Still ‘afraid of fire and sharp things,’ NC woman returns to ‘Worst Cooks’ show
It was a dreadful round of gifted graham cracker toffee bars that led to the intervention.
The family of Dr. Lulu Boykin, an artist and teacher who lives in Pittsboro, had had enough. The caramel- and walnut-covered graham crackers she “learned” to make from a friend and presented as gifts turned out burned and inedible. She gave them out anyway.
“I was so excited,” Boykin told The News & Observer in an interview last week. “I thought they were supposed to be that crunchy. But my family had a Christmas cookie intervention, and I’m not allowed to make Christmas cookies any more.”
Her contribution to family reunions? “Paper products,” she says.
Boykin, who has a masters of fine arts and a doctorate in education from UNC-Chapel Hill, isn’t the least bit bothered by her poor culinary reputation — not even after it surpassed family lore and spread nationwide last year with her appearance on Season 18 of the Food Network show “Worst Cooks in America.”
The show, hosted this season by chefs Anne Burrell and Michael Symon, is designed as a sort of “boot camp” to teach a few kitchen skills to truly terrible cooks.
She made it to the final four that season (“squeaking by each week,” she says) and has been invited back for Season 22, which is an all-stars reunion of eight former contestants. The new season premieres Sunday (April 25) at 9 p.m.
Boykin says she loved her time on the show, but called it “intense.”
“My first experience on Season 18 was really scary because I don’t know how to cook — and I’m afraid of sharp things and fire,” she said. “But I did learn a lot.”
She even won one of the competitions on the show, preparing duck with all the trimmings.
“I was so shocked I could have fallen down, but I didn’t. It was exhilarating,” she said.
Does she cook duck at home now? “No!”
Her boost of kitchen confidence doesn’t mean Boykin took over with the pots and pans once back home. Her husband, Anthony, still does the cooking, she said, with Boykin relegated to reheating things in the microwave, and the occasional dabble in experimentation.
Boykin and her husband recently appeared on a Discovery+ reaction show called “Dirty Dishes,” which records previous “Worst Cooks” contestants inside their homes re-watching all eight episodes of their seasons. For their appearance, Boykin was asked to make appetizers to eat during the show, so she came up with eight different menus and matching cocktails.
“Some were actually edible,” she said. “Some of them were good, and some were disastrous.”
On the bright side, there’s the annual spaghetti dinner she makes on her husband’s birthday. It’s the one dish Boykin learned from her mother and the one dish she is confident that she makes well.
She made the effort to learn it because it was her husband’s favorite dish that her mother cooked.
“She taught me how to make that spaghetti sauce, and she made me do it over and over and over and over until I got it right,” Boykin said.
Apart from the sauce tutorial, Boykin says she didn’t gain a love for cooking from her mother. Her parents weren’t at home much when she was younger, Boykin said, so they bought packaged food for her to prepare for her younger brothers.
“I’m a creative person, so I would go grocery shopping with them and I’d buy food coloring,” she said. “So for my brothers, I’d make bright green spaghetti or green eggs and Spam, or bright blue milk. My brothers hated it, but it gave me motivation to continue to cook.”
As soon as she went off to college, though, Boykin discovered the joy of buying food already cooked, and she never looked back.
Mother Goose doesn’t have to cook
In her non-TV life, Boykin is a performer and teacher, often dressing up as Mother Goose to entertain sick children.
She created an art-based curriculum called “I Feel Better with Music,” designed to help preschoolers with cancer — and their parents — reduce stress caused by the disease and treatment. Her work is part of DooR to DooR, a program started by Joy Javits that uses music and art to help patients, family and staff at UNC Hospitals.
Before COVID, Boykin (as Mother Goose) visited kids and their families in the pediatric oncology hospital rooms and coordinated performances for patients on a stage at the hospital. The in-person part of the program is on pause for now.
Boykin also performs in the band Mustard Biscuit with her husband. Live Mustard Biscuit performances are also on hold for now, but they have been posting videos online.
The two have used much of their COVID quarantine time together to work on their home, “way out in the country in Pittsboro,” which they bought in 2018.
“We’ve been working on the inside of the house,” she said. “And we built a deck and a pool and patio, and making it our own.”
Does the new home include a big, nice kitchen? Yes, but that’s still her husband’s territory.
“When he sees me in there, he gets nervous,” said Boykin, who told the Chatham Reporter last year that she once set her kitchen cabinets on fire. “He says, ‘What are you doing?!’ and he comes in and takes over.”
But there’s always hope, always a chance for graham cracker toffee bar redemption. So when Food Network came calling again, Boykin answered with an enthusiastic “Yes!”
“Maybe I’ll learn how to cook this time?” she said.
Watch ‘Worst Cooks in America’
Season 22 of “Worst Cooks in America” premieres Sunday, April 25, at 9 p.m. on Food Network.
Dr. Boykin and family and friends will have a viewing party at The MOD restaurant in Pittsboro on Sunday evening. The public is invited to attend, but COVID protocols are in place at the restaurant and capacity is limited. Call for more information: 919-533-6883.
This story was originally published April 23, 2021 at 8:00 AM.
