A Fanshawe College professor has taken top prize in the premiere episode of a new Food Network Canada show.

Stephanie Brewster, a chef instructor at Fanshawe with more than 25 years of experience in the industry, won $10,000 on Chopped Canada, the network’s Canadian edition of the popular Food Network U.S. series, Chopped.

“I saw a call for auditions and I was urging my graduates to compete and then they started telling me I should audition,” said Brewster, a mother of four adult children, in a telephone interview Friday.

“I started thinking about it and thought that sometimes it’s good to challenge yourself, because you can get in a routine (after teaching for 11 years) and you never want to lose that creativity, your passion and that drive.”

The show aired Thursday at 10 p.m. and can be seen online at www.foodnetwork.ca and will also be shown at different times on the network.

Brewster, 47, competed against Matt Binkley, a private chef who has cooked for celebrities and royalty around the world; Jonathan O’Callaghan, chef de partie at Museum Tavern in Toronto; and Tim Schorno, executive chef at the Granite Restaurant in Bancroft, Ontario.

A chef is “chopped” from competition after each course.

The three judges were celebrity chef Michael Smith, author and host of Chef Michael’s Kitchen, Chef Abroad, Chef at Home and Chef at Large seen on Food Network, Chef Vikram Vij, owner of Vij’s Restaurant and Rangoli in Vancouver, and chef Anne Yarymowich, former executive chef at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s food and beverage operation, including the AGO’s renowned FRANK Restaurant and now teaching at George Brown College.

In this show, the chefs had to create an appetizer using a potato, bone marrow, mac-and-cheese loaf and anchovy paste.

Then it was on to an entrée using strawberry milk powder, chayote (South American fruit), microwave popcorn, tofu, Asian noodles and crab meat.

And for dessert, the two finalists were asked to present their own interpretation of bread pudding using five-spice powder, Montreal bagels, chickpeas and a butterscotch pudding cup.

“We are so proud of Stephanie and her win on Chopped Canada,” says Jeannine Cookson, chair of Fanshawe’s school of tourism and hospitality in a press release.

“We are fortunate to have a team of chefs and faculty members, like Stephanie, who work every day to ensure our students receive only the best training and career preparation for this industry.”

joe.belanger@sunmedia.ca