MasterChef's Indian pressure test

Vikas Khanna has a whirlwind trip of filming, eating locally and teaching his signature meal in Melb starred chef Vikas Khanna o n his trip to Melbourne as the guest chef of Australia's Chan n el Ten Maste,Cbef ser ie-s.

Irecently had the honour of interviewing Michelin.

Ir was a whirlwind trip of only a few days for Khanna, jampacked w itl1 j\.JastetCbef filming, as well as a bit of tun. On tile show, Khanna lead a Pressure Test cooking challenge over 75 minutes, in which four concescanrs were required co cook a Kl1anna signamre Indian dish The dish bad co incorporate mune rous traditional elements tllac he h ad learnc g rowing up, as well as some modern western elements, which he typically adds to h is cuisi ne to day. These are e lements in sp ired from bis travels and life i n the US

The dish that viewers w ill see on this particular episode is 'rose tea smoked chicke n tik.ka 111asrlin' Of the fo ur contestant cooks that attempted this dish, the l east impressive one would have co leave tile Maste,Chef kitchen

Khanna's cooking journey began in h is original home town of A mritsar, Punjab. He was inte rested at an early age in food, so naturall y, his grandmother became his first teacher. She passed on to him the traditional art of his family's cuisine. Prom then, it wasn't long before he started to share h is love of cooking with otl1ers At di e age of 17 he started h is own catering business.

Today hi s accomplishments are nu1nerous and varied, and his recognition is wide.

Khanna is an accomplished chef, restaurateur, 6ln1maker, anchor, and televis ion p ersonality. His restauram based in New York , Junoon, is h igh ly regarded and has been Michelin scarred. Over time, his passion and drive have nor dissipated ac all. This passion appears to be fundamental co his success, because he stilt works very bard, and admits chat

12 JUNE (1) 2014 owning a restaurant is not easy even with all h is success

Ocher successes include catering for events at The \Vh.ite House in tile US and amhoring many books including The Spice Street and Modern Tndiar, C11isi11e.

Producing and filming tl1e series

Hofy Kitchen i s also on this list, where Khan na takes a look at tile role d1at food plays in om spiritual lives, festiv al s, traditions, and how cooking food and s haring food can brin g peop le, and the world closer. His successes al so include becoming a television cbef and personality, scarring in Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares and Hell's Kitcbm, and with Mardia Stewart on her sh ow, and in hosting Maste,Chef lnclia, an d soon to be staring in Australia's current series of lvfastnChef, set to broadcast o n Monday June 23.

So his brief ,"Tisic co Melbourne came to an end far too qu ickly. Bm he was shown many culin ary delights of Melbourne thanks to the hosts of Nlaste,Cbef, Gary, Matt and George. Klianna visited seven different restaurants each day, and rook i11 some of Melbourne's highlight~ which also incl u ded so me local Indian fare. Khanna saw how much more there is to exp lore in culinary MeJhourne, as well as the rest of it, so he is making sure h e visits again.

Khanna was like many Me lbourne Indians in char he moved away from his famil y life in India, a life that he knew, and knew what to e."pect. Moving from chat ro a bustling multicultural city, New York, where his fumre was entirely u p to his own p lan. of identifying and advocating for the inf@structure, land- use planning business attraction and investment needed t o gain the best outcomes for the Liverpool community from the new airport. It is critical that we maximize the employment and commercial opportunities created by the strong growth Liverpool is currently experiencing and t hat we move forward with t his important initiative.

I asked K h anna what advice he may have for fellow youn g Indians here in Melbourne iliac have come from the east to live now in the west as he did. \X!as he ever lonely, did h e srruggle w ith culmral differences , how did he gee hi s confidence? "New York i s a place whe re everyone is fro m everywhere else," he replied. "Ever yone is a self- starter and eve r yone i s m o\7ing and creating, and that is the cultme of the place There was n o o n e particularl y lonely, there is not that sense, what you do is, you just get snick inro it, into plans and into creating a life for your self too".

To see what dish Klrnn na has decided to share wid1 the Australian viewers, tune into Maste1Chef. And we will look forward to his cecum.

Council will be celebrating Refugee Week from 15 - 21 June with two unique events. 'Restoring Hope'is a Tree of Life theatre performance that takes you on a j ourney t hrough the eyes ofrefugee children, t o be held at t he Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre today, 10am-2pm. A 'Working effectively with people from refugee backgrounds't@ining event will also be hel d in t he Blue Gum Room on level 5 of the Liverpool City Council office, 170 George Street on Thursday, 19 June, 9am-2pm. Liverpool would not be t he strong multicultural community it is t oday without the contribution ofrefugees so I urge residents to attend both event s. For more informat ion please email s.bhana@liverpool.nsw.gov.au or phone 1300 36 2170. Bookings essent ial.

Sydney funny man Neel Ko/hatkar entertains audiences across Oz

• BY i JYOTI SHANKAR

Walkingalong Broadway a few days ago, I chanced upon a poster on a lamp- post with au Indian face.

Intrigued , I stopped to read and saw chat it was an ad fo r stan dup comedian Neel Kolhatkar's show at the Haro ld Park Hote l in G lebe. Now chis is an o ld chestnut - Indians don't have a sense of humour. We take ourselves too seriou sly and don't appreciate jokes against ourse lves. T his is certainly changi ng, the success of shows l ike The Great Indian Cometf)' Shmv and Comet!), Nights with Kapil. Indian stand- up comedians are however a rare breed. I felt I had to see Neel perform and soon one evening I was at tbe crowded pub with abou t a hund red oth ers laughing at the r ibald jokes and bold statements of th is 20-yearold. There were gui te a few race gags and pe rpetuation of stereotypes, so atroc ious that you couldn 't but laugh at the preposterousness which Neel puJJed through with his charm

It was a brave act and some of the braver audience members were obviously enjoying themselves be ing d1e burr of the jokes. A yoLmg man from 1v[ounr Druirt too k all me jibes at his s u burb a nd the generalisations about being from 'our west' in good humour, as did the o lder gentleman iu the front row: Neel had a way with all age groups and many of his fans were familiar wim his s tyl e of humour fro m his immensely popular YouTube ,ndeos His crowd interactions and confident stage presence were a mazing for such a ymmg m an ; some chinks of discomfort guickly covered up w ith yet another disarming statement o r wi secrack r eel i s described as a YouTub e sen sation ever since his dip Amtralia in 2 A!Ji11utes, ,vem viral. It collected over a mil.lion views w ithin three days of release. Specialising in imitations of accems and cultural representations, Neel u ses his observations of society and h is surroundings very cleverly a nd delivers h is performance in an an1iable style. His comedic CV includes a nm at the prestigious New York Comedy Festival last year, one- man show at the 20 12 Sydney Fringe Festival, perfo rm an ce at the GENeration comedY- in Melbourne and Sydney, 130,000+ YouTu be subscribers and 200,000+ Facebook fans.

Summarising his Indian links in hi s very Australian accent, Nee l said " In te rm s of my heritage, lam a third genera tion lndian; grand -d ad came to Australia in 1962 He was a statistic ian :Mum was t\vo when tl1ey moved. l was born here in 1994. The extent of my know ledge of Indian languages is limi ted to a few phrases of Hindi and Marathi".

He will u nd erstand s the identity issues of yo ung people from migrant families - being and feeling rocally Australian but being slotted as an Indian based on l ooks It does 11m bother him personallr but he says, '1c can be co n fusing and not entirely be neficial an d that's something I do try to explore a little b it in my performances. I don't try to focus on that a Im though. ] do a few L1dian jokes now and then and m y YouTube videos have a few character Aogs like the typical Indian father".

Carefu l about not wa n ting to be boxed as an Indian comedian and lim ited to doing Indian jokes and accents, Neel says he is more versed in talking abom his observations of Australian life an d cultu r e

So how did he launch into co m edy? He laughs when asked from whom he inh erited his fun n y bone. He discovered in his early teens that he had a knac k for comed y Hi s performance at Class Clowns, an annual search for Australia's funniest high s chool stud ent, gave him di e Winner of Class Clmvns 2009 crown Wi n ning this competition made Neel realise that stand-up comedy was someiliing be wanted co keep pursuing. He admits tha t he always w anted to be a performer, " It didn't matter whether it was film, stage, theatre or comed y, I just wanted to be an entertaine r"

He realises the power of tl1e lmeroet and Yo uTube for people of his ge neration and reaches o u t to his audience primarily thro ug h this medium. He has had co defer h is studies of Economics at Sydney University as live shows and making YouTube videos for his comed y channel t al(eS up all of his time. After HSC, he took a gap year to travel co LA, New York, London and Monrreal, cryi ng out and learning mote from t he stan dup comedy circuits With his inci sive observations

- cultural groups, media, society, all prmTiding me foddereveryone cops i t in hi5 broad strokes of exaggerations and character portrayals. The style itsel f is energetic and in- your- face But love it or h ate it, cid1er way, eel puts together a memorab le performance as he recreates a comedic life from societal obser vations Struck by tl1e e~tent of profanity, 1 ask him i f some may fi nd ic offen sive. Neel r eplies frankl y, " l understand i t can be s h ocking for some people. Youn g peop le do swea r a lot but what I do is an exagge ration.

Just depends o n th e ch arac ters I portray. I t's just whar I do, not w hat 1 condone". H e adm.its chat h e do es n 't swear as much in h.is personal Life Co ns iderate abou t the sensi b ilities o f some of his Ind.ia n Uncles and Aunties, he warns readers rhar some o f h is videos could be "off-pu t ting"!