Next Food Network Star, back June 6, interviews with Atlantans Brianna Jenkins and Herb Mesa

I talked to both personal chef/trainer Herb Mesa and caterer Brianna Jenkins (left) recently. They didn't know each other when they met on the set of "Food Network Star" but became fast friends. "He's on my top 5 on my phone," Jenkins chirped. "He's like the brother I never had."

Based on what I saw the first episode, I’m not sure either is going to win, but they both have their appealing qualities.

Herb, 41, is a personal trainer who moved here four years ago and wants to blend healthy eating with a healthy lifestyle. During the first episode, he also had no qualms doing one-armed push ups in front of Wolfgang Puck.

He’s wanted to be a TV chef for years. He had even flown out to Los Angeles to try to become one for 18 months. (He was an alternative for “Hell’s Kitchen.”) That didn’t work out so he came to Atlanta. “I look awesome on television,” he said. “I feel like I have a good presence.” Then he paused. “At least I have good guns.”

“Food Network Star” was “a lot tougher than I thought,” Mesa (left) added, “especially the time constraints in the challenges and missing my wife and two kids Plus, I work out two times a day and eat meals every three hours. This show put me out of my routine. I found myself doing impromptu workouts. I’d do push ups or put two chairs together and do dips.”

Some fellow contestants felt inspired to work out but others thought “I was out of my mind.”

Later, he said he “loves the challenge. I love being under pressure. I train to fight.”

Herb started a dishwasher in a sports bar in Elizabeth, N.J. at age 18. For the past 15 years, he’s worked in various hotels including the Omni and Sheraton as a cook. He is both a personal trainer at Core Fitness in Buckhead (the one Sheree Whitfield of “Real Housewives of Atlanta” attends) and a personal chef.

Brianna, who is 30 and has been in Atlanta since 1999, was a bit tougher to read in the debut episode I previewed. She tried to meld an obviously sincere approach towards food with a light-hearted “party girl” image.

She said she loves holding parties in Atlanta, which is why she calls herself "a party girl in Atlanta. I'm out and about." The problem is the phrase conjures up Paris Hilton.

“I don’t think a lot of people are used to seeing someone like me who takes food so seriously,” she said. “I’m a chef. ” Her goal: show viewers how to entertain and wow guests and make beautiful food at the same time.

The judges had a difficult time reconciling these two Brianna’s that first episode. It’ll be interesting what direction she goes in future shows.

Working the cameras, she noted, “is definitely very stressful. We were thrown into a Hollywood-type setting with lights and multiple cameras. I was definitely nervous at first.”

Brianna, who comes from a family of chefs, went to culinary school in Paris in 2004 and trained with some big-time Paris chefs. And yes, some were tough. One haughty pastry chef threw flour in her face and told her to go back to the States. (He eventually warmed up to her and cried when she left, she noted.)

A lot of men in her family discouraged her from pursuing the chef’s life. “You don’t look like a chef,” they’d say. “But I knew this was my calling. I had to do it or I wouldn’t be happy.”

Since 2007, Brianna has had a catering company and taught classes. The economy had put a crimp in her business so she tried out for “Network Star.”

Her favorite restaurant, according to the online Web bio: Hector Santiago's Pure Vida. Yes, the man from the last cycle of "Top Chef."

On TV

“The Next Food Network Star,” 9 p.m. on Sundays, season debut, Food Network

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