Elizabeth Marshall and Jenn Clark The emotional ride of Wellington exes Jenn Clark and Elizabeth Marshall has screeched to a halt with the pair becoming the eighth to leave the MasterChef New Zealand kitchen. In last night’s episode on TV One the Top Eight were separated into two teams and each team member was tasked with making one dish of a themed eight-course degustation menu. In a close competition, Clark and Marshall found out tonight they were on the losing team. While Clark had set the bar high with her trio tartare starter, Marshall struggled under pressure, refusing help from her team mates when plating her prosciutto red tussock venison with vanilla butter, coffee foam and beetroot jus. The forthright 36-year-old snapped as the team offered feedback on the dish. “Everyone’s gathering around, telling me what to do but this is my dish,” she growled. “Yes, I need some help, but please don’t take over!” Presenting her dish to the MasterChef judges for tasting, she was apologetic. “My brain’s a bit scrambled at the moment, I’m sorry gentleman,” she explained. Immediately noticing the beetroot jus was thin and watery, judges Simon Gault and Josh Emett were surprised to learn Marshall had used gelatine to thicken the sauce. Alongside Bec Stanley and Jaimie Stolder in the Bottom Two, the duos were offered a lifeline – a cook-off of the perfect whitebait fritter and aioli. Both fish-averse, and with whitebait foreign to American-born Marshall, the exes frantically plated up what they thought was a superior fritter, only to be told by the judges it was dry, and that they were going home. Post-elimination the drama was high, with Marshall turned on Clark, accusing her of being more focused on friendships and having a good time in the MasterChef house, than the food. It was the final straw for an emotional Clark. “It’s kind of like we came into this in a relationship, and now we’re at the breaking up point. Again.” Comments on MasterChef’s Facebook page have been heated tonight, with plenty of sympathy for Clark and buckets of harsh criticism of Marshall.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Monday, 10th March 2014 - 8:46pm