Eliminated MasterChef contestant Peter Kritikides has spoken to Lawyers Weekly about his time on the show, describing it as a full-on but "awesome" experience.
The Lander & Rogers property lawyer from Melbourne was the first of four lawyer contestants to be knocked out of the reality TV show, but said the experience has changed his life.
"How do I explain it? It has been such a whirlwind. My life over the last few months has really been quite amazing," he said.
"But it's good to come back to some sort of normal life now, because I have been living in a complete bubble. You are up [in the MasterChef house] with 24 really different people with a common interest in food, so it has been such an awesome experience."
Kritikides, who has recently returned to work, is still getting used to being back in the office but said his colleagues have been kind in not piling on too much work after his hiatus of several months.
"My shelves are still pretty bare, so everyone has been pretty good about not loading me up with too much work," he said.
"There has been a lot of touching base with clients, who are all pretty excited about it all, and just easing back into it."
Despite the fact Kritikides is back in the swing of something close to normality, it seems his life may have been irrevocably altered.
"Six months ago, there is no way that I would have thought that I'd have been on reality TV. [I'm a] bloke who has gone from school straight to uni to a job in the law and was happy with how it was all tracking along, and then all of a sudden, after playing the straight bat my whole life, decided to do something crazy," he said.
"At the end of the day, I'm a happy lawyer, if that is not an oxymoron, but I am really excited about my wife and I having a bit of fun and starting up a little side business [in the food industry] to keep us busy."
But for now, Kritikides is happy to be back at work, though he does appear to be enjoying his newfound celebrity status.
"The conversations by the water cooler are now pretty much always MasterChef related," he laughs.
"But I don't mind the attention. I actually love the attention, so I am happy to play along."
Keep an eye out for Kritikides' full profile in an upcoming Lawyers Weekly edition.
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