On Sunday, Longmont resident Kayla Longstreth returned as a contestant on the show Worst Cooks in America for the second time in the show’s special Halloween Redemption round.
In early 2019, Longstreth had just graduated from college and was working as a dance instructor in Longmont when she received a phone call telling her that she had been nominated to appear on the show Worst Cooks in America.
At first, Longstreth said, the whole thing felt like a prank. Later, Longstreth talked to her mother who informed her that she had in fact nominated Longstreth to be on the show.
“It felt like a total joke,” Longstreth said with a laugh, “I am not good at cooking and I’ve had a lot of kitchen disasters in my past.”
By 2019, Longstreth had “never really had the time to get into cooking,” in part because she was mostly teaching dance classes in the evenings. At the time, she said, her go-to meals consisted of the same, simple ingredients like rice, chicken and broccoli, or Chipotle.
Before Longstreth could appear on season 17 of Worst Cooks in America, she underwent several months of a cooking bootcamp taught by American celebrity-chefs Bobby Flay and Anne Burrell.
“We basically learned how to cook by watching (Flay and Burrell) cook a dish then cooking the same dish ourselves and additing our own twist to it,” Longstreth said.
When the show began on August 4, 2019, however, Longstreth felt stressed because she was still very new to cooking. Then, by the end, “I was beginning to really enjoy cooking,” she said.
Longstreth was one of the top three final contestants of season 17 of Worst Cooks in America when she was sent home on September 15, 2019.
Between her time on the show in 2019 and now, Longstreth reports not keeping up with the cooking skills she learned while on the show. She accredits this to be the reason why “they had me back for the Halloween Redemption round,” she said.
Compared to her previous experience on Worst Cooks in America, Longstreth found her recent return to the show to be less stressful because there was no threat of elimination.
“(The Halloween Redemption season) felt more fun because there were only four (contestants) and there were no eliminations,” Longstreth said. “We all got the same practice, knowledge and training and this made it more of a relaxed experience.”
Due to the less intense nature of the new season, Longstreth felt like she was able to share personal experiences and form relationships with Burnell, new judge Michael Symon and the other contestants.
When the first episode of Worst Cooks in America’s Halloween Redemption season premiered on Sunday night, Longstreth tuned in.
“It’s so interesting watching yourself on TV, especially when you’re on a show meant to make you look a little nutty. I had a great time sitting back and watching all of the hilarious moments that my friends from the show and I experienced. Even though I know what happens in the end, I felt just as much anxiety and excitement watching the show as I did being on it.”
