Survivor: South Pacific

Chickpea & Tophie Clarry

Main, Survivor, Survivor: Winners at War, TV, TV Recap, Vegetarian

Previously on Survivor Jeff decided to thank his collection of winners by rewarding them all with a full family visit each, without even needing to compete. Both in the game and on the Edge. And ugh, it was honestly so sweet and beautiful. Sadly, the lovefest couldn’t last forever and after Tony took out immunity, things returned to chaos. Sophie and Sarah were deemed too close, Kim was too much of a threat and, Sarah and Tony didn’t like that Jeremy targeted her, so wanted him dealt with ASAP. Sadly for them, he used his Safety without Power advantage to leave the tribal council thwarting their plans. Sarah in turn stole Denise’s vote, Kim played her idol for Denise and it was all for nought, as Tyson was booted from the game once again.

Koru returned to camp where Jeremy was patiently waiting to find out who had been voted at the tribal council he bailed on, disappointed to discover that his ally Tyson had, once again, been voted out. Tony and Ben put pressure on Jeremy, questioning why he up and left despite openly wanting to take him out at the tribal council. Ben told us that he was happy to ride to the end with the five he voted with, while bickering with Jeremy in the present at camp. Meanwhile Michele and Kim were catching up, unsure what and who to believe any more. Michele rightly deduced that they are on the bottom and that they need to figure out how to get out of the mess, if they want any chance at winning. And given she has been playing from the bottom this entire game, I think we can all put to bed the fact that she didn’t deserve her first win. Winchele has game and honestly, is a modern icon.

While everyone proceeded to sleep, Tony was sitting up and decided that now was the right time to bring out a little of his Cagayan self again. He had successfully played a quiet pre-merge and managed to be the last remaining threat in the game, and now he could actually start to strike. Obviously that started with idol hunting under the cover of darkness, however sadly, he didn’t find anything before dawn when Nick joined him. Tony smartly sent him to search an area he had already checked, pretending to work together, which thankfully allowed him enough time to find his first idol of the season. Much to his boyish bloody delight. And again, I love him too.

As sun rose over Koru, Sarah was trying to find her new passion now that she has been a cop and a criminal, ultimately settling on fashion designer. And oh my God, is she actually funny and super charming. I mean, is this season just further proving why each person won their respective seasons. She had the tribe in stitches as the fellow girls modelled her stitches and craft. Well, everyone except for Tony, who felt it was a bit lame. As such, he decided to play the other side and bonded with Jeremy, Michele, Denise and Kim to figure out what they were planning by lulling them into a false sense of security. His play appeared to be working on Jeremy, however Michele appeared to be warily optimistic and Kim – classic Kim – saw right through him. She shared her fears with Denise, who strongly agreed. And as such, they both decided that getting rid of Tony should be their priority.

Over at the Edge of Extinction Tyson was talking to everyone, wondering if they were strong enough to handle losing the game. Given he has lost three – or four – times now, he was confident he would be ok, but worried about the newbies. Speaking of newbies, Natalie was bonding with Parvati on a walk before they stumbled upon a message in a bottle. The icons vowed to keep it secret and got to work searching the island before they realised the latest advantage would be hidden under the bed. Where the rest of their friends were hanging. At sunset, Parvati charmed everyone to go watch it with her on the other side of the island leaving Natalie to snatch the advantage. Giddy, the girls caught up away from everyone and discovered that they had found an Extortion Advantage, which gave them the chance to demand as many Fire Tokens as they want from someone in the game and if they failed to pay up, they’d be blocked from playing in the immunity challenge AND voting at the next tribal council.

They weighed up the options of whether they genuinely wanted Fire Tokens or simply to screw up somebody’s game, though Parvati suggested that they need to target someone totally chaotic who would refuse to back down. Obviously we then cut straight back to Tony, where we learnt that the icons – I wish they aligned – had charged him six tokens to retain his options. Oh and Nick spoke about the internet calling him a vampire and while it is not important to the plot, I feel it needs to be documented. At first Tony was thrilled about his advantage, until he realised that the extortion was against him and he had to pony up six tokens before the next immunity challenge.

Right on cue Denise appeared with treemail advising them of the upcoming immunity challenge, leading to Tony approaching his fake allies and asking for their tokens so that he can help them take power. He first approached Michele who expertly lied about spending all her money on an advantage in the return challenge on the Edge of Extinction, to avoid him knowing the truth. Tony obviously bought this hook, line and sinker and offered to go talk to Jeremy on his behalf. Jeremy freely offered up one of his tokens, meaning Tony had 4 in his possession. He then approached Nick, who offered one up with barely a thought. As did Ben, getting Tony out of the mess and proving why he is a bloody legend of the game. 

At the immunity challenge the tribe would balance on a narrow beam and try to hold a statue on the end of a long pole. Tragically Kim was the first to drop her statue, while everyone else survived until the final section of the beam. Which took Denise, Michele and Sarah out in the quickest of succession. Tony started to struggle, however it was Nick and Sophie who were the next to drop, leaving Tony, Ben and Jeremy to battle it out. Well, until Ben and Jeremy dropped out of nowhere, handing Tony his second individual immunity ever.

Back at camp Kim wasn’t thrilled that Tony had won immunity, though was glad that he had painted a larger target on his back until she could find numbers to get rid of him. As such, she approached Sarah, Sophie, Nick and Ben – none of whom she trusted – to formulate a plan to split the vote between Jeremy and Michele at the next tribal council. With that intel, Kim and Denise approached Jeremy to see what he was planning to do and the three suggested voting out Ben instead. When in actuality, Denise and Kim were planning to blindside Jeremy. Speaking of Jeremy, he was hating on Ben, annoyed by literally everything he does, so approached Michele to lock in the vote.

With everyone calm and locked in, Tony decided that now would be the time to cause chaos and make a move, still wanting to target Sophie and free up Sarah, so that he is the only one she is loyal to. He lay in wait until just before tribal council before pulling Nick aside to see if he would join him in blindsiding Sophie, with Jeremy and Michele. While Nick was keen on the plan, Jeremy felt like Tony was lying and wasn’t open to the idea, given he was more interested in getting rid of Ben. Unaware that Tony truly was trying to save him.

At tribal council Sophie spoke about the distrust caused by everyone playing their advantages and idol last tribal council, given nobody had shared the information with everyone. Ben agreed that it put everyone on edge, with Jeremy succinctly selling it as everyone telling half truths. Sarah said now was the time to start building resumes, while Nick countered it is the hardest thing to balance; making a move to build your resume without becoming a target. Sophie spoke about the importance of building a strong resume without it looking like padding. Jeremy said that they need to remember that getting to the end is something else they need to focus on, because a resume is nothing if you are fourth. Jeremy, Ben and Sophie all spoke about how quiet it was back at camp, while Michele was just happy to lock in a plan quickly while Tony tried to turn it around and say that everyone was just exhausted from the previous scramble. Before Sarah spoke about the majesty of a blindside and pulling it off against such strong competition.

That obviously led to everyone voting and oh fuck, I am sad. Poor Sarah realised that she wasn’t the best, as Tony blindsided her and Sophie, sending the latter from the game with an idol in her pocket and leaving Sarah as an irate island. While Sophie took her exit in her stride, she admitted to me she was rather shocked and pissed as I pulled her in for a hug outside. I let her in on the fact that this season has kind of proved why everyone won their first season, and even when blindsided, they have cemented their legacies. And I would say none more so than Sophie (and Winchele, but that is an aside) – she dominated the pre-merge, was smart and flexible and damn I hope the Chickpea & Tophie Clarry gives her the energy to win the return challenge and take out the game.

I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times – there is nothing better than a curry. And given this one is vegetarian, it also gives you that smug feeling that it is healthier than usual. Though, when it tastes this yummy, that probably wouldn’t even cross your mind.

Enjoy!

Chickpea & Tophie Clarry
Serves: 4.

Ingredients
2 tbsp olive oil
400g firm tofu, cut into a 3cm dice
1 onion, diced
400g can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
½ cup korma paste
400ml coconut milk
½ cup vegetable stock
1 ½ cups frozen peas

Method
Heat a tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over high heat, and stir-fry the tofu for a few minutes or until golden and crisp. Transfer to a plate.

Pop the remaining oil in the skillet and release to a medium heat and cook the onion, stirring semi-frequently, for five minutes or until soft and sweet. Add the chickpeas and brown for a couple of minutes before adding the curry paste and cooking out the flavours before finally stirring in the coconut milk and stock. Stir to combine, bring to the boil, add the peas and simmer for 15 minutes, or until gloriously reduced.

Once the sauce has come together, add in the tofu and cook for a further minute or two before serving one a bed of rice and devouring.


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John Coq Au Ransling

Main, Poultry, Survivor: Caramoan - Fans vs. Favourites, Survivor: South Pacific

While I kind of dropped off the radar – which as you know, I will strike from memory in the coming weeks – as soon as Wendell defeated Domenick thanks to Laurel breaking the tie on Ghost Island, I am super pumped by the fact that in sub five weeks Survivor: David vs. Goliath will be back and all will be right in the world.

Because let’s be honest, no matter how terrible a season can be any survivor is better than no Survivor because there will also be a Michael or Brendan to thirst over.

As has become the tradition, I decided to reach out to some of my dearest Sole Survivor friends to countdown to the latest season … and since they were all unavailable, I decided to invite John Cochran.

I joke, I joke! I love Cochran and he is my dearest friend … now. But damn did I hate him during the horror that was South Pacific. The self-deprecating humour, the inability to fit in with the jocks and not wanting to get naked in the water – it was like watching myself on screen and I just couldn’t handle it.

Thankfully his flip to Coach and Co’s side led to a glorious Sophie victory, so I apologised to him for my heavy use of voodoo during the season and we slowly, tentatively became the best of friends. A friendship so strong, I couldn’t even bring myself to hate him when he voted against my lover Malcolm in his winning season.

Say what you will about the season being terrible and made for him, Caramoan had some killer moments – the TEETH, Malcolm losing his pants, Dawn seething about missing out on the family reward – and Cochran ran the game, well and truly deserving his victory.

While we couldn’t run the odds since the cast is yet to be released, we do agree that Probst’s friend, creator of Enlightened and The Amazing Race contestant Mike White – who was clearly visible in the preview at the end of Ghost Island – should become an icon of the game … and the hot cop will most likely be my number one thirst trap. Though maybe those opinions were just the John Coq Au Ransling talking.

 

 

Like his oft joked about daughter – with Sophie, obvi – Aubry Bracco, I can’t bring myself to see him without the sweet flavour or bacon, mushrooms, chicken and sweet, sweet wine. This time, however, the wine is white and hot damn does it still taste amazing. Rich and creamy, Coq au Riesling is all the fun of Coq Au Vin but with a lightness … that is removed by addition of cream. But it’s cream, so you know what, so what, who cares.

Enjoy!

 

 

John Coq Au Ransling
Serves: 4.

Ingredients
2 tbsp butter
2 onions, diced
6 rashers of streaky bacon, diced
6 garlic cloves, minced
500g chicken thighs, diced
250g mushrooms, sliced
750ml Riesling
1 cup cream
salt & pepper, to taste
handful parsley, roughly chopped

Method
Melt the butter in a large pan and sweat the onions over medium-low heat for five minutes, or until soft and translucent. Add the bacon and cook until the fat has rendered before adding the garlic and cooking for a further minute or so.

Reduce heat to low, add the mushrooms and cook for five minutes or until browned and glorious. Add the chicken and cook for a minute to brown the sides before drowning, giddily, in wine. Crank up the heat and bring to the boil before reducing to a simmer and cooking, covered for half an hour.

Remove the lid and stir in the cream and cook for a further five minutes, or until slightly reduced. Season, sprinkle with parsley and remove from the heat. Serve immediately, and devour with a generous hunk of French Sourdough. Like a Paige de Keragne, for instance.

 

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Cophie Clarke Ice Cream

Dessert, Snack, Sweets

While my boy Probst may not agree, my friend, goddaughter and spirit animal Sophie Clarke is up there with one of my favourite survivor victors. And as such, is the perfect person to help continue our countdown heroically healing hustler countdown.

I’ve known dear, sassy, witty Soph since she was a wee babe, being an old friend of her father, journalist Thurston Clarke. We met at Yale and became the closest of friends, with him eventually asking me to be the godfather of his daughter Sophie.

Way back in 2010-11 – a time when Australian Survivor was yet to be rebooted for the second time – I decided that Sophie needed to compete on, and obviously win, Survivor to fulfill my dream for me.

While I was completely shooketh when I got out to Samoa and discovered that Probst had neglected to tell me that my sweet goddaughter would be competing on a rigged returnee captain, redemption island season. Thankfully for me, my sharp-tongue and athletic prowess had rubbed off and helped propel her to day 38, where she defeated challenge beast Ozzy and sent him out of the game.

As much as I hate to admit it, Coach did play a strong game in South Pacific – I will always prefer his performance in his Tocantins boot episode – Sophie destroyed him at final tribal council (like Michelle did to Ben on Monday night) and clearly articulated why she was better and therefore deserved the win.

Given she’s been hella busy with med school, we haven’t seen as much of each other as we would have liked recently so she jumped at the chance to fly on over and mark the beginning of the new season … and casually gloat about now being Dr Clarke.

We used to spend a lot of time together, wandering around New York over a cup of joe, so I knew there was only one thing I could possible whip up – a delicious Cophie Clarke Ice Cream.

 

 

Shamelessly – and mildly – adapted from Nigella’s recipe, this sweet treat is near perfection. Particularly when you half the instant and switch out the liqueur for espresso. Who would have thought I’d cut out alcohol?

In any event, enjoy!

 

 

Cophie Clarke Ice Cream
Makes: 1.5L.

Ingredients
600ml thickened cream
395g condensed milk
2 tbsp instant espresso powder
¼ cup fresh espresso, cooled

Method
Whisk all the ingredients together until soft peaks form.

Transfer to airtight containers and freeze overnight, or for six hours or so.

Then devour, greedily.

 

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Ozzy Bucco Lusth

Main, Survivor: Game Changers – Mamanuca Islands, TV Recap

Previously on Survivor – or a minute ago on screen – the tribes merged resulting in Cirie stealthily saving her friend Michaela and the tribe booting the sweetest free-agent, non-consenting angel Hali to become the Queen of Ponderosa … for the second time in her two season career.

The next morning Maku Maku reconvened to discuss the last tribal, where Michaela tried to hide her emotions. Cirie then pulled her aside to reiterate the fact that she saved her and Michaela reiterated that she would always have her back. Seriously, these two are the latest Game Changers couple goals. Could you imagine if Sandra was still here to form the holy trinity of sass?! Consider my shorts completely creamed.

Zeke, Aubry and Cirie then went for a walk to further discuss tribal and talking about how best to take out the opposing alliance, lead by the mob-boss that is Sierra and her puppet Brad. Aubry, bless, then explained that she felt like she was in the middle of said mob-war … but was gladly willing to be the niece to her black, Italian aunt Cirie.

Continuing in the post-merger madness, Zeke and Andrea connected to discuss the best move for them to make next, which somehow lead to Zeke deciding it was in his best interests to get rid of his closest allies Cirie and Andrea, rather than his rivals Sierra and Brad. Sadly this proves why back-to-back seasons can be a curse, considering how doing that exact thing last season with Chris, lead to his downfall. Ugh, anyway …

Concerned about my reaffirmed love affair with Cirie, Probst arrived for the first post-merge reward challenge where they were split into teams to win an extremely erotic spa day, if Probst’s breathy descriptions are anything to go by.

Given that the challenge involved a large swimming portion, victory was a foregone conclusion for Ozzy – despite the best attempts at failure from Tai and Andrea – who got to enjoy the sensual stay with the failures, Debbie, Troyzan and Zeke.

Back at camp, Cirie took me the closest I’ve been to despair since her final words in Micronesia, talking about how she felt like a failure losing the challenge and likened it to not being able to provide for her family. This set off Sierra … and almost allowed her to win me over. Close but no cigar, yet.

Meanwhile on reward, Tai continued in the tradition of Kaôh Rōng contingent, got naked and streaked around his eating tribemates … repeatedly. Dead set, mad dog – just pause to imagine the Kaôh Rōng wrap party with he and Debbie. Glorious.

Zeke, not wanting to just allow Jeff to make it nice for them, pulled Debbie and Tai aside to talk about booting Brad and Sierra … or Cirie. Proving that she actually is pretty good at the game – despite the multiple careers, twerking and mooning – Debbie didn’t buy anything he was selling and vowed to do what was best for her, not him.

Clearly worried about my reaction to Tai’s nude scene, Probst returned for the second individual immunity challenge – a Survivor classic / one of Ozzy’s best – where they all have to hold on tight to a big, thick pole. Aka er’ry weekend, amirite.

Cirie, Brad, Aubry, Debbie, Zeke, Sierra, Troyzan and Sarah quickly slid all the way down the hard pole, leaving the rest of the tribe to battle it out to snatch Ozzy’s crown. Despite looking as relaxed as Parvati in Heroes vs. Villains, Michaela opted out of the challenge before Andrea threw herself from the top of the pole leaving us with a challenge between the kings of pole, Tai and Ozzy.

For the first time in the history of the challenge, Ozzy fell off giving Tai the victory … and proved once and for all that nobody handles themselves around a pole better than a gay man.

Back at camp, Ozzy was showing off his war wounds before Zeke got to work dismantling his own game and approached Sierra to get rid of Andrea, which she did not trust … at all. Sierra then pulled Cirie aside to drop the Zeke intel, which Cirie took back to Ozzy, Andrea and Sarah.

Debbie and Sierra then relaxed in the hammocks to talk getting rid of Zeke – with a cheeky decoy of Aubry – before Debbie crushed my second Game Changers couple-spiration and suggested booting Ozzy instead, due to his challenge ability.

She then went person-to-person to tell everyone that they were blindsiding Ozzy that night …  surprisingly though, she didn’t tell Ozzy.

After talking about being the post-merge swing vote on again, Sarah arrived at tribal to liken the situation to them all being single people who were just waiting to hook up, arousing the hell out of Tai and Debbie.

Ozzy then low-key threatened the tribe that booting him would mean that they would starve without him, Aubry outlined how much harder this season is … despite the fact no one has almost died this season, compared to the three that almost died in Kaôh Rōng.

Zeke then spoke in a confusing circle about how he needed to convince people that they would beat him at the end, to convince them to keep him in the game, which Tai obviously found to make sense.

Debs reiterated her work in the Air Force auxiliary and how she was confused, before Cirie cryptically spoke about sticking with who she trusts … which obviously lead to voting. Andrea was well pissed at Zeke, Cirie continued Sandra’s tradition from earlier this season and threw a random vote … before Debs flopped out her extra vote AND became the first person in Survivor history to correctly play it, cementing Ozzy’s boot.

Crushing his ex-nemesis kween Cirie in the process.

Now I am about to let you in on a massive, massive secret – that is also a little bit confusing –  so buckle up. I’ve known Ozzy for my entire life … because he is my father and I was actually conceived on a beach that was home to kween Cirie. Yep, my birth name was actually Benjamin Kimmel Lusth – I changed my last name to Judd when marrying Ashley – and I am one of the Ozlets from Micronesia.

That, or I met him during the filming of the Playboy TV’s Foursome (you can Google them yourself because they are way NSFW, even for me) … I genuinely don’t know what timeline is what anymore, thanks to my sloppy adherence to the laws of time travel. Either way, I’ve always called Ozzy daddy.

While he was bummed to once again miss out on the title of Sole Survivor, he completely understood that it was in everyone’s best interests given his reputation. Like me though, he was most heartbroken to see how his boot broke poor Cirie’s heart.

While Hali and Ozzy were busy having a Ponderosa hair off, I headed to the kitchen and got my naked chef on – he explained that Ashley Judd is my cousin and we met on the set of Foursome – to whip him up a Ozzy Bucco Lusth.

 

 

Given that he is my daddy and not my father, I was eager to show Ozzy all of my meat, dripping in sauce and wine and being oh-so appetising.

Enjoy!

 

 

Ozzy Bucco Lusth
Serves: 4.

Ingredients
4 veal osso bucco, obvi with bone
good lug of olive oil
2 carrots, diced
3 celery sticks, diced
2 onions, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup plain flour
salt and pepper, to taste
¼ cup tomato paste
2 bay leaves
1 ½ cups white wine
1 cups beef stock
2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes

Method
Heat a lug of oil in a large dutch oven medium heat and brown each side for a minute or two. Reduce heat to low and add the carrot, celery, onion and garlic, and cook for a couple of minutes.

Sprinkle the flour into the pan with a good whack of salt and pepper, tomato paste and bay leaves, stir to coat and cook for a minute or two.

Slowly pour in the wine, stock and tomatoes, stir to combine and cover and cook for three-four hours, or until the meat is falling away from the bone.

Once it is done, serve immediately as a stew or with some mashed potato.

 

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