No way slytherin! Julie totally didn't deserve to win and the judges were playing on the pro-underdog mentality of Australians and banking on an ordinary, dull, crowd-pleasing cookbook rather than selecting the best chef.
Her invention tests were always a struggle, never looked stunning and she is a sloppy, messy cook with no time management skills and a complete inability to cope under pressure. Every judging panel they were constantly making excuses for her poor performance and she was held to a much lower standard than the other contestants.
Poh is more creative, has a far better food knowledge and consistently plated up better dishes which looked incredible next to Julie's late 90s masterpieces. Unfortunately she is more of a niche market, producing food that is edgy, challenging and risky. For this reason she isn't as good a prospect as a "housewife done good" is.
Julie is great, but she will go up the coast and cook her pleasant little simple homestyle bistro food for the next 20 years creating some tiny ripples of interest for the first 12 months as the "Masterchef winner's restaurant" then no-one will ever hear from her again. Poh and Justine really had the potential to achieve something spectacular, and I'm glad to see they probably still will, despite not winning the money.
