By James Bowler

P.A. MasterChef Canada contestant reflects on experience

Jan 17, 2015 | 10:42 AM

Two years ago he applied for a show that had a major American counterpart but hadn’t started airing in Canada yet, but never heard back.

So when Ted Pechy received a response last summer from MasterChef Canada asking for him to come to Toronto to audition, it came as a major shock.

“When I saw the first series, I thought ‘well they’re probably not interested in an old guy’, or maybe it was something in my application that eliminated my opportunity,” said Pechy. “One day before my 60th birthday this past June I get an e-mail asking me to come to Toronto to audition.”

Of course after not hearing for so long, Pechy had forgotten about it and moved on, and wasn’t fully prepared.

“I sort of freaked out because I had torn my kitchen apart and didn’t have a working stove,” said Pechy. “I’ve got an old fashioned wood cook stove on my patio that’s about 115 years old.”

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A mostly self-taught home chef, and having written his own cook book, Pechy used his experience and knowledge of home cooking to work with what he had.

“For the appetizer I made an Applewood-smoked, maple-glazed, bacon-tomato marmalade, and that was going to go on a little toasted baguette for part of my audition,” said Pechy, adding that he put together a salad with some greens and a special vinaigrette made from Haskap Berries.

Packing these dishes up, Pechy flew to Toronto to prepare for his audition.

But the creativity, despite the lack of proper cooking appliances available to Pechy, didn’t stop there.

“I thought, ‘well, I still need to make a cooked dish’, even though we’re not allowed as out of town people any cooking facilities for the audition,” said Pechy. “So I went out to Canadian Tire and bought a hot plate and in my hotel room the night before I made a wild rice, wild morel mushroom, lentil pilaf.”

 From there out of the nearly 500 people who had shown up to audition for the major Canadian reality series, Pechy was selected to be in the top 50.

“I flew back and waited, and waited, and finally got a call about two weeks later for being flown back for the competition, that I made the top 50, which was a huge honour, “ said Pechy. “Everybody seemed okay with it, they said follow your passion, follow your dream, this could be a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Flying back to Toronto again Pechy was able to meet his fellow 49 contestants, adding that they seemed to come from every walk of life.

“When you have that many people that are from diverse backgrounds and different ages, a lot of really interesting stories come out cooking and presenting,” said Pechy. “When we got to the actual place where they film MasterChef Canada, and you see the MasterChef Canada logo and you meet the judges, everyone looked at each other and said ‘boy this is really happening.”

“A lot of nerves kicked in.”

Pechy described the entire thing as an emotional experience as well.

“Seeing the judges standing up on the podium and having them say ‘You are the top 50 home cooks in all of Canada’, was a pretty overwhelming emotional feeling, and some of the people started crying.”

Beyond that moment Pechy was not able to divulge much, as he is under contract to not discuss the happenings on the show until the episodes have aired starting this February.

However Pechy described the overall event as intense and overwhelming, but said he was still able to keep his focus during all of it.

“There were cameras and microphones constantly in your face, but when you’re zoned in on using your knife to prep vegetables and whatnot, even though you’re answering questions at the same time, you have to just put that in the background,” said Pechy. “It got a little easier after a while.”

Pechy joked that his age might have helped him bring some intimidation to the other players as well.

“I felt good being the oldest person there, and some of the younger people might have looked at me and said ‘gee he’s really old, he’s been cooking for a long time’,” said Pechy.

MasterChef Canada Season Two will begin airing on CTV Feb. 8.

jbowler@panow.com

On Twitter: @journalistjim