‘Different kind of pressure’: Fort St. John’s MasterChef finalist prepares for opening of pop-up restaurant at Rootstock Ranch

CHARLIE LAKE, B.C. — Fort St. John’s own MasterChef is ready to test her culinary might to the limit.

A rancher by trade, Marianne Smeaton went all the way to the finals on CTV’s Masterchef Canada season eight before coming up short, losing to Toronto’s Veronica Woo.

A former Registered Nurse (RN), Smeaton said the opening of a pop-up restaurant at Rootstock Ranch in Charlie Lake will offer a different type of challenge.

“It’s a different kind of pressure,” Smeaton told Energeticcity.ca. “I definitely put a lot of thought into everything that I do, but now I have time to think about it more.”

The space has already had a soft opening in April, and Smeaton revealed the restaurant will open for a few days at a time on a monthly basis, beginning in May.

She described her culinary pursuits as a “passion,” something she tapped more or less into after giving birth to her second child.

“Food has always been in the back of my mind,” said Smeaton. “I thoroughly enjoyed being an RN, but after I had my second, I just had a hard time going back into it.”

“It wasn’t filling my bucket the way it used to. I just started cooking more and more and more during that time. Then, MasterChef came along.”

After her success on the hit reality show, Smeaton described the new endeavour as something she can do to maintain that passion and showcase her talents to her community.

“First and foremost, I’m still a mom,” said Smeaton. “[The pop-up] allows me to love my community the same way when I was doing nursing, just in a different way.”

“Having the freedom to do the pop-up events allows me to be creative. I love creating dishes and coming up with ideas. So it allows me to do that, but in a way that’s not full-time.”

Reservations, tickets and other details regarding Rootstock Ranch’s once-monthly pop-up events will be released soon.
For more information about Rootstock Ranch, visit the farm’s Facebook page or call (250) 793-4234.