by Gina Scarpa, Allison L. Nowacki and Bryan J. Polk

 

On this week's Next Food Network Star, Mary Beth was dealt a bad hand when she drew Penny as her sous chef for an Iron Chef cooking challenge. On top of it, she lost against Vic in the rack of lamb challenge and the judges decided to send her home. Today, we talked to the food writer turned chef in an exclusive interview about her time on Food Network Star.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Tell us a little about the writing that you were doing before Food Network Star?
A. Mary Beth: I'm still doing it! I'm the restaurant critic for DC Magazine. I also do occasional local radio and TV spots; those are more on home cooking.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Your writing career seemed to help you in some competitions and hinder you in others. Ultimately, do you think it helped or hurt your competition in the show?
A. Mary Beth: Great writing starts with paying attention, and I paid rapt attention to the judges' critiques. This is the overall challenge of the entire show, approaching the judges' criticism with my own critical eye and using the comments to create a better me. That said, a writer has no experience cooking for large numbers of people or under stringent time pressure, so my profession didn't prepare me for Food Network Star challenges the way cooking on the line would have.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Can you elaborate more on the statement that you made that you support the "mission" of Food Network?
A. Mary Beth: At its core, Food Network entertains. TV can educate in the process, but it must entertain to survive. Beyond that, Food Network has been groundbreaking in American's knowledge and awareness of food in the past decade. That awareness has influenced what we eat and how we think about food, and - if you'll indulge my Washington DC roots - paved the way for programs like Mrs. Obama's Let's Move. Food Network has pulled chefs out of their basement kitchens to make them stars, and stars inspire us to be better. If we can be better through food, that's a mission I believe in.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Why do you think that you and Penny were such enemies over other contestants?
A. Mary Beth: Ugh. Well, I wasn't the first, Alicia and Orchid came before me. I just lasted the longest and that's probably why it was the most intense. Honestly, I was surprised because I've never had that sort of experience, not even in grammar school.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Did you think that she tried to sabotage you in the Iron Chef challenge? Would the outcome have been different if you had you gotten paired with Jyll or Chris?
A. Mary Beth: I can't jump into anyone else's mind. I know that I made culinary mistakes that were all my own. Iron Chef is the hardest challenge even under the best of circumstances, and I'm proud that I finished dishes of ideas that Bobby Flay "loved." The execution just wasn't fully there, and that is remedied by time and space.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: What was your proudest moment on the show?
A. Mary Beth: My proudest personal moment was putting my true self and personality out there for people to like or dislike - it's tough to be judged on who you really are, because if they don't like you, where do you go from there? But I didn't want to go home for being someone else am I threw my dream in the ring. Think I fared okay! My proudest culinary moment was roasting the whole duck and everyone declaring it delicious. I do a ton of duck parts, particularly confiting thighs on the first cold Sunday of the year, so my family has duck confit all winter long. But a whole duck is tough because each piece is perfect at a different temperature. Roasting the whole duck, "courageous" as Bobby Flay called it, shows the best of who I am - a quick learner who works until I get something right.

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: To be a food writer and get to meet all these Food Network celebrities must have been very exciting. Do you have a favorite that you got to meet/work with?
A. Mary Beth: Ina, Ina, Ina. Ina Garten left her job as a nuclear policy analyst in DC to buy a tiny gourmet food shop (The Barefoot Contessa) in a summer community decades ago, and now she's besties with Nora Ephron and in the Christmas window at Barney's. She's the perfect combination of style and substance, and I want her lovely, delicious, sane life to rub off on me. I admire Bobby Flay, who left high school to cook and now runs a business empire that makes life better through food. Once during the competition he said to me, complimenting, "You're smarter than I am." I remember thinking, "YOU'RE the one living a dream, who's really the smart one here?"

 

Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Do you intend to go back to food writing or do you want to pursue television now?
A. Mary Beth: All of my work comes from wanting to make the world better through food, and there's nothing like TV to get a message to millions of people. I'd love to work in food television...it might just be more of a travel/storytelling/lifestyle show. But I will always write - it's just a totally different medium to get a message across.

 

 

Food Network Star airs Sundays at 9/8c on Food Network

 

(Image courtesy of Food Network)

 

 

Follow Gina @ginascarpa and "Like" her on Facebook!  Catch more of Allison and Bryan at notmakefriends.com