Christopher Souto Christopher Souto was no stranger to television when he entered MasterChef Goes Large in 2005. He had already appeared on Reality Bites with Kevin Woodford and had to run a restaurant (at a profit) for a day. The experience inspired him to start cooking and apply for MasterChef Goes Large. "I was especially driven by the fact that we were going to be taught by professional chefs. I had always thought about going to cookery school, but MasterChef was going to train me for free." Despite having very little previous cooking experience, Christopher made his way onto the programme by convincing everybody that he was a talented amateur who had been cooking for years. From then on he was, in his own words, "winging it". "I was so out of my depth, especially in the semi-finals. Everyone thought Mark [Todd] was the underdog, as he had only been cooking for two years, but secretly it was me, as I had been cooking for only six months." After being eliminated at the semi-final stages, Christopher applied for a week's work experience at Gordon Ramsay's at Claridge's. Three days later he had a job in one of the most famous kitchens in the UK. Because of family commitments, Christopher recently moved to Northern Ireland, where he took up a job at the Michelin-starred Restaurant Michael Deane. "I am senior chef de partie, working with another chef in the pastry section, preparing some mouth-watering stuff and thinking about the new menu." Christopher has clearly built upon the MasterChef experience and forged a new life for himself. He is very positive and looking forward to new challenges ahead. "My goal for the future is to continue learning and growing my skills; and one day to open up a restaurant of my own just like Michael's. I have found the perfect work-life/home-life balance and things are going very well." Mark Todd Mark Todd was a finalist in the first series, but his experience of MasterChef is less of a dream come true. Mark was a contestant with very little previous cooking experience who consistently impressed the judges with his adaptability and his immense capacity for learning and applying new food techniques on the show. However, he does not feel so positive about the experience. "They bigged it up as life changing – it wasn't [for me]. If you want it to change your life then you have to be willing to give up your existing life and current commitments. I had loads of student debt and there is no way I could quit my work and become a chef on a basic salary of £10,000 a year." After finishing the competition, Mark went to cook at Pimpernel's at The Royal Crescent Hotel, Bath (unpaid, in his spare time), which made him realise that life as a professional chef was not for him. "Although I love cooking, I love life too much to be in the restaurant business." Mark returned to his career in publishing and is now an international circulation account manager. Summing up his MasterChef experiences, Mark says "The only thing I really learned is that I have the ability to do anything I want in life, and I eat good food all the time, but that's it. Oh, and I made great friends in Thomasina and Caroline [the two other MasterChef 2005 finalists]." Caroline Brewester When Caroline Brewester applied to be on MasterChef she had no idea that it had 'gone large', and in fact it took her some time to adapt to being on what she felt was a 'reality TV show'. "I think most of the contestants had a moment at some point where they were fed up or annoyed by the pressures of the 'reality' format. I had my moment quite early on, but one of the cameramen said to me 'Don't worry – everybody goes through this', and so I got over it and carried on." Despite the shock of the new format and the sometimes difficult demands of this television production, Caroline is very positive about the show and the challenges it set. "It's an absolutely phenomenal experience which you couldn't pay to repeat. Who else is going to fly you in a helicopter to cook on a warship; take you to cook for the army; let you spend a day cooking with Heston Blumenthal? And it was lovely to have people come up to you in the street afterwards to tell you how inspiring it was for them." Caroline also has high praise for the presenters, John Torode and Gregg Wallace, who have sometimes been perceived as villains for their hard judgements and blunt criticisms of contestants' dishes on the show. "Gregg and John have been so supportive over the last year. Everyone said 'Oh, they were so nasty!' but that's just the way the programme was edited – for every negative comment there were three positive, constructive ones. They were brilliant and very positive throughout and we’ve kept in touch." Since the show, Caroline has experienced "the year that changed her life". She has attended and graduated with a diploma from Leith’s Cookery School, and now has a career writing food articles and recipes for books and magazines. She recently moved to New York with her husband, has publisher interest in her own book of recipes and is expecting a baby in late March. Caroline's advice to any future MasterChef contestants (other than to be prepared for the madness that comes with being involved with a dynamic television programme like MasterChef) is simple: "Believe in what you're cooking. I took flak in the final for cooking chicken liver parfait – it wasn't exciting enough – but I knew that it was a great dish. Maybe I didn't win the final, but I cooked what I believed in."
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