A.C. chef lands spot on 'Next Food Network Star'
Nicole Gaffney, a personal chef, is a grad of Academy of the Culinary Arts in Mays Landing.
Next Food Network Star is up for its 10th season, and a Jersey shore chef is among the contestants gunning for their own TV show.
She's Nicole Gaffney, 29, an Atlantic City-based personal chef (The Dinner Belle) and model whose bio lists her education as the Academy of the Culinary Arts in Mays Landing and Louisiana State University. Notes from Fiood Network say she comes from a family of commercial fisherman and grew up cooking with her Sicilian grandparents. (Gaffney is her married name.)
Season premiere will be 9 p.m. June 1 with Alton Brown, Giada De Laurentiis and Bobby Flay back as mentors/judges.
Food Network also is bringing back the web series Star Salvation to give one eliminated contestant the opportunity to rejoin the on-air competition, and an audience vote again will determine who wins the prize.
Winner will be named in the season finale on Sunday, Aug. 10.
Our region has had a decent track record with this series. Aaron McCargo Jr., then of Camden, won Season 4. Season 4 runner-up Adam Gertler, living at the time in South Philly, also got a show that season. Katie Cavuto of Philly, a nutritionist and dietitian, parlayed her run on Season 5 into a multimedia career. Chad Rosenthal of Ambler, who owns The Lucky Well in that town, made it to Week 7 of the last season.