Nathan Hager, wtop.com
WASHINGTON – So, you think you know your way around the kitchen.
Want to prove it to a nationwide audience?
“MasterChef” — the Fox TV show that bills itself as the search for America’s next great amateur chef — is holding open auditions across the country for its third season, and the search arrives in D.C. this weekend.
“I think D.C. has a ton of potential. It’s an amazing food town. It’s close to my heart, and I think we’re going to have a great showing,” says Graham Elliot, who sits on the panel of three celebrity chefs who judge the contestants each week.
Elliot won’t be in town for this weekend’s casting call, but the judge perhaps most familiar to TV audiences will be: Gordon Ramsay, of “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Kitchen Nightmares” fame.
“He’s a great motivator,” says Elliot. “He’s got nothing but energy, boundless energy from first thing in the morning to the end of the filming day, which is 12-plus hours.”
But with his famously foul-mouthed tirades on television, will Chef Ramsay be an intimidating presence at the D.C. audition? Elliot says it depends on each contestant’s confidence level.
“Presenting a dish to a panel of casting people and other professionals is stressful enough,” he says. “But when one of the actual judges of the show is there to watch and take notice of everything, I think everybody feels that they’ve got to stand up straighter and make sure their stuff is that much better.”
Elliot’s pre-audition advice to “MasterChef” wannabes: Cook what you know.
“Don’t go out on a limb and try to blow us away by being uber-creative and weird,” he says.
At the same time, though, bringing some personality to the game isn’t going to hurt.
“Your story is what we want to see,” Elliot says. “Not just somebody that nonchalantly can make something tasty, but somebody that absolutely wants to be part of the competition and take everybody else around them down.”
The “MasterChef” D.C. audition goes down on Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Trinity Washington University’s gymnasium: 125 Michigan Ave. NE, Washington, DC.
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