MEET THE MASTERCHEF TEAM

Here they are the crew at Masterchef led by Chef Usha Argawal, and ably supported by her Sous Chefs Santosh and Rohit who are brothers. My short tenure was 2 weeks and I felt every bit like a close member of the family. The Chef and her Consort, the super wonderful Mahesh Argawal treated me like a son, even though I am a few rungs up the age scale. The two boys grew up in the Argawal household, next to their own children and if there is one thing they are taught well .. it is cooking. I took a video of Rohit, the younger brother in blue, fine chopping a red onion with such finesse I was in awe. Returning home I told my team that 'this is the way onions are to be chopped moving forward'. They are good nature, polite, helpful, friendly, skilled but their zeal to learn is singularly inspiring. Santosh was my tour guide on one of my days-off and we lunched at a Chinese restaurant where he ate his first Tiger Prawn .. imagine that!

Back in 2009 at Le Cordon Bleu my class size was 15 in Cuisine and 18 in Patisserie. I have since become spoiled by the 1-on-1 approach where I learned not only how to cook, but to become a better human being via these priceless inter-cultural encounters as I had at MasterChef in New Delhi.