MasterChef contestant grew up in Mundare
Lynn Soleski still lives in Mundare and his daughter, April Lee Baker is a contestant on the Masterchef Canada cooking competition on television.
“I attended kindergarten to Grade 9,” said Baker from her home in Calgary. “I still fondly remember my kindergarten teacher Mrs. Kubin. She was such a gem.”
Baker said she started cooking following the divorce of her parents and she moved to Okotoks, where a friend’s parents ran a small restaurant.
“I started as a dishwasher and then moved up to a prep cook,” she laughs. “Then I was the chicken fry girl!”
Baker said she moved to Banff after finishing high school and worked in several restaurants there during two summers.
“I gave up cooking and went back to school and became a nurses’ aide,” she adds. “I worked in palliative care for many years.”
After school, she moved to Vancouver Island and later came back to Calgary and married her high school sweetheart.
Baker said she got inspiration from an early contestant on Masterchef who came from Wetaskiwin.
“She gave me the inspiration to try out for the show and to get back into professional cooking.”
Friends encouraged her to try out.
After failing to make the audition for season two, she tried again for season three and was successful. She made it to the top five.
This year, she said the judges asked twelve former contestants to come back and try again.
Baker said the show was one of the first to start recording last July after pandemic restrictions eased in the Toronto area. And having the show pre recorded means she knows how she finished but has signed a non disclosure agreement so she can’t say. People will have to watch the program.
She said filming under the Covid rules was extremely different from the first time she had been on the show.
Masterchef Canada rules state contestants can’t have any formal cooking training.
“You couldn’t have worked in a professional restaurant for 15 years either, so I just snuck by that the first time I was on the show.”
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“Growing up in Mundare my family had a grain farm and both my dad and husband hunted, so cooking wild game always interested me.
“I cook bear, moose, elk and pheasant, all definitely coming from my roots in Mundare. Coming from the city many cooks never get the chance to work with those kinds of proteins.”
And yes, Baker does know how to make a good Ukrainian plate.
“I do them all,” she laughs.
Baker, after her first time on Masterchef, worked as an executive chef in a downtown Calgary restaurant and then opened her own restaurant.
It was shut down when the landlord decided to close the building because it was no longer up to code. Then Baker began a catering outfit and offered private chef parties.
“I was doing birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and private functions right up until the pandemic hit,” she stated. “Then everything dried completely up and I had to reinvent myself.”
She did so by diversifying in virtual cooking classes.
“Right now I’m focussed on Ukrainian foods.” Her classes are available at CookwithMeg.com
As the mother of two adult sons, she said she has instilled a love of cooking with them.
“We instilled in them a need to have a signature dish.”
If she wins the $100,000 Masterchef grand prize, she would like to develop a website and offer cooking classes to a much wider audience.
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John Mather
Staff Reporter
