It’s every cook for themselves in the MasterChef Canada kitchen and Edmonton will see some representation this season. Jainesh Bali is a home cook from Edmonton and one of 16 contestants looking to garnish their way to victory on Season 9. “It was a dream come true. It felt like something that I was training for for my entire life, and I finally got the experience that I’ve always been wanting, to showcase Fijian food,” Bali said. Bali’s family hails from Fiji and his cooking inspiration comes, in part, from his mother and grandmother. “My grandma was probably one of the biggest influences on my food journey, the reason was because she knew how to forage, she knew how to take what she had and be able to prepare it into something bigger,” Bali said. “We used to walk around, and she used to just grab crab apples from the trees … and she developed this recipe that’s really typical of the Indo-Fijian cuisine in Alberta, which is crab apple achar or pickled crab apples with a little bit of mustard.” Bali was working as a change management consultant in Toronto in 2020 when he started selling sauces using his grandmother’s recipes at local markets. “I had a business making vegan foods for grocery stores all through Toronto, and the sauces really took off,” he said. “(The sauce) got a really good reception because it’s a different flavour - pickled lemons. “A lot of people don’t really understand it, but once you eat it, it’s something that you’ll just keep going back to.” Now back in Edmonton, Bali plans to set up shop here once settled. MasterChef Canada Season 9 slices and dices starting Sept. 22 at 5 p.m. MT on CTV.
