Food Network Star - Episode #1 — Nikki Dinki Cooking

Well, episode #1 is done!! Thank god!! It's hard to express how nervous I was going into this week. I had no idea if they would even kind of buy my point of view, I had no idea how I would perform when the pressure is on and worst of all I had no idea how much I could accomplish cooking-wise in 45 minutes.

The first thing we did was meet everyone and I suddenly realized that there are 11 other people with great personalities, cooking chops and scariest of all, they have my same dream, and will probably run me over to get it!!

And then before you have a moment to breathe we are told that we have 30 seconds to sell ourselves and our point of view to the camera.

I'm suddenly running over some semblance of a script in my head and before you know it, I'm in front of Bobby, Giada, Alton and the other finalists ready to show them what I've got. No pressure :/

There is just not much time to think during these challenges. And after you're done talking you feel like you have amnesia... not really sure what it is that you just said.

I had the extreme pleasure of working next to Viet during this challenge. There was a slight difference between the disaster area that was my station and his pristine working environment.

I cut myself 3 times, at one point having two gloves on one hand to cover my cuts. Nothing serious just little nicks, from shaking hands...

I sprayed hot soup all over Stacey when my immersion blender broke and I was forced to puree my soup in the blender...

I wasted 5 minutes just looking for butter!! But in the end, I made the dish I wanted to make, and that's a great feeling.

(Me in my hotel room after Episode #1's cooking challenge, gotta calm down soon or I'm going to cut off a finger!)

So after finishing in the Top 3, I was obviously elated, but all I could think was that there is such a long way to go. And you never know what they are going to throw at you next. So the big question is...

Can I keep it up??

Tune in next week to find out. And in the meantime check out the links below for clips from this show and the next- as well as reviews and favorites from Episode #1