MasterChef Canada Season 9 Exit Interview : Monika Baird

Monika Baird brought her adventurous cooking style and playful personality to MasterChef Canada Season 9. Following her elimination after a shakshuka pizza failed to make eggs the star, we caught up with the Toronto home cook to talk about learning to cook with her mom and grandmother, staying true to her creativity, and how the competition helped her rediscover her confidence.

TEM (The Extra Mile) : how do you feel watching that episode back because as a viewer that was that’s definitely a lot of anxiety, a lot of rush and adrenaline. So I want to know your point of view, seeing yourself.

Monika: Oh my goodness. I could tell that I was absolutely frazzled after getting the swap with Jason, but I tried to deliver the best I could. This show really puts you in the hot seat and you have to make game time decisions and I just did the best I could.

TEM: What’s kind of your history with cooking? Like how did you first get into it and how did you, like what made you kind of apply for MasterChef Canada?

Monika: Yeah. So I got into cooking with my mom when I was really young. I have a severe peanut allergy. So I had to learn to cook things in the comfort of my own home. And that happened through my mom and my grandmother. So I just continued to do that over the course of my life. And it kind of led me to apply for the season. It got me cooking shakshuka pizza on national television, which I still don’t know if it’s the biggest fail in MasterChef Canada history, but we’re gonna we’re gonna have to see right is we’ll see what the internet says.

TEM:  What would you say has been kind of your wildest experiment that actually worked?

Monika : Oh, my gosh, that’s a really good question. So I actually winged, winged it and made pho for the first time.I can’t eat in a restaurant, but I read a few recipes, I got all of my ingredients together. And that was my kind of out of the box, give it a shot, see what happens. It actually worked. One of my friends came over to try it. And she said that it was spot on.

TEM: If you could re-do the challenge would you still want to kind of perfect the sushi pizza or is there like a different take that you would have done with it?

Monika: I think I would have. I’ve been authentically myself and just done the shakshuka pizza. I don’t want to be anything I don’t I want to do what comes to my mind and in that moment. And I don’t think I would have done anything differently. I put exactly what I wanted on the plate. Well, not exactly what I want on the plate, but I came up with the concept, I delivered it, but it wasn’t my best work this time.

TEM:  What would you have wanted if you could swap like what item would you have wanted to do?

Monika: Oh, interesting. I actually probably wouldn’t have. Well, if I had to swap, I would have but I would have maybe just taken the salmon. I think that that would have been a pretty safe play. There’s hundreds of dishes that I could have made. And in that moment, that’s game time decision, maybe what I would have picked. Yeah.

TEM:  what dish would you have wanted to make if you had the chance to make it?

Monika : I would have loved to be able to cook my poor memory dish, but thankfully, I was able to get that white apron, so that would have been something I’d love to showcase to all of Canada.

TEM:   is there anything that you kind of wish the viewers got to see more of you?

Monika:  Well, I mean, I wish they got to see me cook more, but it just wasn’t my time. No, I think I came across as authentically myself. I got to showcase all my fun shirts, and I got to have a good time doing it. I’m a bit of a goofball, and that definitely came through when I was watching.

TEM:  And what is your go-to go-to dish?

Monika: I make a lot of, like, roast beef and, like, all of the sides Yorkshire puddings. I also like making a apricot chicken, which I know sounds a little bit crazy, but again, adventurous. So that’s kind of my two that I will.

TEM: Is that like kind of like your creativity kind of goes into cooking, right?

Monika:  I spend a lot of time behind this desk for work. And in my downtime, I just think of different concepts and ideas like business, you never know what’s going to work if you can’t just conceptualize it first, and then really dial in. Unfortunately, the shakshuka pizza, I didn’t have enough time to kind of dial it in and make it what I wanted it to be.

TEM: If you could describe your MasterChef Canada experience in three words, what would those words be?

Monika : Oh, my goodness. Exhilarating. Exhausting. I was exhausted every single day. And just a lot of fun. It was exactly what I needed. Before I went on the show, I was not feeling my best self. And it really got me back in the zone, feeling confident again. And I really would love to thank the MasterChef Canada team and all of my home cooks for allowing me to get my spark back.

TEM:  Do you have any kind of like idea on what you want to do next in terms of like the cooking kind of side?

Monika: Yeah, so I have a few brand partnerships that I’m working towards or working on right now. I’m going to be incorporating that on my Instagram and seeing what comes from that.Um, there’s so much opportunity, you just have to kind of go out there and find it and see what goes from there. I mean, we have to cook to survive. So how could I ever stop?

TEM: Everybody needs to go through the cooking. Exactly, right?

Monika : You can’t just have prepackaged food all the time you got I anxious the whole time. I like, I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I was really, yeah, I was sitting on the edge of my seats and I looked over at my mom and she’s thinking, how did you get here?

 

Catch the next episode of MasterChef Canada on Sept 29 on CTV and Sept 30 on Crave