TV Talk: Pittsburgh's Ritual House pastry sous chef competes on ‘Summer Baking Championship’

Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week.

Western Pennsylvania native Zoe Peckich, who recently moved from pastry chef at Monterey Bay Fish Grotto on Mt. Washington to pastry sous chef at Ritual House in Downtown Pittsburgh, makes her TV series competition debut in back-to-back episodes of “Summer Baking Championship” (9 p.m. May 15, Food Network), vying for the $25,000 grand prize.

“Summer Baking Championship,” hosted by Jesse Palmer, marks the newest seasonal expansion for the Food Network format and features Duff Goldman, Carla Hall and Damaris Phillips judging desserts.

Peckich, who grew up in Canonsburg (she’s a 2014 graduate of Canon-McMillan High School) and now resides on Mt. Washington, never applied to be on a TV baking competition. But casting producers for “Summer Baking Championship” found and recruited her through her personal Facebook page where she posted pictures of specialty cakes she created.

“I like to make desserts that hit home,” she said. “So in Pittsburgh, we pride ourselves on cookies and cookie tables at weddings and things that are very relatable. I always say if I can make you have a memory with a bite, then that’s my style.”

Peckich said as a child her mom had a parental block on all TV channels except Food Network.

“I absolutely loved to watch all the baking competitions and Guy Fieri,” she recalled.

That interest led her to Johnsons & Wales University, a culinary school in Charlotte, N.C., where she earned a degree in baking and pastry arts. Jobs as a chocolatier in Charlotte and stints at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas followed. She also enrolled in a one-month program in Italy dedicated to making gelato.

Peckich returned to Pittsburgh to work at Monterey Bay mid-pandemic, beginning as a server and then moving into the pastry chef position when it became available.

She cites Sarris Candies in Canonsburg as “a big influence.”

“That was my favorite little chocolate shop/ice cream parlor,” Peckich said. “I always told my mom one day I want to have my own place and I want it to be iconic like this. Having that in my hometown really inspired me to want to have a local business that everyone loves.”

Someday she’d like to have “my own concept whether that be by myself or working for someone else who believes in my vision. I would definitely love to have my name around Pittsburgh that way.”

Peckich said once she was cast on “Summer Baking Championship,” she watched clips of past baking competition shows but not full episodes.

“I’d be on the treadmill at the gym and then all of a sudden ‘Spring Baking Championship’ pops up and I’d run the other way,” she said. “I just didn’t want any expectations. I didn’t want to know anything. I didn’t want to go into it like, ‘This is gonna happen,’ because I wanted it to be a surprise.”

Peckich said the time crunch shown on televised baking competitions is real.

“You watch other shows and you see people messing up, and it’s exactly the way it looks,” she said. “I can’t even believe I did the things I did with that amount of time. … (It will) be very humbling to see what they’ve recorded of us.”

Peckich said her Monterey Bay bosses were supportive when she took time off in January to fly to Los Angeles to film the “Summer Baking Championship.”

“They were equally as excited, if not even more so, and they sent me with well wishes, so everyone was rooting for me,” she said. “Just being on the show, that was enough for me. I didn’t go into it thinking, ‘Oh, I’m gonna win.’ I just wanted to be a part of something like that. And I completely fulfilled that dream.”