TV review
Kitchen Impossible
Tim Mälzer and the 82-year-old who cooks into the hearts of the audience
Tim Mälzer vs. Monika Fuchs (left): the old professional against the woman who cooks hearts
© TVNOW / Markus Hertrich
Kitchen Impossible is back with a Christmas episode. Tim Mälzer’s opponent: 82-year-old Monika Fuchs, who wears the whole episode with her charm.
Kitchen Impossible is Tim Mälzer. Tim Mälzer is Kitchen Impossible. But how good an episode really is depends on Mälzer’s opponent: in. Yesterday’s special episode is absolute proof of that. His opponent was 82-year-old Monika Fuchs, who served her guests every Friday before the start of the pandemic at her home in Hamburg-Eppendorf. Tim Mälzer too.
Sounds incredible, but it’s true. In April 2015, Fuchs opened a restaurant in her living room. For years she cooked for her children and several foster children. She used to be a journalist. Cosmopolitan on the move. She got into the catering business and blossomed. She cooked for Reinhold Beckmann and his editorial team for 16 years – until the talk show was discontinued. She was 77 years old at the time. And didn’t feel like stopping cooking.
Unfortunately, the pandemic brought an abrupt end to her restaurant, with which, by the way, she made no profit, but donated all of the income. In 2018, Fuchs started her YouTube channel, also because the guests asked for their recipes. She was a guest on Mälzer’s podcast “Fiete Gastro” and after “long hesitation”, as she says herself, she finally agreed to the duel against Mälzer.
Here was cooked:
In the previous season there were duels only in German-speaking countries. In this special episode, too, the pandemic-related measures are followed. Monika Fuchs has cooked twice in Hamburg, Tim Mälzer in Hanover and Berlin.
That was cooked:
Tim Mälzer in Hanover: Potzhühnchen in the “Villa Potzlach”
Monika Fuchs in Hamburg: Tamales in the Hamburg trendy restaurant “Salt & Silver”
Tim Mälzer in Berlin: Adobo and Halo-Halo in the “Pinoy” restaurant
Monika Fuchs in Hamburg: oriental curd dumplings in the starred restaurant “Piment”
Tim Mälzer, the little sausage in a plastic casing
Tim Mälzer makes it easy for himself: He asks Monika Fuchs about her weak points beforehand and presses exactly into the wound: Stars / trendy restaurant and baking. Fuchs is horrified: “I have demoted him. To a small, small sausage with a plastic skin. Not even in a natural casing. That is the greatest disgrace with sausage.”
Monika Fuchs herself shows class. She sends maltsters to a real museum, the “Villa Potzlach”. Many works of art by her deceased husband, the niche artist Walter Reinhardt, are on display in the “Potzlach Museum”, which has been lovingly designed by the original cook Birgit Jahn-Reinhardt. The dish of the original cook is to be understood as a homage to her husband. In Berlin, Mälzer has to cook Filipino. From her time in the Philippines, Fuchs has two favorite dishes that she associates with many memories: Adobo and Halo-Halo. Mälzer does well in both tasks, the fact that he is a professional chef naturally benefits him. In the end he is there with 13.6 points.
Monika Fuchs, on the other hand, taught herself to cook, and many of the hand movements do not sit well or take longer. Nevertheless: She doesn’t want to throw in the towel, even if she has absolutely no idea what ends up in the saucepan at the trendy bar “Salt & Silver”. She confuses black garlic with sepia ink, sweet potato with pumpkin. But at least: She is creative and says: “What I can’t do with cooking, I make up for with charm”.
In her second job in Hamburg, which is only a few minutes away from where she lives, she shines, although desserts are her weak points. Even head chef Wahabi Nouri from “Pimento” is enthusiastic when Fuchs prepares the oriental curd dumplings. She wraps the whole team around her fingers, which promptly lend a hand and listen to her instructions with “Oui chef”. With 10.6 points she is three points behind Mälzer, but her result is convincing and even more so is her personality. Nouri raves: “Today, since I met Monika, I love Hamburg a little more”.