On his maiden trip to India, MasterChef Australia season six winner Brent Owens had a lot on his plate, like sampling everything that’s available at Juhu beach. In a candid chat with Divya Kaushik, he shares how his life has taken a turn after his success
He rose from dust, quite literally, to become a popular name across the world. Brent Owens was once a bobcat driver, “moving soil from one place to the other,” and now we know him as the winner of MasterChef Australia season 6. life is not the same any more.
He is now a celebrity chef who has come up with his recipe book called Dig In and is soon planning to open up his own place “with a variety of fresh and healthy takeaway options.” While Brent is on his maiden India tour to talk about the new season of the cooking reality show on Star World Premiere HD, he visited Mumbai and is in Delhi briefly. “It has been really busy but a fun journey,” he says referring to his India tour. “I returned from Mumbai and had a chance to sample street food at Juhu.
I am in Delhi now and will visit Agra. I will sample some more street food here as that is the best way to know about the city’s food culture,” he adds. It is the first time he is getting to know about Indian food. “We have Indian food, mostly as takeaway, in Australia but after eating food here, I know that what we get there is not even close to real Indian food,” he shares.
Brent’s affair with food was almost accidental. “Cooking was not a hobby during my growing up years. I started cooking when I started to live on my own, when I had to cook out of compulsion. It was actually then that I discovered that I like to cook. I don’t come from a family that hosted big food parties,” he says. Brent started watching cooking shows on TV and that added to his interest.
“I used to replicate what I watched and that is how it began,” he says. But Brent feels that his ignorance actually helped him learn everything on the show. “While every other contestant had a basic knowledge about food and was aware about their strengths and weaknesses, I was like a blank canvas. I had so many directions to go to and so many different things to learn. I used everybody else’s skills to enhance my knowledge,”he says.
Brent believes that cooking shows on TV have helped people know about world cuisine and people’s knowledge about food is “no longer basic.” There are more number of people across the globe now who dream to change their fate through food.
“But nothing is easy. Everything takes a lot of hard work and persistence. While we were at the show, every day there was an experiment gone wrong. I did not know about so many ways and techniques of cooking. But I was patient and learnt with time,” he says.
After the success of his first book, Brent now plans to come up with his own restaurant. And that may have some dish inspired from India. “That would either be a dessert or some version of paani puri, I think I can make cool canapés from that. I like the idea oftandoori dishes and flavours of tea. Also I want to infuse Indian flavours to basic healthy recipes to make them more interesting,” he informs.