St. Mary boy to be on 'MasterChef Junior'

Kade Dugas’ cooking show on YouTube led to the chance of a lifetime to be able to appear on a nationally televised culinary competition for kids.
Dugas, 10, of Morgan City, is a fifth-grader at M.E. Norman Elementary School.
Dugas will appear on the fourth season of “MasterChef Junior,” which premieres at 7 p.m. Friday on Fox.
The show is a “culinary competition series for talented kids between the ages of eight and 13 who love to cook,” according to its Facebook page. It features chefs Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot and Christina Tosi as judges for the competition.
Dugas has a cooking show on YouTube called “Cooking with Kade” that appears on the Cajun TV Network channel, which his parents own. Dugas said he began his YouTube cooking show about a year and a half ago.
His dad, Ken Dugas, said Kade Dugas’ YouTube show got him a lot of exposure.
The casting company for one of Rachel Ray’s shows saw Kade’s YouTube videos, “so YouTube is where he’s being found,” his mom, Amy Dugas, said.
Kade Dugas’ parents produce video commercials, and, one day, Ken Dugas “just grabbed the camera and put it on him.”
His parents filmed him making a pizza at 6 years old, and he kept asking them to video him again, Amy Dugas said.
“We just kept putting it off until last summer, when school ended. He wanted us to film him. (I) said, well, that’ll be something fun for the summer, keep him busy,” Amy Dugas said. “And he just got big on YouTube. And he enjoyed it, and this past year has been a whirlwind.”
In December 2014, his parents brought him to an open casting call in Houston for “MasterChef Junior.” Producers of the show called about 15 minutes after the family left the casting call. They wanted Kade Dugas to do a video audition the next day, Amy Dugas said.
Kade Dugas then went to a final casting call in Los Angeles where the potential contestants were whittled down to the 24 contestants who were selected for the show.
Kade Dugas ended up being one of two kids from Louisiana selected to be on the show. He beat out thousands of other kids who auditioned, his parents said.
The show, which has finished taping, was a fun experience, Kade Dugas said.
One of the most challenging things he had to do on the show was use “the little blow torch,” Kade Dugas said.
Kade Dugas started watching “MasterChef Junior” during the second season, but actually being on the show was a much different experience.
“It was nothing like I expected,” Kade Dugas said.
The show was “a huge production” with 200 people helping to film each episode, Ken Dugas said.
There were “like 50 cameras on the side,” Kade Dugas said. It was a little nerve-racking with “all the cameras watching your every move,” Kade Dugas said.
He said watching his mom in the kitchen first sparked his interest in cooking at 3 years old. He would help his mom put toppings on pizzas. “I just sort of got into it,” he said.
His favorite dish to cook now is shrimp etouffee.
Kade Dugas has his own line of seasoning products and will be at the World Record Gumbo event Saturday in Larose as a judge for the potato salad contest, Ken Dugas said.
Kade Dugas has an idea of what his future may hold. “I want to be a master chef, and I want to be a restaurant owner,” he said.
“In other words, he wants to be Bobby Flay,” Ken Dugas said.