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Former P.G. resident on MasterChef Canada

When Jennifer Rioux was struggling through her studies at Kelly Road secondary school, the one class she always aced was cooking. Now that she's 28, has travelled around the B.C.
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Jennifer Jenkins is competing in MasterChef Canada.

When Jennifer Rioux was struggling through her studies at Kelly Road secondary school, the one class she always aced was cooking.

Now that she's 28, has travelled around the B.C./Alberta north, got married to Devin, took on his Jenkins last name, and together have two-year-old daughter Scarlett, it is once again cooking that sets her apart. Well, cooking and her pierced-and-purple pleasantly punk personality.

It has made this stay-at-home mom into a national prime-time TV star.

Jenkins is one of the 12 home cooks who make up the cast of the 2018 season of MasterChef Canada on CTV.

She still has a difficult time believing that is actually her on the screen, taking on the televised cooking challenges issued by the three celebrity chefs who host the show: Claudio Aprile, Michael Bonacini and Alvin Leung.

Jenkins said she spent her youth full of self-doubt, but a particular episode of MasterChef Canada last year was the beginning of the end of the timidity.

"I always had it in the back of my head that maybe I wanted to try (a TV cooking show) one day," she said.

"I was sitting with my husband on the couch watching, last season. They did an egg challenge, and I told him 'I could totally do all of those.' This is something I could do. I suddenly knew it without a doubt."

Now living in Dawson Creek, Jenkins filled out the online application for MasterChef Canada. She did so assuming she'd never hear back, lost among the piles of other applicants. But she received a message within a day inviting her to a personal audition.

"I flipped my lid. I was screaming and crying, and that was just for the first audition," she said.

She laid down her family specialty as her au-dish-ion. Her pulled pork carnitas was a hit - that and her commando-kitchen background and bubbly personality. It all put her into the top tier of competitors.

All along the way Jenkins kept in mind that this show disallows professional chefs.

All the participants were just like her - kings and queens of their own kitchens. It helped her stay confident that she was indeed not a fish out of water in this competition.

"I learned from cookbooks and I learned from the internet. I have no formal training," she said, hoping to inspire others to enjoy their personal passion for food all the more. "I remember watching The Chew and (celebrity chef) Michael Symon said something that really hit home for me. He said don't learn the recipe, learn the technique, and then you can cook a thousand recipes. That made sense to me and pushed me to be better at cooking, and just think about what I was doing. That's so much fun."

She aspires to own her own food truck one day, and in the near future she and her family are moving to southern Ontario, partly because it is where her husband's family is based and partly because the agriculture there is so front-of-culture.

"I want, more than anything, to teach Scarlett about how wonderful your own food can be," she said. "I dream of showing her how to grow some carrots and tomatoes, how to pick them out of the ground and twist them off the vine, wash them, prepare them for dinner and enjoy that meal that came right from your own hands."

She also wants to teach Scarlett another key lesson: lifelong learning. After dropping out of KRSS because work seemed more important at the time, Jenkins is now on the brink of adult graduation.

"I'm eating a GED book every day, and I hope to finish that graduation next weekend. Stay in school, kids, because doing it at 28 years old is not so much fun, but I have to get it done. There's so much I want to do."

She has already been accepted to cooking school in Stratford, so the new direction in life will continue on immediately, even as the TV show plays out over the next months.

Jenkins is not at liberty to discuss the contents of the program, but she does say that the whole cast had a strong bond off-camera. She described her fellow MasterChef Canada colleagues as lifelong friends.

She also wanted Canada to know that the three actual master chefs on the show were even more supportive and instructive behind the scenes. There is pressure and there is drama to each episode, but Aprile, Bonacini and Leung were unfailingly respectful and informative, one on one.

Since the crucible of MasterChef Canada filming, Jenkins said she couldn't help but become a better home cook. She learned from the masters, she learned from her fellow competitors, she learned from the scenarios they were each placed in, and that came home with her after each day on set.

"I have been experimenting a lot with things I've never made before. I'm brining my meat in new ways, making my own sourdough, I made my first pie the other day, I'm not afraid to try different combinations, and things like that. I'm more the type of cook who thrives on looking in my fridge, looking in the pantry, and seeing what I can whip up from the stuff I have available. I have to base my meals on my bank account. I have to be careful with the budget, so that means being adventurous but I can't be extravagant."

That's how she grew up. With five siblings, and a split family (mom and step-dad Carole Moses and Ron Rominuck live in Prince George while dad and step-mom Rene Rioux and Michelle Rioux live in Grande Prairie), meals were made big and cost-effectively.

Growing up, she moved a lot. Her younger years were spent at Morfee Elementary in Mackenzie, Beaverly Elementary in Prince George, then back up to Mackenzie Elementary School, but back to Heather Park for middle school in P.G., and her high school time split between KRSS and the Centre For Learning Alternatives.

She has moved around a number of small towns like Grande Cache, Grande Prairie, and for the past two years in Dawson Creek.

She has always stayed in touch with Prince George, however. As a foodie by nature, the upsurge in restaurant culture in her primary hometown has been a revelation on her recent visits.

"The last time I was home I had dinner at a fabulous place called Betulla Burning which was just stunning. Then I went and had a pint and some great food at a brew pub called Crossroads. I went into a food store called Serengeti and couldn't believe there was amazing craft ice cream made right in Prince George by Frozen Paddle and it was oh-my-god so good. It's not like when I was a kid. All we had then was Amigo's Taco Shop, which was always awesome, and that's still there so Prince George is happening."

That's tall praise from a TV personality who said if she had her own cooking show it would be called Lettuce Turnip The Beet.

Jenkins infuses rock 'n' roll into her cuisine, and the audience gets to chop along every Tuesday night all through the spring.