Profession: comedian
Signature dish: lamb tagine
A Julie Goodwin fan, Josh Thomas is excited about taking part in Celebrity MasterChef but isn't sure that he's prepared.
"I think my secret weapon is to keep everyone's expectations of me low. I never remember the good things that I cook, only my bad experiences."
"A while ago I threw a dinner party that Good News Week's Claire Hooper came to. I made this slow cooked, seven hour roast lamb with 24 cloves of garlic! Anyway everyone was waiting and waiting expecting an incredible dish, and I took it out of the oven and it was burnt. The oven temperature dial was broken and I had it on about 70 degrees too hot."
Josh loves to cook, but even as a child his cooking experiences have been characterised by disaster.
"I'd say I'm a clumsy cook – I'm really messy. I'm not sure if I'm actually that good at it but I really love it."
"When I was a kid my mum didn't let me bake as I was so messy. One day when she was out I decided to make Gingerbread men but got confused and thought ginger was the same thing as garlic. So I ended up making garlic bread men. I still ate them all though!"
He enjoys slow cooking dishes such as tagines and curries, but has a real soft spot for puddings.
"I like making desserts – my favourites are rhubarb and custard and bread and butter pudding. I've got an ice cream maker and I make all sorts of things with that. I've made a rhubarb sorbet, and my pumpkin pie icecream was really good."
Having watched a lot of the first series of MasterChef Australia, Josh is familiar with the format and one thing is worrying him.
"On Ready Steady Cook all I had to do was chop some brazil nuts, and I still couldn't handle it when Peter Everett tried to talk to me – I just wanted him to go away!"
"My biggest fear is failing on television. I'm usually pretty good under pressure because my attitude in general is 'Que sera sera' but cooking for me is different."
"I'm worried that I'll be stirring something over the stove, George will come around and ask me about my dish and I'll just say: "F***! F***! Just go away and leave me alone, I'm concentrating!'"
"They are going to be thinking 'Josh Thomas is mental!'"
Josh recently ate at one of George's restaurants, but is most interested to hear what Matt has to say.
"I'd really like to impress Matt Cravat – he's the coolest judge."
"I'll be fine with criticism but they'd better not go too hard. I want to know if the dish is crap but not for them to be too honest. Being a comedian isn't really going to give me any benefit in the competition but it does mean that I can give the judges s***."
