Jo Thornely recaps: Duck botox? Only on MKR

FORGET expensive injections, just massage your breasts with sugar and salt. “Botoxing the duck is just a little term we’ve come up with”, says Cyn on the latest My Kitchen Rules.

WE’RE finally at the end of the third round of instant restaurants in MKR. We’re all a lot older and a little bit wiser, because as Mell and Cyn suspected they might, Mell and Cyn have taught us a LOT about dinner parties.

“Our entertainment style would definitely be hoi class,” they tell us, as we prepare for an evening of foine doining in what appears to be a converted mountaintop carpark.

It’s a steep cloimb.

Luckily for us, the businesswomen are willing to share their knowledge with us, even though they worked very hard to get it and nobody ever handed them anything, because they’re businesswomen with jobs, despite the promos for this episode calling them ‘housewives’.

So if you too want to have it all and remind people a bit of a ritzy Kath & Kim in a furnished airport terminal, here are Mell and Cyn’s top tips for a posh do:

Say Heaps Of Elegant Crap

The difference between businesswomen who intimidate others with how confident and successful they are and other schmucks is often in one’s turn of phrase. Keep things high class by sprinkling a few sophisticated phrases throughout your restaurant experience.

A simple “fangin’ home, let’s get goin’” on your way out of Coles, or a “we’ve done unreal, looks unreal” when you’ve just finished decorating a dining table lets your guests know that they’re in for something special.

Alternatively, you could make listeners aware of the finer points of feminist theory by saying something like “you’ve just gotta love a girl on her knees in front of an oven in a ballgown”, but if you ever drop a piece of duck on the floor, the pure highbrow impact of a brisk “f*ck a duck” simply can’t be beaten.

If all else fails, just put some Gren Manure in the sauce. It’s an orange liqueur, you know.

The Grennest of all the Manures.

Have A Plan B Ready

In case you’ve recently climbed out of a soundproof hole, you’ll remember that Mell and Cyn are businesswomen who do business, and as such they find they bring a lot of their business techniques into the kitchen.

For example, if your first batch of pastry falls to pieces, do as Mell does. “I’m doing a second lot of pastry because in business, that’s how we approach it. We’ve gotta have a plan B”.

The important message here is that if Plan A (making pastry) fails, the best thing to do is to try Plan B (making pastry).

“I hope that pastry is the end of the problems for this tart” says Mell, being a bit hard on herself.

Sweat

“We’ve called our restaurant ‘Pinnacle’” announces Cyn to their seated guests, “Because if you look out your window you can see we’re on top of the world”.

Weirdly when the guests look out the window they see they’re still in Wollongong, but what they don’t know yet is that Mell and Cyn have set up their dining room roughly three kilometres from the kitchen.

For every course the pair hoof it back and forth in their ballgowns and aprons, doing everything Ginger Rogers did backwards in high heels forwards carrying plates.

They were 21 when they plated up.

Invent Duck Botox

Don’t waste money on expensive injections! Just massage your breasts with sugar and salt.

“Botoxing the duck is just a little term we’ve come up with”, explains Cyn. “It basically means you’re curing the duck breast which renders the fat in the skin and plumps up the flesh”.

They don’t even look upset about it.

Keep Your Emotions In Check

Speaking of facial mobility, try to keep your emotions out of the kitchen. Through pride, stress, despair, and not being intimidated by Colin undermining your skin-crisping technique, maintain your composure at all times. You may only break your stoicism once those underlings at the table truly comprehend your culinary mastery.

Take, for example, the many moods of Mell.

When the judges say your crab lacks texture:

Sad Mell.

When the judges say your sauce is well-balanced:

Happy Mell.

And when you don’t have to cook in the sudden death round:

YOU BA-YUTEY

It’s gratifying to see the older generation teaching the younger generation things, like how to burn pastry, and that ‘Removing Shell With Cyn And Mell’ is both a good name for a Dr Seuss book and a great way to rid your entrée of crab integrity.

Now we wait to see who’ll snatch victory from mediocrity in the sudden death cook-off between Team Lebanese Cousins and Team Youthful Exuberance.

The real winner is accessories.

Jo Thornely is a writer who loves it when you explain her jokes back to her on Twitter. Follow her @JoThornely

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