Canberra-born nutritionist Chloe Carroll has been eliminated from MasterChef overnight, after a fierce challenge that saw her creating a 90-step sherried marron dish.
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The 28 year old took on contestants Sashi and Jess in the first Finals Week elimination, which involved an intense cooking session lasting nearly five hours. She admits it was her hardest pressure test yet.
While four remaining contestants now fight for the top prize, Chloe is focused on her next culinary venture.
"I'm excited for the future. I'm looking to open pop-up cooking schools and looking at proposals for health programs at schools, so community gardens, excursions to farms, ways of getting kids to see how food grows.
"I'll be at The Ekka in August doing a cooking school there and running a demonstration of my own."
Chloe fondly regards her first school in Canberra, Gordon Primary, as being influential in setting her on this path.
"School really shaped my love of food and cooking. One of my first cooking experiences was in Japanese class, and this cemented my love of noodles and other Asian foods. And I rolled with that.
"Having those programs in schools helped me and now I want to help other kids' futures."
While she now lives in Brisbane with her husband and two children, she enjoys returning to Canberra for family, friends and the food.
"I know people bag out Canberra, but I love it! We have amazing restaurants. What they've done with Braddon is amazing, particularly Eightysix. I also really enjoy Pulp Kitchen in Ainslie.
"My friends keep trying to get me back to try the new places. Raku is one that has been recommended to me recently."
After her MasterChef run, we'd imagine Chloe has a few recommendations for her friends as well. It was only a few months ago that she got to cook for Prince Charles and Camilla in Darwin.
"My most memorable moment on the show was cooking for Prince Charles. When in your life do you get to do that as an amateur cook? It blew my mind.
"He's a brilliant person, so funny, and definitely into his banter. He was teasing us about the ants we put on our dish."
Despite the pressure of cooking for a royal function, it was SecondBite's Six-Course Degustation Challenge in Week 11 that Chloe found most challenging.
"SecondBite is an organisation I really love as I'm passionate about minimising wastage. And since it was vegetarian cuisine, I felt like I really needed to impress the judges. So that added a lot of pressure."
During her time on MasterChef, the nutritionist also received online backlash for not cooking typically healthy meals, but she notes "it all comes down to moderation".
"People have this idea of clean eating, but cooking food and knowing what goes into it is really important. You can have treats here and there, nobody should deprive themselves."
While studying a degree in nutrition at the University of Canberra, Chloe worked at PJ O'Reilly's, the Mawson Club and Turkish Pide House in Woden. She also worked at the Tuggeranong coffee shop Brew Bar for five years.
