Taking the heat in the MasterChef Canada kitchen has Jen Jenkins boiling with confidence.
The Prince George competitor was not the winner of the 2018 edition of the CTV television program, but she did crack the Great 8. That required her to survive a number of high-stress scenarios like bouncing back from being the last to advance from the previous episode, fighting collaboratively through team challenges, advancing through a pressure test, and many other cooking tasks that pitted her against the clock, the other competitors and the discretion of the judges.
"My self-doubt is long gone. Remember at the start when I told you how that was such a big thing in my life? Never fully believing in myself? Gone. I know, now, that I am capable. It has changed me as a person," said Jenkins now that MasterChef Canada has wrapped and winner Beccy Stables has been crowned.
Jenkins didn't need to win the title to earn momentum towards her culinary dreams. Sure, the $100,000 grand prize would have been a key ingredient in reaching her ultimate goal, operating her own food truck, but she has some intermediate steps to take before that happens anyway.
One of those steps is coming up when the new semester starts and she is a student at Stratford Chefs' School. She recently moved to Ontario after a stint in Dawson Creek, and like the Okanagan, it is one of Canada's great farm-to-plate communities where agriculture is abundant and the local lifestyle is built around it.
Jenkins going to chef's school is not the only step she's taking towards foodie professionalism. You'd think someone who starred on prime time television whipping up delectable dishes at the whim of a TV production would be somehow trained in the food preparation arts, but the only kitchen Jenkins has ever cooked in is her own.
Not anymore. Since MasterChef Canada ended (the filming was done well in advance of airing, and all the competitors were sworn to strict secrecy as to the outcomes) Jenkins has been getting her first commercial experience, and it is at one of Canada's buzziest food destinations. She got hired at Backhouse Restaurant at Niagara-On-The-Lake. It's a cool climate kitchen that was named one of Canada's Top 11 restaurants in 2015 by Where Magazine and just won top honours in the People's Choice category as Canada's Best Restaurant by enRoute Magazine.
The food is prepared in wood-fired ovens or on open-fire grills right in front of the patrons. They have a staff farmer and the ingredients are sourced locally from the bounty of the hot, humid, soil-rich Niagara isthmus / Golden Horseshoe area of Southern Ontario. The menu changes with the fluctuations of the harvest.
"They took a chance on me, because I've never worked in a restaurant before. Even I didn't know how I would do, Jenkins said. "Now I'm running my own station."
She does have to take some time from regular duties to sign autographs, though.
"It doesn't happen all the time, but oooooh yeah, it happens all over the place," she said. "Everyone has been really supportive and kind. That's been great. Of course it feels strange to have people recognize me and approach me like that, but it's wonderful. This restaurant is, I think, one of the most amazing food places in Canada, I'm so proud to work here, so if I can help Backhouse in that way, that's a good thing. They have been so accommodating and encouraging of me, especially looking after my daughter. They really help me work and be a parent, and I get told by strangers how much I've inspired moms. That really hits me. No feeling is better than that. You really can be a good parent and pursue your dreams, I know that, I'm living that, and I do want other moms to know it."
It's a bit backwards, becoming a food star on TV then going to chef school and working in the food services industry afterwards, but MasterChef Canada is designed to find the best home cooks it can assemble for each season. They compete under the guidance and judgment of three real master chefs, Claudio Aprile, Michael Bonacini and Alvin Leung.
The competitors and the masters do not spend much more time together than what's seen on screen, said Jenkins, but the 12 initial competitors do truly become close and familial. The filming schedule can start at 5:30 a.m. and often goes on 14-16 hours per day. It has bonded them, no matter where in the rankings they might have finished.
Some of the competitors ran into trouble on the show when the food they were assigned to prepare fell outside their past experiences. Some might, hypothetically, be asked to recreate a model cake but have never baked before, or asked to prepare fish for the first time, or make pasta from scratch with no clue how it was done. Each competitor made the cut based on some significant strengths in the kitchen, but nonprofessional home cooks almost always have holes in their skill-base.
"Challenge yourself to try anything," Jenkins advised. "If you mess it up, that's not a bad thing, that's a lesson. Find a cookbook that excites you and start there. Then try things that make you feel uncomfortable. Explore. If you know you're weak at baking, get baking. If you don't know how to do many sauces, experiment. Look around at what's available that comes from your area, because you also learn about where that ingredient comes from and what its best uses are, what the tricks are for preparing it, and you make relationships with the producers. That's a big part of making great meals."
Food trucks are an abundant industry in the more densely populated areas of Canada. Jenkins is excited to hear about Foodie Fridays now a regular summer feature in downtown Prince George. She hopes one day to wheel her rig into the collection and celebrate her success with her fellow foodies of her hometown.
