An Explanation of Sorts

You may have noticed that I've been away for a while. This was no accident.

I've been off pursuing my dream to be a culinary chef through a cooking show that will probably be airing soon.

I'm contractually obliged to not tell you if I won or not, but I can tell you this: I was eliminated in the first week (oooo cryptic) at the first challenge.

It's not like I cooked something horrible (I did not). It's not even because I didn't cook a single thing (I did). It's because the host hated me. Or probably "hates". I think he still harbours some ill-feelings towards me so I can't really use the past tense here (I did).

I'm not sure why he hated me, but he did. A lot of them did. All of the pretty girl contestants hated me too. I was fine with everyone else though.

All I know is that the show began, we were led to a door and told that our first challenge was on the other side of the door. The doors flew open to reveal a kitchen (which was quite fortunate, given that we were filming a cooking competition and I had not prepared to ride horses if it was some sort of horse riding challenge on the other side of the door).

We walked in and noticed benches with nametags on them. The names were ours, which was a bit predictable if you ask me. Everyone scrambled to find their bench, which everyone did. Except for me.

I hadn't been given a bench. I asked the host where my bench was and he yelled at me. I asked one of the pretty girl contestants if I could share her bench and she yelled at me and told me I had no chance with her.

So I ran. I ran back through the doors and I ran to a nearby cafe.

At the cafe I realised that I'd given up on my food dream far too easily. I ran back. Back through the doors. I asked all of the contestants if I could share their bench. Most rejected me. One guy didn't, so I shared his bench.

I quickly realised the error of my ways, as the bench came with ingredients and cooking equipment. I had a square foot of benchspace, but nothing to cook and nothing to cook with.

Time ran out.

One by one the contestants brought their dishes up to the judges. They were the usual sort of things you would expect, so I won't bother to mention them.

The only one that was out of the ordinary was from one of the male contestants. I forget his name, but he only had one name and it was some sort of tribal name. Everyone liked him. He had a rather unique way of cooking where he would put his dish inside the carcass of an animal and when it came time to serve, he would approach the table wearing a scary-looking tribal mask, present the animal carcass, slice its stomach and the "dish" would spew forth like entrails onto the diner's plate. For this challenge he made a scallop curry.

One time I saw through the mask and into his eyes. He had normal eyes, just like you or I would. I think he was smiling.

I didn't even get a chance to present a dish. The host yelled at me for serving up such a terrible dish and, after I corrected him that I hadn't actually served up anything, the host yelled at me to leave.