Chris Syprou

Hey, it's Chris Spear with you.

Welcome to The Weekend Briefing, where we get to know the humans behind the headlines.

And the human joining me this weekend is someone who has what a lot of people, myself included, would consider a dream job, getting paid to eat.

Now, Sophia Levin does a lot more than just eat.

She's a seasoned food critic and presenter who is one of the judges on MasterChef Australia.

And while she says she's no Nigella Lawson, she can and will drop words that'll make you think otherwise.

Now, Sophia is back on our screens this Sunday when MasterChef returns for its 18th season.

And in this chat, she dishes on how she landed that dream gig and what she's learned from sharing a tasting bench with names like Po Ling Yao, Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver and most importantly...

most recently, Robert Irwin.

But we go beyond the MasterChef kitchen and all things food and get into how she ran a, quote, Spice Girl dictatorship, her love of travel, and also losing her dad to motor neuron disease, a disease she's now committed more than ever to helping find a cure for.

And a little later in the show is, of course, the weekend list where Sacha Babagat and Helen Smith will recommend what to watch, see, do, eat and listen to.

But first, here's my chat with the wonderful Sophia Levin.

Sophia Levin, welcome to The Weekend Briefing.

Alright, so I've been looking at the official labels that the world and the media like to give you in the lead up to this episode and the main ones obviously are MasterChef Judge, Culinary Travel Journalist and a 30-something year old Melburnian.

I really like that last one, that one, because I was like, is she trying to hide her age or whatever is the mystery?

I love it.

But my goal for us is to come up with three new descriptors, fresh descriptors that the world can use to describe you.

And I want you to kick us off with the first one.

What is the first descriptor?

Okay.