we've been told we can't be so self referential, we can't be so reflective, we're told not to do that, where today it's like, you know, we could take the hat off and do that, you know, and do that and it's kind of nice. It's kind of refreshing.

It is very refreshing. But I'll tell you a funny story. The first kind of date I went on post show. The first bit of feedback.

I got on that date was I was talking too much.

About my No, did the guy say that to you?

I did ask the feedback because I was like, oh, you know what, I haven't been very social for the last few months.

Dude to this really big thing that I'm doing. How did I do?

And then he was just like, you're great, except I've just noticed that you're talking a lot about yourself.

And then I was just like, oh, that's my problem.

We as humans, we are so curious about ourselves, and you know, we want to know why we do the things that we do. And I think there was nothing wrong with I mean, there's a difference between being an arcissist and being just cautious and curious about yourself wanting to find out more, do you know what I mean? Some really strong differences. But maybe if that man thought that maybe it's the wrong match.

Maybe I am a teacher at the end of the day, and so I have all the hours in the day to talk about myself, and I have people listening clostantly yeah.

Getting back into Mastershift, though, I really want to ask you just a couple of questions. We're so lucky to be talking today. There has been an elimination since we last spoke, so now we have ourselves at top three.

I want to know.

Who is your pick to win out of who we now know is in the top three.

I mean, it'd be pretty awesome to see Pezzle win it.

He has worked so hard, to be honest, I've worked with him on a lot of the service challenges, and I feel like people underestimate his attitude and his positivity around food and around leading people and so much of working purposes about that, and yeah, just for the everyday man, I'm kind of.

Keen to see him lift up the trophy if possible.

I kind of have changed my mind a few times. I was really gunning for this Harry win and now that Harry's out of the competition.

It's interesting with.

Reality TV how you can pull a piece of the puzzle at and it makes you see things differently.

And I also think.

That there's a bit of a wave of thought that seems to be happening about Pezza that people are saying he doesn't deserve to win for whatever reason. I don't even want to go delve into it. But the more that I read that, the more that I now want him to win.

Yeah, it's in our rebellion in us.

Yeah, like I think he deserves it.

Now I'm thinking, had you asked me that question while Harry was still in the competition, I would have said, no, Pezzes next to go. Where Now I see the three and I'm like, I should be going for Nat in my order. I know I really would be, But now I'm starting to think if Pesza wins, I'm going to be the happiest.

Well, now I have to about the show as if viewer, and I think as a viewer, everyone has a soft spot for Nat, but pezz is your secret underdog and sometimes you just have that really closeted feeling of wanting him to win. But I will say this, it's Master Chef season sixteen, and I think there's a lot of, you know, props to them.

There's a lot of expectation there in terms of the types of food we see.

And I don't think it accounts.

I don't think the day to day viewer textingoul account the transition food in the progression of food in the food industry that you know, it doesn't it's not necessarily the modern nouvel fine dining esque food that climbs to

I agree.

Yeah, I think the sweet spot for me with this show is I like to see home cooks. There was a couple of seasons where you started to showcasing people who could do extraordinary things that we couldn't make at home, and then it kind of lost me for a little bit.

You know.

Oh my god, I just just on the word achievable. So much of this, so much of watching the show and then being in the show is just thinking that none of this is achievable in the times, in the time span and at home. Let me tell you that the thing is, when you put your mind to it, you can do it.

Now.

It's just seventy five minutes feels incredibly long.

Now, so before you go as well, something that we did the other day that was really good was that instead of prioritizing who your favorite judge was, you gave me a little bit of a summary about why you enjoyed working alongside these judges. Can we talk about them?

I love all of them equally, So to me, Poe was definitely the most relatable because she had done it. Also just culturally and her demeanor she's just super klined and gentle, was very very made us all feel very

The real world. She did that really well. Jean Christoph.

We all kind of.

Expected him to be this very stern, militant French cook, but he completely usurped our expectations by being this extremely romantic, lovable, passionate human being that kind of just evoked the same thing in all of us. He almost gave us something all to aspire to and talk about, and that was super lovely because we all bonded over getting to experience

I love and overshare, and I mean this in the.

Best way possible.

If you're listening, I do apologize if you don't like to take this contents. But I thought I've read the most toxic obsession with Andy Allen.

What do you mean by that?

He just gave the best criticism having done it for so long, So I had this kind of secret addiction of really wanting to impress him, and he just ended being the person that I liked the most on the panel and was most excited to hear feedback from. For every cook, he was so poignant, succinct, effective as a mentor as a teacher, and I really expected that.

Yeah, it's interesting to hear stuff about Andy because not everyone has been highlighting him. And that's kind of why I sort of in the last few episodes, I've sort of flipped it to try and get an overall picture of everybody, because people kept talking about Poe, and I think that is a very human person. She's a very easily relatable person as well, so I guess it was

My secret was.

I think fans of the show would really love to know.

This is that out of all twenty two of us, my favorite memories from behind the scenes are of Dash and Harry playing Franks on staff. It really kept me entertained. You know, they run such a tight ship where we don't know so much of what's going on because that's the nature of the competition. So Dash would just cleverly create these traps to see if staff will fall into them so that we would be able to, for example,

Who's the prankster that you don't want on not on your side in this scenario, Like who's a better prankster, Harry or Dush.

I think Dust is the worst one, but Harry Justice feeling things like he spent he spent like he spent twenty.

Four hours on one shoot day part Like every stuff member passing by, he'd be like, you got a little updog on your channel or something, and then obviously the staff members would fall for it and go, oh, what's up, Doug, and he'd just nick it to himself annoyed everyone so much.

I love that. I love that about him.

But it was so nice trating to these people throughout the season because you get a different human element to all of it. And I enjoy the secret from you because it really is a behind the scenes something that we didn't get to see.

But it kind of.

Proves that little mischievous look that these two boys had had in their faces the whole way through this.

Yeah, we all love a class clown of course, very lucky to have spent that much time across the season.

Well, can I just say thank you so much for being so generous with your time and coming and doing do over with me. Everyone can get off my back now and not miss it about the omission of Mimi.

We have it here.

Thank you, And I just want to say I am in your audience. I can't wait to see what you do make this noodle bar happen. I don't care, like, just get out there and do what makes you feel happy. Maybe it's teaching, Maybe you will. This experience has made you love teaching more. What I'm in the audience from you is to see you happy.

Thanks Benjamin.

That actually that means the world to me, and I would I am not complaining that I get to speak to.

You again just every day, just every day.

Are we there to be your hype girl and hype you up and send you off.

I'll be the best version of yourself.

I want that.

You're so cleete.

Okay, I got to let you go enjoy the rest of your day, and I can't wait.

I'm sure I'll run into you at some point. I just have that feeling.

Yes, all right, I'll speak to you soon.

Then cheers, By then,