An Interview with Gugu Mhlungu on ‘Weekend Breakfast with Gugu Mhlungu’

Recently, Gugu Mhlungu interviewed me on “Weekend Breakfast with Gugu Mhlungu” on 702. If you missed it, you can listen to the recording below. I spoke about the recipes I share here on The Roasted Dad, what it was like to win MasterChef season 4, and what it was like to be back in the studio, but this time without needing to cook! I also shared how I’ve been involved in the current season 5 from the get-go, as my company LED Lighting SA was the lighting sponsor.

Below, you can read about the interview, if you don’t want to listen to the recording.

MasterChef on 702

Gugu Mhlungu regularly features contestants from Masterchef South Africa on her show. Over the last couple of weeks, she've spoken to some of the people who've been eliminated, as we get closer and closer to finding a winner of the current season. Today, she interviewed the MasterChef winner of season 4, Shawn Godfrey. These are the questions she asked - and my answers:

You were the winner of MasterChef season 4. When you're watching at home it looks easy but I think it was quite a high pressure environment to be on TV and a tough competition. Right?

Yeah. It's an absolutely brutal competition in that. I think people forget that you're now being filmed, and you've got a time clock that is obviously running out all the time. And so you've got pressure points from all angles of having to be a TV expert almost. You have to be a cooking expert. And, suddenly now, like, when you're in a home kitchen and, something goes wrong, you can go and grab something else and redo it. Yeah. You're under the time clock. So it's a totally different ballgame of cooking on the on the set.

You surprised the season 5 contestants recently during the air fryer challenge, when you arrived on set. What was it like to be in the Masterchef SA Kitchen, but not as a contestant?

It was absolutely awesome. So there's a little bit of a background to this as well. My lighting company, LED Lighting SA, is one of the sponsors on the show. So I've been a part of the background of the show and I did the lighting design for the show. So I was already there from from early stages. But it was absolutely incredible to be with the contestants and just watching them. I actually was dying to get behind the the bench again and start cooking. That adrenaline rush was there again.

What happens after you win MasterChef South Africa?

I won a million rand which was probably the biggest change to my life. It's a like winning the lottery. So we were able to invest in our property. But also MasterChef is a big show, and so people get to know you. And I got to meet the most amazing people over this journey. I've traveled the world cooking. I've just cook up in Uganda recently, Germany. And I've actually just been asked to cook in Calgary, Canada in December this coming year. So really, things do change in that sense, your access to people, going to different places and cook, and the exposure just changes totally for your life.

What would you say, you know, is your signature dish?

I like to reinvent myself quite often. So probably every 2 or 3 months, I go down a path of trying to make a new dish that I really love. But, something that people always seem to love is a bavette steak, which is a very thin steak with lots of flavour and do it rare with normally a South African inspired chimichurri with coriander. which

Tell us about the Roasted Dad?

The Roasted Dad was formed just before I went on MasterChef. This is where I started blogging, sharing recipes, and just building content during COVID because it was putting up energy while we're stuck in our homes. And then with MasterChef, obviously, it really started to grow. The website The Roasted Dad is where I'm also blogging about MasterChef right now. I share new recipes almost every week on there, and also list all my events. But The Roasted Dad has become my creative outlet because I've got a business life, obviously, I've got my factory, but the Roasted Dad is my culinary world, my PR world, and it's a lot of fun. It's something I share with my wife and my family as well, and it's become a little bit of an outlet, for experiencing that creativity of mine.

Are the recipes for really busy parents and individuals who don't have a lot of time?

When I first started the blog, I was doing too many complex recipes, and I realised people couldn't follow along because there was just too much effort. And while I am willing to spend four hours on a recipe, the average person is not going to want to spend four hours of their Saturday finding ingredients. And so the last year, I have really been focusing on easy to do, quick home, a lot of it outdoor cooking, but also fun recipes that you can do with the kids, like simple fluffy flapjacks. There are nice salads, a lot of meat dishes as well. But there are really South African inspired, easier dishes to follow along using just four or five ingredients that you can get from Pick ‘n Pay. And so it is a really nice way to basically grab a recipe during the week. And often, you can even do it within half an hour.

And the recipes are all available there for free.

I see you have your calendar for your upcoming events. I don't see any Joburg ones yet?

You caught me out. You just have to invite me then.

Gugu Mhlungu: Shawn, thank you so much for joining us this morning and giving us your time on a Sunday.

Listening to the Interview

While Gugu Mhlungu interviewed me over the phone, I was hiding away in a separate room so that the kids’ excitement wouldn’t be audible during the radio interview! They absolutely loved hearing their Dad on TV, although it’s confusing for them too!

This was even more the case when I featured on the 8th episode of MasterChef South Africa season 5, as referee during the cook-off between Herman Lensing and Chanel. Harvey (2.5 years old) was most confused to see his Dad both on TV, and sitting next to him on the couch!

I never want to forget the great opportunities and the privileges winning MasterChef South Africa has given me and my wife and children. It has been one crazy journey but an incredibly fun one. I have always loved a good adventure, and this has probably been the best rollercoaster ride I have ever been on!

Want to Watch MasterChef South Africa?

MasterChef South Africa Season premiered on Saturday July 13 at 7:30 pm on S3, and new episodes are aired every Saturday.
If you miss it an episode, it will be rebroadcast every Sunday on S2 at 6:30 pm and on Wednesdays on S3 at 6:00 pm.

Want to know more about MasterChef Season 5?

I have written a blog post about the MasterChef season 5 contestants, and summaries for each of the previous MasterChef episodes.

About Shawn Godfrey

Shawn Godfrey is an entrepreneur based in Cape Town, South Africa. After the Covid-19 lockdown saw his business in financial distress, cooking was the creative outlet that helped to keep him sane. To keep track of his recipes, and encourage friends and families to join him, he starts his instagram account The Roasted Dad.

Fast-forward to late 2021 - on a whim Shawn (encouraged by his wife Lianne) enters MasterChef South Africa. It is a crazy time of life: running a 200 people business and struggling to keep it profitable, two small children with a third on the way, and about to move into a new house. But when Shawn gets selected to be one of the 20 contestants participating in the fourth season of MasterChef South Africa, he decides to go all in. Leaving his 7-month-pregnant wife to look after their then three and one-year-old children, he battles it out and comes back home five weeks later with the trophy and a million rand prize money in his pocket.

It all started with an Instagram account, but The Roasted Dad is so much more now. Shawn has stayed his entrepreneurial self and whilst he hosts Private Dinner Parties and Cook-with-Me Demos, does Restaurant Take-Overs, he still runs the lighting company and several other businesses.

On his blog, Shawn shares mostly recipes, but also Restaurant Reviews and Accommodation Reviews, and gives an insight into the wild and wonderful life he leads together with his wife Lianne, and their three children Aiden (6), Olivia (4) and Harvey (2).

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