By Kim Hilsenbeck.
Brandon Scawthorn, 10, of Kyle, likes hanging out with friends, video games, racing Bandolero cars and cooking.
Wait, what?
That’s right, he’s a 10-year-old chef-in-waiting. And he just recently put a feather in his proverbial chef’s toque by winning the Rachel vs. Guy Kids Cook-off challenge on the Food Network.
Over the summer, Brandon and his mom, Yelena, traveled to Los Angeles for the filming of the competition that pit celebrity chefs Rachel Ray and Guy Fieri against each other with a team of eight children, four on either side of the kitchen.
Brandon, who attends Pfluger Elementary in Buda as part of Hays CISD’s STEM (science, engineering, technology and math) program, was on Rachel’s team.
“LA was really fun,” Brandon said. “There were some good parts and some bad parts but I had a great time.”
Of course, much of his time there was spent cooking, and learning from Ray and Fieri.
What were the stars like in person?
“They were so awesome, so fun, very nice, great mentors, too,” Brandon said.
Were you nervous?
“Not at all,” he said.
Are you afraid to speak in front of a group of people?
“Not one bit,” he replied.
The cook-off was all about accumulating points – the kid with the most overall points won the contest.
How did you earn points?
“Well, there was taste, creativity, presentation and camera challenge – and they scored us on each of those,” Brandon said.
And though he won the overall points, he said in Round 2 his creativity didn’t score as high.
“One judge was looking for certain things. I think it was my creativity that wasn’t the best.” He thought for a second. “She saw it as a bit too sophisticated, that’s my guess,” he said.
During the show’s taping, the kids were given a theme, for example, brunch.
Brandon shared his choice of entrée.
“I made this English muffin with crab and poached egg,” he said.
In episode three, Brandon said he did a mash up of his meatloaf muffin with a topping of mashed potatoes with five cheeses.
What’s his signature dish?
“I’m really known for my steak,” he said, waving toward the large grill on his family’s outdoor kitchen patio.
And while he experimented with different seasoning and flavors, he now prefers just plain old salt and pepper on each side. Turns out steak is also his favorite food to eat.
His mom disagreed that steak is his signature dish.
“It’s your crepes,” she said.
Yelena said Brandon was also invited to be on Rachel Ray’s show where he taught Regis Philbin how to cook crepes.
But whether steak or crepes, one thing is for sure, Brandon loves to cook. After the interview, he headed to the kitchen to slices red potatoes and chop garlic gloves for the evening meal – they are making fried calamari. With a look of concentration, he used a large knife and cut the potatoes into perfect wedges.
Yelena, who said Brandon has been interested in cooking since he was about five, said the two of them used to watch cooking shows on TV together and then take what they learned to the kitchen. Brandon loved celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse, whose well-known phrase was “Bam!”
“I had him on one arm and was cooking with the other,” she said with a laugh.
All that experience paid off. As the winner of the challenge on the cook-off show, Brandon won his own three episode web-based cooking show. He and his mom traveled to New York City to film those episodes, which are online on the Food Network’s outtube channel, entitled ‘Cooking in the Fast Lane’.
As for the future, Brandon said he wouldn’t necessarily want to move to LA or New York because he’s a Texas boy, but is open to any opportunities that come his way as a result of winning the cook-off.
In the meantime, he’ll be racing his Bandolero at Central Texas Speedway in October.
