Meet the New York metro area kids who competed on the premiere season of Food Network Star Kids: Lexi S. from Port Chester, Salvatore S. from Staten Island, and Sammy V. from the Bronx.
The inaugural season of Food Network Star Kids, modeled after the popular Food Network Star, premiered Aug. 22 on Food Network, with 10 kid contestants from across the U.S.—three of them are from our area. In each episode of the show, the kids participate in a challenge (all of which include an on-camera appearance—think YouTube video, morning talk show, cooking show) with the hopes of moving forward and winning it all to earn themselves a series on FoodNetwork.com and a feature in Food Network Magazine.
Here, you’ll meet the three contestants who call the NY metro area home, including Lexi S. from Port Chester, Salvatore S. from Staten Island, and Sammy V. from the Bronx.
Meet Food Network Star Kids’
Lexi S.
Age: 9
Hometown: Port Chester
Cooking Style: American comfort food
How old were you when you first started cooking, and do you remember what you first learned to make?
I was about 7 or 8, and an omelet was the first thing I learned how to cook.
Do you have a signature dish?
I love to grill lamb chops. It’s my favorite thing.
Who inspired you to get in the kitchen?
I watch a show on TV called MasterChef Junior, and I’m watching and I’m like you know what? I can do that, and I started trying and watching Food Network. That was a huge inspiration.
What do you love about cooking?
Cooking is just so fun! You get to make your own recipes and follow some, and you get to eat it and it’s so good! You can build up skills and it’s a fun hobby to do.
What advice do you have for other kids who have an interest in learning to cook?
Just keep on working on the things that are really easy for you and don’t make yourself aim too high. Like if you’re just starting at cooking don’t go right ahead and make pate a choux or something complicated. Stick with the basics first and then go on to things that are more advanced.
Who is your favorite chef?
I’m going to say Ina Garten because since I was 5, every night at 8:30 before bed I would watch an episode of Barefoot Contessa. So this has been going on for a really long time now.
What cooking show do you always watch?
There’s a lot. I like the Holiday Baking Championship. It’s really cool.
What is your favorite restaurant in your hometown?
There’s this really good hibachi place near my house called Edo. They have like the best shrimp ever. I would get an adult order and eat the whole thing because I am obsessed with this place.
What do you want to do when you grow up?
I definitely want to be a chef at a restaurant, and if I could own my own that would be so cool. I would serve mostly American comfort food.
Besides cooking, what are your favorite activities or hobbies?
I like drawing a lot, and I also like dancing.
Why did you want to be on Food Network Star Kids?
I really wanted to be on Food Network Star Kids because it was a big opportunity to show the world what you can do. I was actually the youngest on the competition, and I know there’s a lot of younger chefs out there who really want to grow up and be one, and they’re thinking, I’m too young, I can’t do this. I wanted to show the world that even young chefs can cook.
What was the best part about being on the show?
The best part of being on the show was meeting the other contestants. They were really nice. We did a lot of different things together. Backstage we played a lot of games.
What was the best piece of advice you received from the judges?
Probably to just concentrate and project a little more because sometimes I can be a little quiet, and just be myself.
What was your favorite challenge on the show?
My favorite challenge was the mystery ingredient one, the fourth episode. We got mystery ingredients and we had to make a dish out of them.
What was your mystery ingredient and what did you make?
It was wood ear mushrooms. I made a burger with a Greek yogurt, herbs, and wood ear mushroom sauce.
What was most challenging for you on the show?
The most challenging part of the show was coming up with ideas and staying on task, especially in the third episode, and in the second episode too when they announced the twist [serving food in an orange].
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Meet Food Network Star Kids’ Salvatore S.
Age: 10
Hometown: Staten Island
Cooking Style: modern Italian food
How old were you when you first started cooking, and do you remember what your first learned to make?
I started cooking when I was about 7, and the first dish I made was waffles and ice cream.
Do you have a signature dish?
My signature is chicken roulade with mashed potatoes and a balsamic-citrus glaze sauce.
Who inspired you to get in the kitchen?
Alex Guarnaschelli, Anne Burrell, and my dad
What do you love about cooking?
I love the passion it gives you. And I enjoy cooking for lots of people. I love cooking my Italian dishes to make everyone happy.
Is there a cuisine you’re interested in learning to cook?
I have an interest in learning to cook Asian food, and I also want to learn how to bake. I know how to bake cupcakes, cookies, that basic stuff, but I want to learn how to make pastry and cannoli.
How do you balance cooking with school, after-school activities, and seeing friends?
Well I balance it all out on a daily basis. I’ll probably get home, hang out with my friends, do my homework, then maybe I’ll cook. And sometimes when I’m bored, I’ll ask my mom if we can play Chopped, and she’ll get me four ingredients, and I’ll have to cook with them.
What cooking show do you always watch?
Worst Cooks in America, Guy’s Grocery Games, and Cutthroat Kitchen
What do you want to do when you grow up?
I definitely want to be a chef when I grow older. I want to have my own show on Food Network, and I think if I had one it would be called My Italian Kitchen because I’m Italian. And also, you know Damiano Carrara, he has his own little bakery, but he does sell food there too. That’s kind of what I want to do too if I can’t get my own show.
Is that why you wanted to be on Food Network Star Kids?
Yes.
What was the best part about being on the show?
Making relationships with the other kids and finding new friends.
What was most challenging for you on the show?
The first episode because we should have gotten an hour and 30 minutes to cook our dishes. If we got an hour and 30 minutes, I think I would have done 10 times better.
What was your favorite challenge on the show?
My favorite challenge was probably the “Orange You Glad Its Brunch?” episode. I just thought that was a very fun episode to do. On that challenge we had to create a dish that had fresh orange juice in it and a dish that was served in an orange. I made “eggs benedict.” It was kind of like a spinoff of eggs benedict. It was a fried potato as the muffin, a fried egg, a piece of steak, and a sour cream sauce instead of Hollandaise, and crumbled blue cheese.
What was the best piece of advice you received from the judges?
The best thing I receive was your plate is packed of flavor and you have thoughts of good dishes, you just have to work on execution in the dish.
RELATED: Meet NY metro area kids who competed on MasterChef Junior
Meet Food Network Star Kids’ Sammy V.
Age: 11
Hometown: Bronx
Cooking Style: elevating regular food in extraordinary ways
How old were you when you first started cooking, and do you remember what your first learned to make?
I think I started when I was 5 with my grandma. We would both wake up really early in the morning, and we would make breakfast. One of the first things we ever made together was pancakes.
Do you have a signature dish?
My signature is dish is salt-crusted branzino with roasted carrots and sautéed asparagus.
Who inspired you to get in the kitchen?
My grandma. Eventually when I got older, when I was old enough to understand cooking shows and YouTube videos, I would look up recipes and make them. And I also watched cooking shows a lot.
What do you love about cooking?
I like cooking because you get to eat a lot. But also you take ingredients and you put your own twist on it and make something really fresh and delicious.
What advice do you have for other kids who have an interest in learning to cook?
I think if you see something that you think would be interesting and you think you wouldn’t be able to do it, keep on trying to do it. One of the hardest things I made was crème brûlée. At first I thought it would be impossible and I kept on trying multiple times and I finally got it.
How do you balance cooking with school, after-school activities, and seeing friends?
One of the things is at school, there’s a cooking class. And at home I have a YouTube channel My Poyfect Kitchen, and I make videos for that. I’m cooking at least once or twice a week just for YouTube, and that sort of helps me balance things out.
What is your idea of a perfect meal?
I think it’s fine dining, a three course meal—appetizer, entrée, and dessert.
Who is your favorite chef?
My favorite chef is Alton Brown.
What cooking show do you always watch?
I’d say my favorite is Cutthroat Kitchen.
What do you want to do when you grow up?
When I grow up, I want to be a chef and own my own restaurant, and be a Food Network Star or TV star. I want my restaurant to be on the top of the Empire State Building.
Besides cooking, what are your favorite activities or hobbies?
I play a lot of sports: flag football, basketball, and baseball. I also do a lot of coding. I’ve done a lot on Photoshop, and Adobe After Effects, and a lot of Adobe stuff. I also have my own website, and I’ve done tons of coding on there.
Why did you want to be on Food Network Star Kids?
I thought it could be a really fun experience, and it could be really cool to have my own cooking show. I have one now on YouTube, but having one on Food Network, that would be way cooler.
What was the best part about being on the show?
Probably meeting everyone, meeting all my friends. I’m still in touch with everybody now, and I think it was a really fun experience.
What was most challenging for you on the show?
I think it was kind of hard to be the first person to audition. [In the first episode, the 10 contestants had to pitch themselves in 30 seconds, and only seven would stay to compete.] It was kind of nerve-wracking because I had to set the bar, and I think I did a pretty good job, but it was pretty hard too.
What was your favorite challenge on the show?
I think it was pretty fun to do the talk show. We had to cook a brunch dish using orange, and we also had to make something served inside an orange. We had 30 seconds or maybe a minute and we had to explain our dish.
What was the best piece of advice you received from the judges?
I think they said to me one time that I have a great personality and that I should stick to my personality. It’s been really helpful to me because I knew I had a great personality, and I knew I was good on camera.
Main image: All 10 contestants on Food Network Star Kids with the hosts Donal Skehan and Tia Mowry.
All photos courtesy Food Network
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