Alex Casey: My Kitchen Rules delivers with that authentic taste of Kiwi

Laurence and Paul struggled with their pasta dish, but were spot on with that metaphor.

Alex Casey is obsessed with My Kitchen Rules to the point where she started stalking some of the reality cooking show's contestants.

The first season of My Kitchen Rules NZ did something very strange to me. I watched and recapped every single episode of it on the internet, eventually writing close to 20,000 words on the local competitive cooking show.

I stalked, interviewed and befriended some of the contestants. I even found myself trapped in the Corporate Dads' boardroom months after the show aired, still entranced by their interesting original butter at a charity event.

In short, I absolutely lost my mind.

Unfortunately, It's happened again. We're two episodes in and I'm already obsessed. If you didn't catch it last season, the premise is that teams of home cooks from across the country each take turns hosting their own instant restaurant. Judged by celebrity chefs Gareth Stewart and Ben Bayly, and each other, several teams are eliminated and the rest continue on to perform high pressure challenges in the MKR kitchen until one is crowned the almighty winner. For now, we remain in the blissful television oasis of instant restaurant heaven.

What I like about My Kitchen Rules is that it consistently strikes a perfect balance between the raucous social experiment of Come Dine With Me and the alienating jus-drenched wizardry of Masterchef. Where Masterchef traps competitors to a futuristic industrial kitchen to be screamed at by a range of enraged celebrity chefs, My Kitchen Rules creeps into homes and gets under people's skin.

Yes, the cooks have to be good - but they also have to be likeable. Their guests' scoring can lead them to victory, or break them faster than Hannah's flan base dropped from a lofty oven shelf.

The new teams show a welcome diversity and, in an exciting addition this season, each represents one region. It's reminiscent of the light-hearted provincial peacocking of inter-school athletics, but this time the javelins have been replaced with praline shards. But they aren't just contestants - they are characters.

My Kitchen Rules invites us in to see people's weird fridge magnets, their own personal art projects, their confused dinner table conversations - without any of the bemused Come Dine With Me taunting. Ruth is free to reveal that she puts cheese on her two-minute noodles, just as Travis can explain that his knuckle tattoos mean "life's a one-time ride, it's not a dress rehearsal" with a disarming earnestness.

The battle of the provinces has led to a broader representation of New Zealanders than last season could have even come close to. Everything from mother and daughter pairs to suit-wearing Otago mates to correctional facility colleagues.

The standout team for me so far has to be Monique and Henry, the couple from Hawkes Bay. Frequently using te reo around the dinner table and welcoming MKR Australia's Pete Evans with a hongi, Kiwi legends like Henry are the reason I will champion My Kitchen Rules to the bitter end. Where else in the world will you see a man tentatively slurp a teaspoon of sorbet and exclaim "kawa!" instead of "sour!".

Monday night proved some will struggle more than others. Auckland's Hannah and Cathy scored an unprecedented 81/100 after serving up luxury lamb and cardamom tart. Laurence and Paul from "the 'Naki" were not so lucky, scraping through on 64 after some disastrous rustic pasta and confounding terrine. "We're at base camp, it's going to be a challenging ascent," reflects Paul, expertly creating a perfect NZ reality TV metaphor rich in Hillary history.

That's the exact kind of lingo that makes My Kitchen Rules the national treasure that it is. I can't wait to see who will knock the bastard off.

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