"I always thought I was a good cook because nobody got sick or died."
That's what Mansfield minister Sharon Grant, the empty-nester mother of two, thought years ago. But after her daughters left home, she reevaluated. "I realized that my cooking skills weren't that good," she says. "I finally looked in my pantry and refrigerator and noticed everything was frozen and in a box or in a can."
She'll be one of 14 contestants on Worst Cooks in America, the Food Network show premiering its latest season on Aug. 4. Contestants are split up into teams, helmed by chef Bobby Flay and Anne Burrell. Grant is the only Texas contestant.
Although being a terrible cook is great fun on TV, the goal of the show is to help each home cook improve. The winner — the person who has "the most impressive culinary transformation," says a press release — gets $25,000. Some of Grant's competitors include an opera singer from New York, a hypnotist from Illinois, a pageant winner from North Carolina, and another fellow clergy member: a priest from Rhode Island.
The first challenge tasked contestants with creating a date-night dish.
"You know how they say 'lost at sea?' I was lost in the kitchen," Grant says.
But "I'm a person who, I never give up, no matter how bad it looks. And in my mind, it looked pretty bad," she says.
She came in with very little knowledge of how to cook with fresh ingredients, she says. Her signature dish, for instance, is a pork chop dish with canned cream of mushroom soup and Stove Top Stuffing. "You can't go wrong with that!" she says. But Worst Cooks showed her "what's actually out there in the food world" — and that dishes like her famous pork chops can be made with healthier, fresher ingredients.
Her favorite tip from the show was learning how useful a cast-iron skillet can be.
"Of course, I grew up with one," she says. "But I didn't know it was such an amazing piece of cookware."
Watch Mansfield minister Sharon Grant cooking (and praying) on Worst Cooks in America on Food Network on Aug. 4 at 8 p.m. The winner is announced in the finale on Sept. 22.
