Local Cooking Star Makes it to National Television [Video]

If you live in Newton, you've probably seen Candy Gold on your television serving up homemade cooking and talking recipes with a friend on NewTV's Neighborhood Cooking with Candy Gold.

Next month, though, Gold will make her debut on national television sets.

September 10 marks the day Gold's cooking will premiere on The Cooking Channel, a sister channel to the popular Food Network. Gold's "Brisket Bonanza" sandwich was selected as a winner for The Cooking Channel's latest show, The Perfect 3. 

"I've always loved food and I've always loved cooking," Gold says.

Gold, a Newton native, has hosted her Neighborhood Cooking show on for just over a year. Each week, Gold invites community members, friends, family, or elected officials to join her in the kitchen where they cook up their favorite recipes.

And while she may be a new face to the NewTV scene, Gold recently won NewTV's Producer of the Year award and her cooking show is featured on other local cable channels in Needham, Watertown, Wellesley, Somerville and Brookline.

But Gold's Cooking Channel recognition didn't start with a clip of her TV show, it started with her brisket.

The winning recipe came together one afternoon in March 2011 when her 18-year-old son came home from school craving a brisket sandwich. As she stared to prep, Gold knew she could do something better than the typical white bread and ketchup.

Out came the homemade coleslaw and pickles, Swiss cheese and scratch-made caramelized onion spread. With a stellar pile of sliced brisket -- a recipe that uses ginger snap cookies as a secret ingredient -- and toasted Challah bread on either side, Gold had herself a knockout sandwich.

Around that same time, Gold had spotted a note on Facebook about a contest for the Perfect 3 show asking readers to send in their best recipes. Gold submitted her Brisket Bonanza sandwich recipe with some photos and simply placed it in the back of her mind.

The Perfect 3, which airs Saturdays at 4 p.m., features three "perfect dishes" from Food Network/Cooking Channel stars. One of those three dishes, though, is submitted by a viewer. 

There around a dozen categories for the show including chili, salads, burgers and of course, sandwiches. Viewers are asked to submit recipes and three finalists for a particular category are chosen by the Cooking Channel staff. Those finalists then submit a three-minute promo video of them making their recipe and the cook with the best video is flown to New York to film a bit about their recipe with host Kelsey Nixon.

Two months after submitting the Brisket Bonanza recipe, Gold was on the phone with The Cooking Channel. Gold was a finalist in the sandwich category and needed to submit a three-minute promo video.

A promo video for a regular? No problem. 

"I knew my [demo] video was going to be really good, I was comfortable with that," Gold says.

Two weeks later, Gold found out she had won the contest and was flown to the New York studios. She got the star treatment with an all-expense-paid trip and makeup in the green room before stepping into the professional Food Network kitchens.

"It was really fun to go to New York and shoot in those legendary kitchens," Gold says. "Rachel Ray was shooting her show right next door."

The set was just like she imagined, Gold says, with the food prepped on the counter and a finished brisket ready in oven #2. 

But even for someone with a lot of experience in front of the camera, Gold says she still had some nerves the day of the Perfect 3 shoot. While looking at her five-minute "webisode" Gold knows she was thrown off a bit on the national stage.

"I was in somebody else's arena," she says. "[The webisode] is fine, but I got a little nervous." You can view the webisode here and a commercial featuring Gold here.

Nevertheless, Gold is satisfied and proud of her soon-to-be Cooking Channel appearance, something she says would have never happened without her friends and colleagues at NewTV.

"They are so warm, so nice, so supportive, so terrific," Gold says.

Now that her nation-wide debut is about to hit television sets, Gold doesn't jump right away at the thought of leaving her NewTV show for a bigger set. Although she tosses around the idea of applying for Fox's Masterchef, writing a cookbook or restaurant reviews is the likely scenario for the near future.

"I'm very much a Newton girl," Gold says. "I'm very happy doing what I'm dong."

Gold's episode of The Perfect Three airs Sat., September 10 at 4 p.m.You can check out Gold's recipe for the Beef Brisket Bonanza Sandwich here.