With strict instructions from the production company to transport our audition cold dish in cooler boxes or bags at between 0 C – 4 degrees centigrade and stern warning that we wouldn’t even be able to make it in to the tasting audition if our dish failed the temperature test, we shifted our boxes from scrap of shade to scrap of shade as we wound our way round the Pivot Conference centre Piazza.

We all had the same fear. Our cool boxes would fail us if we stayed out in the sun and the line too long and we would fall at the first hurdle, the temperature test.

Jana du Toit, a publishing student from Pretoria, in front of me, was fairly panicked at the thought of what was happening to her Three Berry Panacotta inside her cooler box after the long drive and hours of waiting She was a little less anxious after she managed to wangle it a short stay in a nearby hotel’s kitchen fridge, but still she was fearful

Maurice van Heerden, directly behind me behind me, shared my more fatalistic view – whatever was going to happen would, and at this stage we had to trust to the gods. He had a courgette tasting platter. He chose courgettes because he just happens to grow them in his garden.

As we exchanged stories we realised we’d all spent weeks preparing the same dish, forcing family and friends, and in Jana’s case,  even work colleagues, to taste and comment just one more time. Now we were finally lining up along with a couple of thousand other hopefuls, to place our agonised-over audition dish in front of 25 SA Chef Association professionals.

After a two hour wait in line we arrived at the registration desk, handed in our recipes and were allotted our audition numbers. Then everything got frantic.

Ushers directed us round the corner where we jostled for table space to plate up our dishes (no implements, knives allowed), then stepped, alone, into the room of waiting chef judges.

First stop - the feared temperature test in which a hand held device hovered over each dish.

The person in front of me was turned back. Maurice and Jana were nowhere in sight.

I was through.

I presented my dish – on its plain white plate as instructed - to my designated chef taster.

“What is it?” he asked (you really couldn’t easily tell what was what at first glance) and scoured my written recipe

I explained.

“Sounds an interesting flavour combination,” he said and scooped up a taste of carrot and orange crème fraiche roulade with just a hint of caraway.

How did you make it?

I began telling him, and then he waved me on, “You’re through, “he said.

In the next room those of us who’d made it were high on adrenaline.

“I thought I was going to die, someone sitting next to me said, “My chef told me he didn’t like chicken and there I was with my Asian chicken salad….”  For the first time people started wondering what was up for grabs in this TV reality show. The prizes had only just been announced and few of us even knew what they were.

There were other tales of wonder and a camera crew did some interviews. The tension rose as our numbers were called and we passed on, in groups of five foodies to the “content” interview stage.

I waited alongside Christina Mashobane who admitted she had also found the audition brief of “a cold dish” challenging.

“In Hammanskraal where I come from, and in my culture, when we think of a cold dish, we think jelly and custard. I knew I had to make something else,” she told me as we waited. Her solution - a salad of chicken livers on a bed of greens.

Also in the group with us was  Nitsa, Greek mother, meal maker and teacher; Samson, doing well in I.T. who’s been cooking since he was 12 and Rene from Riverlea who wants to help the local kids escape a life of drugs and alcohol by opening a restaurant and cooking school.

In the interview room a young woman sat behind a table, told us what a tiring day she’d had so far and lethargically asked us to tell her a little about ourselves. We launched into passionate depictions of our cooking dreams and aspirations.

One of us made it through to the next round.

It wasn’t me.

Was I terribly devastated?  Not really. Like many others who bombed out at that stage, just getting a professional nod for my dish, and knowing “I could have been a contender,” was good enough.

But I hear some people intend flying off to try their luck in the auditions in other cities.

The next MasterChef  auditions take place in Cape Town on December 10 and Durban on December 17.