Last time Mount Isa cousins Jac and Shaz were on television series My Kitchen Rules, they ended up with a billboard in the north west Queensland city bearing their faces.
Jacqui Bakhash and Sharon Sellings made it to the grand final of the television series when they competed in 2015, giving their hometown a whole lot of publicity.
With the duo now back for My Kitchen Rules: The Rivals, the billboard in question has been a hot topic of conversation around the dinner tables at the instant restaurants but it's not because Jac and Shaz are bragging.
"Jac and I never, ever, ever bring the billboard up, it's everybody else that's obsessed with the billboard," Shaz said.
"We can't escape it."
Since their last time on the show, Jac has kept busy with her fashion boutique Loft 23, formerly known as Oasis Fashion, while Shaz has traded her job at the Mount Isa courthouse for a role as a Thermomix team leader.
"We get a good bit of traffic through, especially when MKR played last time we got people from all over Australia popping in for a visit to get photos, then I'd forward them down to Shaz at the courthouse down the road and they'd get photos with Shaz," Jac said.
For the most part though, the cousins say life hasn't really changed that much.
"When there's all the hype of you first doing it and then the grand final, for the next 12 or 18 months we were getting little trips away and doing little cooking demos and things like that but it's always nice to come home to your family," Shaz said.
"Jac used to love being able to say 'nah, we're has-beens now' and now it's likely to all start again."
As for their cooking style, the duo believes they're bringing more finesse to the competition this time around but have stuck to their ethos of providing good, honest food.
Jac said they had probably cut their meal sizes down by half.
"No more mining size portions," Shaz added.
"We've probably learnt restraint, so the same style of food, just a little bit more refined and pulled back a bit to be classic pairings and beautiful plating.
"We cook what we know. Quite honestly we can't go down to the shop and buy caviar so it tends not to feature on our menu.
"The good thing from our perspective is we really are using the ingredients that absolutely anybody can go and get."
Once again, the Mount Isa community is behind the women.
"Everyone's really positive and they'd love to know what's going on but we're pretty good at keeping our lips sealed," Shaz said.
