Young South Jersey Chef Finds Recipe For Success On Reality TV Cooking Competition
By Hadas Kuznits
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- An aspiring southern New Jersey chef is getting a lot of attention lately. He's not yet a teenager and he's made it to the semi-finals on a FOX reality TV cooking competition.
Twelve-year-old Westville, Gloucester County native Andrew Zappley says appearing on the show MasterChef Junior has taught him a lot about cooking.
"I learned to just do the best that you can," he says. "They say practice makes perfect and that's true sometimes, but sometimes you just have to go, whether you know it or not, you have to just do it and pray that it'll work out."
So how scary is chef Ramsey?
"He's not scary, he says that he pushes people to the absolute max to get perfection," Zappley says. "He just wants good food to give to the people."
Zappley says he's not only learned about food, he has also learned a lot about television.
"There are a lot of people who go into making a show like that," he says.
Zappley was just 11 years old when MasterChef Junior was filmed, last year. He says the most difficult part of the show was the restaurant takeover episode.
"We were just 11 and 12 year olds, taking over a kitchen, making food for 40 people," he says. "I've never run a kitchen. There was no producer saying you do this, you do that. They just said figure it out."
Now, as just one of four contestants left competing for the MasterChef Junior title, he's excited to watch the final two episodes.
"But I'm nervous that they're going to make me look bad," Zappley says, "and people are going to comment and say all these things, even though I don't take them personally."
Zappley says he reads a lot of difficult comments on social media about himself after each episode airs, but he seems to have a great attitude about the mean remarks.
"Because they're just people who have no life," he says, "commenting on Facebook, obviously not caring for their children."
MasterChef Junior airs Tuesday nights at 8 o'clock on FOX.
