Robyn Lindars is a local south Florida woman on a mission to make grilling fun and accessible to women (and men, too). As Grill Girl, Lindars maintains her own blog, contributes to Clean Plate Charlie, and Kingsford Charcoal's grilling website. She also hosts seminars on grilling for women and competes in barbeque competitions with her father under the team name "Too Sauced to Pork."
Tomorrow, at 9 p.m., Lindars will compete on Food Network's Chopped: Grill Masters, the summer edition of the wildly popular chef competition where host Ted Allen provides a mystery basket filled with odd goodies to four chefs who, in turn, have to whip up a tantalizing meal from such mismatched items as blood orange, marshmallow peeps, and canned squid.
Lindars told Clean Plate Charlie that Chopped casting asked her to
appear on the show twice before she accepted, but she was glad she
finally said yes. "It was a really cool experience. The
show was filmed in Old Tucson, Arizona -- where they filmed all the old
cowboy movies, so the location itself was just amazing."
Her
episode pits Lindars against three men -- two of them professional
chefs, but Lindars felt she had a secure place in the competition.
"Bloggers are a real part of the cooking world now. We feel out new
trends and it's exciting to represent."
Filming
the episode was grueling, but rewarding, said Lindars."We had to get up
at 3:30 a.m. to start filming, which took an entire day. Then we had to
shoot bios. Since I wasn't local, the producers asked me to bring along some items that represent Florida. Well, I have pink flamingos all over my
website, so I packed some flamingos, as well as some secret
ingredients that we were allowed to use on the show. I can't even
imagine what the TSA thought of my suitcase."
How do you train
for a show that sets out to stump the contestants by surprising them
with mystery ingredients? Practice with strange food combinations, said
Lindars. "My husband would bring home mystery items every day and ask
me to cook with them. Poor man had to eat the results. Sometimes he
would make it easy for me. That's when I knew he wanted to give his own
stomach a break." According to Lindars, the one thing you really can't
barbecue successfully -- canned eel. "My husband and I both agreed I
would have been chopped for that dish."
We're hoping Lindars
doesn't get canned eel in her mystery basket. Remember to watch this
Sunday, August 5 at 9 p.m. to find out how our local Grill Girl fares.
On Monday, we'll give you a recap of the show, along with some grilling tips from Lindars, herself.
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