Dee Freney has been voted as Today's TV Home Cook following a nationwide search for Ireland's best home cook.
In late March, eight contestants from across the country were hand-picked and mentored by chef Trisha Lewis, taking on a series of cooking challenges in a professional TV kitchen for the very first time.
Over the following weeks, the cooking contestants were whittled down through public vote, leaving finalists Margaret Leahy from Galway and Dee Freney from Mayo to face off in a grand final.
On live TV, Margaret Leahy created a beautiful elderflower raspberry cheesecake while Dee Freney delivered a fabulous gluten-free lemon polenta cake.
Following the show, the public was tasked with voting for the overall winner, and it seems that Dee was in a class of her own, wowing audiences and the team with her gluten-free recipes.
Speaking minutes after her win, Dee said: "It was just unbelievable. It was kind of like time stood still for a second. I was just like, is this actually real? You know, that's kind of like dream phase?"
"I entered on Good Friday. So I was thinking, oh my God, it feels like such a long time. It feels like it's been going on for months and months and months."
Dee gushed about the support shown to her in the last few weeks, saying: "The amount of people that have been in touch with me that I haven't spoken to in years, people I don't even know, strangers sending me cards. I've never ever had an experience in my life where I felt so supported by so many people."
One of those supporters, of course, was chef Trisha Lewis who acted as mentor for each of the Home Cook contestants. Dee was emphatic about Trisha's knowledge and help:
"She's just so helpful. Like nothing was an issue. Nothing was a problem. She had a fix for everything. Like no matter what, if I said, you know, how am I going to do this? It was always kind of like a positive spin. It was always kind of like, you can do this. 'You know this inside out, we'll just do this, we'll change this up.'"
Keeping her recipes gluten-free was a touching homage to her daughter, Dee said: "My daughter's celiac and she's 13, and we've never been able to sit down and watch gluten-free baking or cooking on the TV together."
And it seems the universe gave her another nod of support when she arrived back at the hotel yesterday evening after preparing her final dish, a lemon polenta cake:
"When I got to the hotel last night, I had the cake stand with me in my hand and I walked into reception and the girl behind reception desk was like, oh my God, that looks like the nicest cake ever. And I was like, do you want a slice? And she's like, oh no, I can't, I'm celiac. And I was like, yes you can!"
