SAN DIEGO -- Ocean Beach Elementary School student Ashley Carter is counting down the days until she makes her debut on the popular Food Network.
Her talents in the kitchen caught the attention of producers from Chopped Junior. The 10-year-old knows more about cooking than a lot of adults. In a home video she recorded for her audition, she described several items in her refrigerator.
Carter started cooking on her own two years ago, but she started helping out in the kitchen when she was two.
"I was looking at some old pictures,” Carter said. “I see me and there's this big pan and there's bread slices and I was putting cheese on the bread slices.”
The master-chef-in-training will appear on a Nov. 1 episode of the show.
“I was thrilled,” Carter said. “There's four rounds and you get mandatory mystery ingredients for each round - there's an appetizer, entree and a dessert round. You got to think on your feet."
She can't make or reveal what she made for that episode until it airs. So, instead she whipped a special dish for 10News.
“We got our delicious little Shrimpies. They're already de-veined. All we have to do is pull off their shell. We got some nice rigatoni.”
Carter says she cooks for the family, but not every day.
“A lot of times I have homework school stuff you know. And life is busy."
If she's not in the kitchen, this fifth grader is out doing yoga, or boogie boarding, or practicing martial arts.
There are two ways to watch Carter under pressure in the kitchen. Tune into the Food Network's Chopped Junior, Tuesday, Nov. 1, at 8 p.m. on cable TV.
Or, you can join more than a hundred people already confirmed for a viewing party at Raglan Public House on Bacon Street in Ocean Beach. The restaurant has agreed to air the show via satellite at 5 p.m. and host the event as a fundraiser. A percentage of the proceeds will be given back to two schools in Ocean Beach.
