Courtney’s new life after MasterChef
Some might think a stint on Australia’s highest-rating TV show, MasterChef, would be a path to easy success in the food industry. Season two contestant (and rather gorgeous lesbian) Courtney Roulston begs to differ.
“It’s a crowded market — there’s a new cookbook or cooking show every week, and a lot of us who want to work in the industry,” she told Sydney Star Observer.
“We’re more competitive now than we were on the show.”
Since her stint on the show, Roulston’s kept busy with a string of foodie-related gigs. But has her life returned to normal after the MasterChef whirlwind?
“It hasn’t, and I didn’t want it to. That was the reason I went on MasterChef — I’d been running a lawn bowls club for 13 years and gotten really comfortable. MasterChef was the change I needed.”
As well as magazine work and a weekend stint at an organic food market, Roulston is the face of Signature Dish, a four-part web series profiling the culinary delights of Cockle Bay Wharf.
Each Tuesday through October, a new Roulston-hosted webisode will be uploaded, each featuring a different Cockle Bay establishment.
Coinciding with the Crave Food festival, Roulston said the initiative was in part to combat the area’s ‘forgotten’ status amongst Sydney locals.
“It’s really just to remind people what’s down there. Cockle Bay Wharf is two or three minutes walk from the centre of the city, and yet it’s become a bit of a forgotten area. There are a lot of nice restaurants … it’s not just for tourists,” she said.
The series sees Roulston casting a critical eye over the establishments in the precinct, but she said she didn’t don a Matt Preston cravat for the cameras.
“We took it very lightheartedly. I didn’t try and emulate the MasterChef judges, with their years of experience.”
While her life may have changed, Roulston said her girlfriend of three years, Christine, was supporting her every step of the way. Mostly, she said she was just happy to have her live-in cook back in the house.
“I think she missed my cooking more than anything. I called her one night from the house and she’d had a beer and rice crackers for dinner.”
info: Visit www.cocklebaywharf.com.au
I know how Christine feels. When you are used to having an excellent chef cooking for you, you really miss it (and them.) I don’t think I’ve ever resorted to rice-crackers…Ah, but last night I just had a bar of chocolate and some crackers, because the cook of the house ate my dinner as well as hers. Hmmmmm, I can relate. I’m not always keen on cooking…I do it when I have to. It’s nice when the other person in the house loves to cook. It takes the pressure off somehow.