Junior Masterchef and the Aspie

Of course all of Oz was glued to Junior Masterchef last night.
Weren't you?
Anyway, the Aspie teen, who used to cook bits and bobs after we'd explained cooking was a science experiment with the interaction of chemicals that tasted yum but lost interest after his head injury (hindsight is so 20-20, hmph) was glued to the show.
He commented more on the appearance of the kids, their parents and their names rather than what they cooked, at first.
Typical Aspie it was other things that grabbed his attention instead of the glaringly obvious ones, lol.
After awhile he got into the whole food thing, commenting that he had the same kitchen knife as one of the kids, that the oven settings intimidated him (after one boy set the griller instead of the stove) and he eventually picked up on some of the judges' facial expressions on what was a winner and what they really liked.
One thing Aspie teen was very impressed with was the good sportsmanship shown by the kids towards each other - how they helped each other reaching for ingredients, wished good luck/well done, shook hands, etc.
General overall respect shown to each other.
Was it edited that way?
Probably but heck, who cares!
It was a huge thing to Aspie teen; it modelled ideal behaviour we'd all like to see in all of our kids, it showed kids not afraid to play with home-grown science and maths experiments.
And another, important thing for Aspies - it encouraged him to try new foods!
He had some Baklava from a local, well-regarded cake shop Niko.
Cooking with Maths is a great book that helps combine food with numbers for younger students and gets smaller heads around the whole concept of equations with practical examples.
Another list of fun books to get kids cooking with maths and science is HERE.