A year on from her MasterChef final Kelly Young has her own TV cooking show and a master plan for the future. By Kerri Jackson.
If there's anybody who knows the kind of eye-watering pressure the last two MasterChef finalists went through in their final cook-off, it's last year's runner-up Kelly Young.
It's partly why she hasn't watched much of MasterChef's second season - stress memories. "I've watched snippets but it's weird to watch, it brings back a lot of memories. I really feel for some of them and get really nervous."
She wasn't one to guess who would win in the final but she does say she was a big fan of Cameron Petley, the Putaruru chicken farmer who was an early favourite to win before he was sent home a few weeks ago.
"He was just a really good cook - and a really humble guy."
Young does wish, though, that the season one contestants had the same exposure to expert tuition from judges Simon Gault and Ray McVinnie that season two contestants get in the Masterclass episodes. "Yeah that was a bummer, we didn't get any of that."
Young nabbed herself her own masterclass, when she was hired straight from the show to work in Gault's Euro restaurant kitchen in Auckland.
"The skills I saw in Euro were just amazing. The pastry chef in particular was one of the most amazing chefs I've ever worked with. The art that he comes up wit - and it is art - is really inspiring. He was a big influence on how I looked at food. There's such respect in every piece on the plate, every ingredient has a reason to be there."
And now she has enrolled in another series of masterclass of sorts, in the form of her new TV show, Chef's Apprentice, coming soon to Prime.
In each half-hour episode Young visits a different, well-known chef who teaches her to prepare a particular ingredient of signature dish or try a certain technique. She then returns to her own kitchen and reproduces the recipes in a way suited to home cooks of all skill levels. "It's all very easy stuff - and there's gardening tips and nutritional tips along the way."
The show's theme of improving our cooking skills, with a sideline in nutritional advice, dovetails nicely with Young's background as a MasterChef contestant and fitness instructor, plus her continued interest in health and nutrition.
Since last year's competition she has worked closely with various New Zealand health and nutrition organisations, such as the Diabetes Association, doing food demos and writing magazine articles promoting healthy recipes and eating.
She has also set up her own website which offers recipes, tips and a blog from Young on what she's been up to and what she's cooking.
It all came from understanding, after he eight-month stint at Euro, that being a restaurant chef was not for her. "That was a massive, really valuable learning curve, but working in a restaurant kitchen doesn't really float my boat."
Instead, she came out of it wanting to set up her own business. "I think for anybody who's really passionate about what they do, that's their end-goal." Young's goals is to own and operate her own lodge or B & B. "Somewhere special - the kind of place you can have a real New Zealand experience, the scenery, the food, everything."
But that, of course, takes time and cash and Young credits MasterChef with giving her the confidence to strike out on her own and try to make things happen. She started with the website and cooking demonstrations at food festivals, trading on her public profile and keeping it simmering in people's minds.
She even took a trip to Fiji with a friend and filmed herself talking to locals about the food they cook and eat.
"That was just an incredible experience. One Fijian chef took us to a women's refuge camp and even to his home, where his wife and two little girls cooked this huge feast for us. It was amazing."
She returned with hours of footage she intended to edit together for use online. She was just trying to figure out if the cost of editing was going to be worth it when she was shoulder-tapped to host Chef's Apprentice.
And though she's now in a bit of a holding pattern once again while she waits for the show to air, she's still busy planning her next move.
There's still the Fiji footage to think about and she has ideas for cookbooks and other TV shows. "I think once you know what your end goal is everything else becomes really clear. I decide 'yes' or 'no' based on that end plan.
"MasterChef was really like a big job interview - but one in which if you fail, everybody sees you fail.
"It gave me the push to put myself out there, and now all these things I've put in place since it finished seem to be coming together. It's taken a huge amount of work and it was all a risk, but it's been worth it."
* Watch for Kelly Young's Chef's Apprentice recipes appearing in the Savour section of the Herald on Sunday's Detours magazine when the show airs on Prime in the near future.
