MasterChef's Matt Preston charms the crowd at IKEA Canberra

He had the crowd at IKEA Canberra laughing over their meatballs on Friday as he gave a class on cooking from the Swedish food market, with a twist. While also throwing in a few choice titbits from his years of writing about food and creating his own recipes.

The antithesis of the pretentious foodie, Preston told the crowd he was "rubbish at plate-ing up", "frozen peas are genuinely better than fresh peas", pasta will never cook properly if you don't salt the water properly, one of his favourite kitchen utensils was the humble spatula and he was unlikely to buy one of those "$2500 slushy makers", without naming any names but we think you know what appliance he's talking about.

"If you've got the money to spend, it's brilliant. But I think there are better ways to spend your money," he said.

Preston told the crowd his favourite things to use in the kitchen were a stick blender, microplane grater, silicon spatula and rice cooker.

"Go to Chinatown or the Chinese grocery store and buy [a rice cooker]. It'll be the best $20, $30 you'll ever spend," he said.

Oh, and upgrade your wooden spoons, even though you may love that one you've had for years.

"Get your old wooden spoon, put it in a cup of boiling water and then have a sniff and you'll say, 'Thank you Matt Preston for making me get a new wooden spoon'," he said, with a laugh.

The crowd was keen to get selfies with Preston, who was sans his signature cravat, but Canberra fashion designer Bronwynne Jones caught his attention by presenting him with a cravat from her Infinitie range, made from recycled ties.

"He's just so down-to-earth, really natural," Bronwynne said. "And I love the fact he does tasty, easy food for the people who can't cook."

The cravat, in brilliant oranges and deep purples, was made from four recycled ties to complement the purple suit Preston usually wore on MasterChef.

"Those four ties, I can't tell you specifically where they came from, but it would be an op shop somewhere in Canberra," she said.

Preston is also passionate about recycling food and avoiding food waste. He is a long-time director of SecondBite, an organisation that redistributes rescued food to those in need.

SecondBite CEO Jim Mullan was at the IKEA Canberra event, telling the crowd there was $20-30 billion of food wasted in Australia each year, with 4 million people in Australia accessing food relief.

Preston said home cooks could make deliberate choices to help avoid waste, from using the roots and stems of vegetables in dishes, eating fish on the day it's bought ("It'll never be fresher"), always putting leftovers at the front of the fridge so they were always front of mind and having a Leftovers Sunday on which the kids could only eat what's there.

Preston and SecondBite recently called for a ministry of food to be created to deal with Australia's food waste epidemic.

"You have so many different partners in government doing little things. You really don't have anyone directing this across government policy. Would I like to see a ministry of food and a minister of food? That would be a great idea,'' Preston said.

Back to the pantomime of the cooking demonstration, Preston said his worst foods were those which tasted of "poo or wee", usually sausages made in France from various entrails.

"Otherwise, I'll try everything once," he said.

As to MasterChef, Preston said it remained an unpredictable beast. He pointed to the favourite from the show's second season, Marion Grasby, so perfect she almost had "bluebirds fluttering around her head", who was actually bundled out early in a pressure test.

"So, keep watching and don't gamble, because, invariably, the bookies always win," Preston said.