Tune into tonight at 8 p.m. on FOX to see if Kelsey Murphy, a physical therapist from Fishers, will make it to the Top 10 on the 11th season of MasterChef.
Murphy
After winning the Monkfish challenge and surviving both the dessert challenge and meat challenge – where her dish was a top 3 favorite – tonight she faces a pasta challenge.
Michelin Star chef Nancy Silverton will test the home cooks on tonight’s episode of MasterChef with a fresh pasta challenge. The cooks must prove they can master this Italian staple and impress with a pasta dish of their own in the all-new “Legends: Nancy Silverton – Pasta Challenge” episode tonight at 8 p.m. on FOX.
Last month, the Reporter spoke with Murphy about the act of balancing a career, her family, and a trip to Los Angeles, where MasterChef was filmed.
“Everything was filmed out in L.A.,” Murphy told The Reporter. “Total filming time ended up being about six weeks total including all the final auditions and completion of filming. We had to take a seven-month break because of COVID.”
Given two trips to California for a total of six weeks of filming, the logistics for a career physical therapist with young children was a challenge she did not face alone.
“Credit all goes to my husband, Brandon, for handling the kids,” Murphy said. “At the time of filming we only had the two, so there was no infant involved. He ran the household and my in-laws thankfully helped out picking up kids from daycare and stuff like that.”
Kelsey and Brandon Murphy now have three children: a 4 ½-year-old girl, a 2 ½-year-old boy and a 4-month-old boy.
Murphy laughed a bit when telling the Reporter, “I am still in debt indefinitely. If he ever wants something he is still like, ‘Remember: you left.’”
Murphy says she has always been a fan of the show who loves cooking and is a foodie at heart who has never had a formal cooking lesson, aside from one date night with her husband at a sushi making class.
“My love and passion for food came from growing up with Italian family on my mom’s side and Polish on my dad’s side,” Murphy said. “Every day was spent in the kitchen doing home cooking. But I feel like my skill set came from watching food TV. Once I got to college, I started watching Food Network all the time. I’d watch it when I was in my room. I’d watch it when I was working out. I started to pay attention and take all the knowledge in and started to apply it to my cooking.”
Having faced the challenges of isolation and pressure and anxiety in pursuit of taking her love of food to a whole new level, Murphy told The Reporter she wants to tell women who struggle to balance busy lives that there is a message for them in her journey.
“This whole experience is my ode to moms,” Murphy said. “For anyone who is working and taking care of kids, we get super busy and lost doing the day-to-day stuff of taking care of our kids all the time, trying to work, or being a stay-at-home mom. It is important to take a step back and remind yourself that you are an individual also. You need to take time to explore your own passions and find yourself.”
She said facing the fear of the unknown has brought her some unexpected rewards.
“I was so scared to go out to California and do this,” Murphy explained. “Even two days before I was like, ‘I can’t do this. This is silly. No way.’ And within days of being our there I was like, ‘Oh my gosh! I feel like myself 10 years ago. This is me as an individual. This is what I should be doing.’ It has really allowed me to come back home and be a better wife, a better mother, a better worker. It renewed my spirit in everything. If you don’t try you will never know what you have to offer.”
Be sure to catch tonight’s pasta challenge episode of MasterChef at 8 p.m. on FOX.