PCM's Rebekah got the chance to talk with Next Food Network Star season five winner, Melissa d'Arabian. She uses her culinary skills and life experiences to make family friendly recipes. Melissa is a stay-at-home mom so she knows how to manage time and money to prepare fresh meals for a family. Her culinary inspiration comes from family, friends, cooking classes, and world travels. As this season's winner, Melissa will star in an all new Food Network show called Ten Dollar Dinners.

Melissa d'Arabian: Joining Next Food Network Star for me has always been about connecting with other people. If I couldn't connect with other people--I think that is probably part of why my personal stories are such a part of my experience on Next Food Network Star because for me that is a big part of why I came on the show. I am really looking forward to connecting with other people. To me, having a show is my opportunity to share war stories with other folks who have either been stay-at-home moms or career moms, or--back when I had an 80 hour a week job. So I know what it is like to work a gazillion hours and then have a dinner party at the end of the day and think what was I thinking inviting all of these people over for dinner, what am I possibly going to serve them that will not be embarrassing for me. So to me it is swapping war stories and I love that. Now it is admittedly a one way swap--I am on the TV and you all are out there in your living rooms. But that is what I am looking forward to most, is connecting and sharing.

M.D.: You know, wouldn't it be a perfect world where I would spend a couple hours cooking my best food and my kids would go 'this is so much better than McDonalds mommy thank you, we're such a fortunate family.' Do I think that overall they love my cooking? Yes, but I don't think that they are fully tuned into knowing what I am cooking vs. what someone else is cooking. You grow up with what you grow up with and that is your normal. Isn't it? So for them, mommy cooking with them in the kitchen is just normal. They love my food. I think that their favorite recipe right now is this creamed spinach that I made a couple weeks ago. For whatever reason it is very simple, but they just love it. It is based on caramelized shallots and then I use up the extra little buts of string cheese--my kids are always opening up string cheese, having a couple bites and then that's the end of it--so I stick them all in a baggy and I decided that I need to think of a recipe to use them. They love that at the moment. I think their all time favorite recipe would be my fruit and veggie muffins. I do a high protein muffin--little mini muffins with lots of protein, lots of fiber and a half a serving of veggies and than also half a serving of fruit in each serving. And they love those. They call them cupcakes. And they just eat them--they will seriously just sit down and eat like six of those mini muffins for breakfast which makes me happy because that gets all of their systems all in line for the rest of the day which I love.

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