Posted by Woonsocket Call, RI on June 23, 2008 at 10:09:20:
Local chef’s shot as ‘The Next Food Network Star’ is so close she can taste it
Woonsocket woman is a finalist in popular reality cooking show
By RUSS OLIVO
WOONSOCKET — Chef Jennifer Cochrane is used to tossing around pots and pans, but she’s usually not aiming for the TV set.
All that’s changed now that she’s a finalist on “The Next Food Network Star.” For non-foodies, that’s a reality-based TV series in which a handful of previously anonymous chefs compete for a chance to star in their own six-episode cooking show on the national network that gave rise to such celebrity chefs as Emeril Lagasse, Mario Batali and the now-omnipresent Rachel Ray.
Cochrane, 32, of Flora Street, says all she can think of when she watches the program is how she might have been better than the competition — if not a better cook, then at least better television.
“You’re constantly questioning yourself — why didn’t I do this, or why didn’t I do that,” says Cochrane. “I’ve never been in a competition before. I was nervous the whole time — scared, insecure, constantly comparing myself to other contestants and their culinary knowledge.”
In person, Cochrane hardly seems nervous about anything. She’s irrepressibly talkative, especially on the subjects of food and family. They seem to belong together for Cochrane who, expecting her second child, has been quietly nursing an idea for a kid-friendly cooking show for some time. So a spot on “The Next Food Network Star” is a shot at a dream job, she says.
Executive chef at Gepetto’s Pizzeria in Providence, Cochrane was joking about getting her 4-year-old daughter on TV last October when a colleague reminded her that the Food Network was auditioning in Boston for “The Next Food Network Star.” The next day, she marched up to Boston with her sous chef from Gepetto’s, German Hernandez, and a motherlode of cooking equipment.
She whipped up a “B-52 Tiramisu” a fluffy cake made with Grand Marnier, Kahlua and Irish Crème liqueurs. As Rachel Ray might say, “Yumm-oh!”
“They called me back the next day,” Cochrane recalled
But it wasn’t until the night before Christmas Eve that Cochrane, one of 10,000 entrants from around the country, learned she was to be one of 10 finalists for “The Next Food Network Star.” The news stunned Cochrane, who started thinking about how she was going to afford an apartment she wouldn’t be living in for five weeks while she was taping the show, practically around the clock, and who was going to care for her daughter.
She wound up sending the child to live with her grandparents in Seattle, Washington, while she put all her belongings into storage. Along with the rest of the contestants, she moved into the Food Network’s studio digs known as The Carriage House, near New York City’s famed Chelsea Marketplace - and prepared for battle.
Now in its fourth season, the show was taped between Jan. 17 and Feb. 28 and is currently airing Sundays at 10 p.m. on the Food Network (Cox Channel 28). Although the judges, a panel of Food Network honchos that includes Iron Chef Bobby Flay, have already chosen the winner, only three episodes of the show have aired thus far. Cochrane is sworn to secrecy about the outcome, but she can say what everybody else already knows - she isn’t one of two contestants who’ve already been told: “You’re not going to be the next Food Network star.”
A native of Washington State, Cochrane was living in Providence when she put her belongings into storage. After the taping, however, she moved to Woonsocket to be closer to her family and because, “I like it here,” she says.
Cochrane, who has been tinkering with cookbooks and kitchenware since she was seven, began working for her restaurateur parents when she was 15 - and has never stopped cooking since. Although she completed a few courses in culinary arts at Johnson & Wales University, Cochrane says she is essentially a self-taught, hands-on cook. In addition to Gepetto’s, she works at Brigg’s Pizza in Attleboro. There may be a few things she still needs to learn, but Cochrane says she can cook a lot more than pizza.
“I do what I know,” she says. “I like a lot of American food, Irish food, Italian food.”
Beyond tossing them into some unexpectedly demanding cooking situations (feed 30 people on a bumpy train ride out of New Jersey) under intensely limited time constraints, “The Next Food Network Star” contestants must demonstrate how their culinary creations meld with their vision for a proposed TV program. Cochrane’s concept: Kid-friendly meals for the whole family.
Competing in “The Next Food Network Star” is an enormously intrusive experience that contestants appear to tolerate for a shot at national exposure, however fleeting it might turn out, says Cochrane. In addition to recording the cooking competitions, Food Network cameras dog contestants relentlessly, homing in on everything - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Even if you win, there’s no guarantee the Food Network will pick up your jackpot show for renewal.
The cameras aren’t just everywhere - sometimes they’re in your face, says Cochrane. From dawn to dusk, “you have people watching you with a camera. They follow you everywhere unless you’re sleeping or you’re in the bathroom.”
It can get pretty annoying and, like much of the ubiquitous reality TV genre, “The Next Food Network Star” isn’t above hyping some contrived, behind-the-scenes drama playing out between contestants. But Cochrane says it’s all been worth it.
“It’s nerve-wracking and scary, but this was really an awesome opportunity to be able to do something like that,” she says.
Win or lose, Cochrane says the experience has helped her fine-tune her idea for a child-oriented cooking show into a concept that is ready to fly on TV. Certainly, she says, it would be a program that would let the Food Network, or some other purveyor of pots-and-pans TV, to capture a new audience of stay-at-home moms, single parents and others who are, at the moment, tuning out.
“I’m really excited about it,” she says. “I really think it’s a good idea. As a mother I try to watch the Food Network all the time, but my daughter’s not interested.”