It took the brothers-in-law, Greg Gilowey and Karl Tessendorf from Cape Town, three audition attempts to finally make it into South Africa’s toughest outdoor cooking competition.
On Thursday December 6, the pair was ousted into second position by Team Who Dares Wins, but still maintains they had the adventure of a lifetime.
Where it all started
Gilowey recalls seeing the call-to-entry advert with presenter Justin Bonello holding up a Yellowtail fish.
‘I am not sure if it was the look in Justin’s eye or the look in the yellowtail’s, but either way, one of them got under my skin and there was no way I was going be the guy sitting on the couch going: “I could have done that!”
Tessendorf loves road trips, braaiing and cooking, and says entering the TV show was a “no-brainer”.
Culinary firsts
There were a few culinary firsts on the trip, such as cooking and eating tongue, which Gilowey describes as “epic”. Their strategy was to try to think like Bonello pre-empting his challenges and being mentally prepared for anything he threw at them. ‘We didn’t miss much when it came to figuring out what the challenge would be before we got to it,’ Tessendorf said.
Transkei episode
‘We didn’t enjoy the challenge where we had to cook in the Transkei. For some reason we were just not into it, but luckily we got the white aprons there so we didn’t have to compete and we ended up chilling in the Kei.’
Winning the coveted ‘white aprons’ and thus escaping the elimination challenge was especially sentimental to Gilowey, since it happened on the anniversary of his mother’s death and the Kei was her favourite place.
The winning team, Braai Master, Laertes “Tubby” Melidonis and Braai Buddy, Elaine Ensor-Smith and, gave R100 000 of their half a million rand cash prize to the two runner-up teams to share.
Where to from here
While Rust n Dust isn’t completely happy with finishing second, they say it has inspired them to push forward with new projects. ‘If we’d won we’d be planning a long trip to the Transkei and sitting on our asses,’ Tessendorf said.
Instead, the pair is shooting the pilot of their own TV show about craft beer and braaiing, and is hoping to be back on South African TV screens in 2013.
Follow Lauren Cohen on Twitter @laurencohen