MasterChefMomNinjaHostessIdolWife Wars

I watch this great cooking competition show called MasterChef. Unfortunately, the couple of times I've fangirled in public about it, no one knows what I'm talking about. It's kind of a mix between Chopped/Hell's Kitchen/Iron Chef. It's an amateur/home cook competition, which I like because there isn't nearly as much melodrama as other reality shows because these are just regular people who love to cook (of course there are a few dorks included but they never win). And the dishes are more accessible to someone like me, whose favorite dessert list includes a home-invented concoction of pudding from a box over cheap ice cream. I feel like I can relate to the regular joe contestants ... at least until the last few episodes when the carefully braised and seasoned wheat emerges from the freezer-aisle chaff and they start making jello with vegetables in it and not in a "get your kids to eat veggies" way. Gross.

Screen shot from the last episode ... notice the travesty that is carrot and asparagus jello.

Then today, as I was trying to prepare lunch for my sick, screaming, snotty child, I had a brilliant idea for a new reality cooking show: MasterChefMomNinjaHostessIdolWife Wars.

Here's the premise:

Contestants are faced with challenges typical of cooking competitions ... BUT then you add children to the mix! They have to make a culinary masterpiece for the judges while a grundle of toddlers clings to their legs, begging to be picked up. To add some variety, there could be different "types" of children assigned to each contestant at random. Also, the "motive" of the dish could be variable, ie "dinner party," "romantic dinner," "dessert for a vegan," etc.

Mad little sous chef.

So you could get paired up with a helpful yet overzealous ADHD eight-year-old and be tasked with preparing a sushi platter, or you could get stuck with the surly, emo teenaged boy who actually has a deeply-secreted passion for food, and you bond over your shared love and he blossoms under your tutelage as you work together in culinary harmony to compose the most moving chili trio the judges have ever tasted. He goes on to own his own restaurant and names a mocktail after you.

"High-maintenance toddler" and "breakfast for a queen"

I would watch this show. It would be a true feat of multitasking, especially for those unlucky enough to pull "18-month-old twins with separation anxiety" and "venison risotto" from the hat.