Three women entered the MasterChef Canada Season 8 finale (catch-up on the series Crave), ready to showcase their cooking skills in a final challenge for a $ 100,000 cash prize and the show’s trophy. But Veronica Wu, the 30-year-old senior data engineering manager from Toronto, blew away the judges, being crowned the show’s Season 8 winner.
“I’m still feeling very, very excited about this outcome,” Wu told Yahoo Canada. “I’ll be pretty excited about this for a long time.”
“I think for the finale challenge, I just really wanted to showcase the dishes that I love to eat myself, with a bit of a creative twist. … Any feedback from the judges, I really, really appreciated it. But hearing from the judges that they liked every single one of the dishes is really rewarding.”
‘I was just locked in for the three hours’
Tasked with presenting a three-course menu, Wu said that while she was surrounded by the finalists’ friends and family members, she was “locked in” for the finale, up against Marianne Smeaton from Fort St. John, B.C., and Liz Worndl from Toronto.
“I actually really liked my spot, because I was facing backwards to all Liz’s family, Marianne’s family and my partner and friends as well,” Wu said. “So it kind of took away some of the stress, I think, for me.”
“But in general, I get very zoned out when I’m cooking. So I don’t really hear what everyone else is talking about. I don’t really hear all the things going on. … I was just locked in for the three hours.”
And Wu only really started thinking about what she wanted to include in her three-course menu just before filming the finale.
“All my focus was on that challenge on that day. I just wanted to survive [each] day,” Wu said. “Probably right before the finale, I started designing the menu. I had some inspirations, these were not new things that I’d never made before, … but just not together as a dish.”
MasterChef Canada Season 8 (CTV)
‘MasterChef Canada’ winner’s future plans
Reflecting on her transition back to her life off the show, Wu shared that she needed a bit of a break from cooking when she first returned home.
“Probably the first couple of days, because I think I was just physically so drained, I had to take some time to recover,” Wu said. “But after that, everything’s back to my normal day-to-day cooking.”
“I cook pretty often at home, like five days a week, and then try out different restaurants over the weekend. … I was so inspired by the pantry from MasterChef. There are so many ingredients that I didn’t have access to, but then I used [them] on the show.”
For her immediate plans, Wu said she will start by taking a break, processing her win, and planning for the future. But she hopes to open a café or restaurant in the future.
“Rest a little bit and then celebrate with my friends and my partner,” Wu said. “But next year, lots of things I’m planning. I want to travel a little bit just to learn more about different foods, and then bring a lot of the flavours back to Toronto.”
“I also want to intern or study under a few professional chefs that I really like, and also just sort out this whole business idea about the café or restaurant business.”
Dining and Cooking