MasterChef Dreams

Masterchef Dreams

Originally published May 8, 2013. Updated on 7/29/2021

Being a wedding industry veteran, I'm well aware of how working towards a big, stressful situation brings out the WEIRD in our dreams.

Whether from brides or vendors, I've heard every sort of bizarre pre-wedding dream you could imagine!

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I started having some weird dreams before flying out to LA for MasterChef... or while I was IN LA for taping... or when I came back.

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The Masterchef Sushi Dream

Now, for the most part, pre-LA dreaming was strictly for problem solving/creating time.

I'm a very lucid sleeper, and generally use sleep time to work through problems, create lists of what to do / how to do it, etc. (Those that wonder how I work so fast... now you know!).

Most of that was pretty run of the mill... I'd go to bed thinking of fish, for instance, and would wake up with a ton of ideas to add to my study book.

1 week before leaving for the show, however, one of those "create" dreams turned out spectacular: It was a dream about competing on a sushi challenge on the show, and I was WAY ahead of everyone.

I had some leftover salmon and decided to do something unique to add to my plate.

You know sushi art, like the stuff found at this link?

I decided - mid-challenge - that THIS was the time to attempt something like that, so I thinly sliced the salmon, wrapped it in nori and rice, and made a set of MasterChef logo sushi. Won the challenge.

I woke up thinking it out, and thought "you know... that could actually work. If given the opportunity, I think I WILL do that!".

Masterchef Sushi, Made Real

Two of my "Aspie Superpowers" are being able to easily figure out how *anything* is made... and being able to easily reproduce something after seeing it demonstrated only once.

Amazingly, these also apply to myself, as seen in my own dreams, LOL!

Porter and I differed on how I should go about doing it.

He thought I should practice it ahead of time, I thought that I should NOT, because that first time happening in a challenge? That'd be MAGICAL!

Well, I ended up making sushi rice minutes after waking up that morning, and by 7 am - and on the first try - I had a batch of beautiful MasterChef logo sushi!

I'd elected to color some of the rice, as we didn't exactly have sushi-grade salmon laying around!

It all went very smoothly, like I'd done it 100 times before.

I've been meaning to get more into art sushi, but that logo sushi roll is still the one and ONLY time I've ever done art sushi!

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The "Taking Things Literally" Dream

This was a few days before I left for LA... It was another competition dream, and we were making pastries for some bigshot food writer.

He was using all sorts of words that were painfully awkward for him, basically coming off as a desperate attempt to sound smarter than he was. (Common with food writers, I hate to say.)

So he goes to taste mine, and whines that he was hoping for it to be more "unctuous". I don't remember what I had made, but it was something where "unctuous" would be totally inappropriate.

So I dropped my jaw and asked him if he was serious, he wanted "unctuous", and he confirmed... so I dumped like a cup of vegetable oil over it.

We both stared at each other, completely confused, and then I said "Um... maybe that word doesn't mean what you think it means".

I told a couple friends about it, and was told in NO uncertain terms that if anything similar came to pass while competing, I MUST respond that way. I agreed 🙂

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The "Masterchef Roommate from Hell" Dream

I actually wrote this out in a notebook while still in LA. Let me just type that entry out:

"Day 2 in LA. Woke up at 4am from a stress dream. Well, that's not entirely true, I woke up at 1, then 3ish, then gave up at 4. Anyway, stress dream:

Dreamed that someone told me the name of my roomie, then acted shocked when I didn't recognize the name.

She hadn't yet arrived, so this person whipped out their phone so I could google it... I guess so I could see for myself.

She was famous for being a very rich, very VERY right wing socialite. I'm talking like a young Ann Coulter ... Canadian-hating and all!

She was the daughter of a politician, and a beauty queen from some politically-oriented pageant. I don't remember the full name of the pageant title, but it involved "Confederacy" in the title, and had the rebel flag stitched on to her sash. WTF?"

... that was the day my roomie was due to arrive. I'm happy to be able to say she was nothing like what my mind had conjured up.

She was kinda nuts, for sure... but in the fun, TOTALLY acceptable way that the vast majority of my friends are!

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I must say, I was relieved to hear that I wasn't alone in this! Here are a few weird dreams from my fellow contestants.

Alexandra’s Masterchef Dream

Speaking of my roomie, Alexandra Jones had a dream of her own:

"I had a dream I had to shop at home depot with Gordon because we had to replace a piece of the set.

He was in a three piece suit and I had to wear a "MasterChef Snuggi".

He started to get angry with me because we couldn't find anything we needed and just kept walking in a circle.

Eventually, we left and went to this pub by my house in Portland and had a few pints.

Then Joe and Graham showed up and the three of them left... and left me to pay for the beer...and it wasn't even happy hour! "

Matt Orsini’s Masterchef Dream

"This dream happened before I left for LA...

All the top 100 was at the hotel and it was my morning to cook. They told me to get dressed and all I remember is getting all the way to set and right before I was cued to cook I looked down and had absolutely nothing on!

Before I knew it, Gordon walked out and told me to fuck off so I ran back to the hotel to get dressed knowing that this was do or die for me.

I was so embarrassed and all the contestants were laughing at me.

By the time I got back to the set I had all three judges waiting for me and they told me that regardless of what I was going to cook it was going to be a no!

I was pissed off and that's the last thing I remembered. In my dream I was so frustrated!

It was an awful dream. I woke up sweating after it, I thought it was real!"

Christine Kim’s Masterchef Dream

"I had a crazy dream before I knew I got accepted to top 100.

In the dream, I was hanging with my friends.

Then a MC lady appeared out of nowhere and said to me, "Congratulations! You have been accepted in the top 100 of Masterchef! You have an hour to shop for your ingredients in this store, and to prepare you food for the judges. Good luck!"

So I was like "WHAT!?" And I ran to the grocery store, and I had no idea what to make, and I had no idea what was in this grocery store.

So I bought a bunch of random ingredients that I knew how to use and then I woke up really nervous and stressed because of my limited time to prepare.

It turns out that we shopped at a Ralphs that looked EXACTLY like the one in my dream, aisles and everything.

I have this thing, where my dreams give me MAJOR Deja Vu, more often than not."

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... Just a handful of the crazy dreams we had!

Are you a past or current MasterChef contestant? Would LOVE to hear what kind of crazy dreams you had about the experience - post a comment below!