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No. 2 Vol. 6
www.thelivingstonnews.com
June 2016
Livingston 11 Year Old Cooks Her Way To Champion On Food Network Show
By Cheryl Conway magine being given a mystery basket filled with ingredients and being challenged to create a recipe from scratch that wows the palate. That is exactly what 11 year old Amanda DeFuria of Livingston did when she competed on the Food Network’s “Chopped Junior” Show recently aired on Tues., May 31. A sixth grader at the Unity Charter School in Morristown, DeFuria not only competed against three other young chefs from around the country, but she won $10,000 and a “Chopped Junior” chef jacket. Selected out of 5,000 applicants, DeFuria was ecstatic that she was chosen, but that didn’t compare to when she was named champion during episode six titled Pasta Love. “I won the show,” describes DeFuria during a telephone interview with New View Media Group. Although she competed for the episode in February, the young star was not allowed to divulge the outcome until the show was aired for the public on the last day of May. “I was shocked; I was so happy. I was ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I won Chopped Junior!’ It was amazing!” FREE
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As a regular fan of the show for two years, DeFuria had tuned in early Dec. 2015 to watch a “Chopped Junior” episode when she saw a casting call application for contestants under the age of 15. She told her mom “I have to do this.” Selected out of thousands of other applicants from around the country, DeFuria says “I did an interview and they liked my personality and cooking demonstration.” She had a few interviews over Skype with a few casting agents. She found out right before Christmas time that they wanted her to be on the show. For three days during the second week in February, DeFuria filmed the show on the set in New York, competing against three other contestants: Ally, 11 from Long Island, NY; Luke, 12, from Georgia and Hensley, 11, from Queens. A three-round competition, each contestant had to create an appetizer, entrée and dessert. They were given a mystery box filled with four ingredients and were allotted 30 minutes per round to cook something using the ingredients. “They give you random ingredients in a mysterious basket and you have to think of something really quick to cook,” she says. Hosted by Ted Allen, a panel of judges
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and put it over the pasta and the tuna,” DeFuria describes. The entrée consisted of scallops in the shell, sweet wine, papaya and broccoli, and for dessert, DeFuria created buttermilk icecream out of buttermilk cookie cups with cookie crumble on top. The “Chopped Junior” champion decided on her own that she wants to donate some of her winnings to charity including St. Jude’s charity for cancer research, Feed continued on page 2
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was on the set to critique the young chefs’ performance and creations. The judges included Iron Chef Alex Guarnaschelli, Comedy Actress Christine Taylor and Food Network Star Eddie Jackson. For the appetizer, she had to create a dish with heart shaped pasta, peas and carrot candy, Italian tuna and oil and rainbow chard. “I made a sauté out of tuna; I melted down candy and made a cream sauce, that went on top of the pasta; sautéed the chard
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