Modesto student competes on Food Network show

In her health class at Central Catholic High School on Friday afternoon, freshman Elisabeth Watkins brought in a burner, utensils, a plate and omelet ingredients: eggs, ham, cheese, olives and more. As she scrambled the eggs to make the tasty dish, she also stirred up excitement among her classmates to watch her on national television.

Elisabeth, 14, competes on the Food Network show “Chopped Junior” on Tuesday night. On the show, four competitors between 9 and 15 years old must make “unforgettable meals from mystery ingredients under the infamous ticking clock of the ‘Chopped’ kitchen,” according to a Food Network news release.

Tuesday’s episode is titled “Fungi Times” because the ingredient in one of the rounds is lobster mushrooms. They were not an ingredient in her omelet, which was just fine with the many classmates who divvied it up.

“Elisabeth, you’re catering my wedding,” classmate Bella Santos exclaimed after eating her tiny but tasty portion.

The Linden resident, who attends Central Catholic because it’s one of only three private schools in the state with an FFA chapter, can’t say a lot about her experience filming “Chopped Junior” in New York City in August. She certainly can’t say how she fared in the episode, which has four youths compete in three rounds, with one eliminated, or “chopped,” after each round. The mystery ingredients also change from round to round.

What she can say is that it was a lot of fun and she’d do it again, given the opportunity. She said she particularly liked “just talking with the judges. I really enjoyed sharing my story about cooking and the farm life and ag and how it’s formed me as a chef, and them telling me that what I made was good.

“On the show, the judges ask the chefs a few questions. We got into some pretty deep conversations about my life and my cooking style.”

How much of that makes the air is another mystery. But Elisabeth does have a rich “farm life” from which to draw. Her family – dad Kenny, mom Molly, big brother Kenneth, who’s a senior at Linden High, and Elisabeth – grows walnuts, peaches, cherries and hay, and is getting into almonds, too. The Watkinses also raise beef cattle, and Elisabeth has a few registered shorthorns of her own.

A member of Linden-Peters 4-H since age 9, Elisabeth discovered her love of cooking in the organization’s Food & Nutrition project. She began competing through 4-H at the California State Fair and for three consecutive years was on three-person teams that took first place. The state fair contest has each team create a three-course meal within 60 minutes, using a mystery ingredient.

That experience helped prep Elisabeth for “Chopped Junior,” but she did much more, too.

“I watched a lot of ‘Chopped’ episodes, looking at the different types and categories of ingredients and how they used them, like crackers and chips and how they ground them up as breading.

“My mom would go to the grocery store and she and checkout ladies would go through the store and pick out things for me to cook with. I practiced with Red Bull, Cup O’ Noodles, duck, quail, trout, mahi mahi, salmon – lots of different meats.”

Elisabeth had about a month to prepare after learning she’d been accepted as a contestant (that process included a lengthy application, phone interviews with her mom, a Skype interview and a video submission). During that month, she practiced by preparing one course each day.

“When talking with the show’s culinary producer, she said you can really tell when people practice,” Elisabeth said.

At just 14, Elisabeth can’t say with certainly what roles cooking will play in her life. “I definitely want to cook in the future, but I don’t know if I want to be a chef or what route I want to take in the culinary industry.”

One thing she does know. She has that wedding catering gig lined up.

This story was originally published November 20, 2015 at 6:14 PM with the headline "Modesto student competes on Food Network show."