For those who know Cheryl Perry, there is no doubt she is doing what she loves. Perry, 47, has two degrees in business but she'd rather spend her time working in the kitchen at Montero's Restaurant, baking and creating award-winning recipes that land her on the Food Network.

Next month Perry will head up to her hometown, New York City, to appear on the Food Network show, the Ultimate Recipe Showdown 2. The Montero's baker has 197 notebook pages of recipes she has personally created and she entered 15 of those to gain a spot on the show's cook-off.

Robert Kelly-Goss/Daily Advance (ENLARGE)

Cheryl Perry, house baker for Montero's Restaurant in Elizabeth City, will be featured on the Food Network show 'Ultimate Recipe Showdown 2,' for her creation: Seafood stuffed trout with citrus butter drizzle and a side of sweet potato hash browns.

"She's a professional recipe contestant and works in a restaurant as a hobby," jokes Andy Montero, restaurant owner/chef and Perry's employer.

Montero encourages his kitchen staff to create new, original recipes with available food. Many of the popular eatery's specials come from this entreatment, including Perry's winning seafood-stuffed trout with a citrus butter drizzle and a side of sweet potato hash browns.

Perry created the dish last year and it has been served as a special on Montero's menu. This year she entered it in the showdown's hometown favorites category, highlighting regional foods. It was good enough to warrant a call from the show's producer, leaving Perry ecstatic.

"I couldn't believe it because I had forgotten all about it," says Perry.

The show producer told Perry she was one of a handful of finalists chosen for the show out of 8,000 entries.

"That made me feel good," she says.

In September, the Food Network show will fly her to New York City, put her up in a Manhattan hotel and give her spending money.

That is, she says, reward enough for her efforts. However, if she makes it all the way, the grand prize is $25,000.

But first she has to compete.

The competition will include the creation of two recipes on the show. The first recipe is, of course, the stuffed trout.

Perry says she's not certain how much time she will have or under what conditions she will create the dish. She does know, however, that she must also create a recipe for what the show calls the speed round.

The show's producer told Perry she must submit a recipe that she will prepare in 30 minutes. She chose peach barbecue glazed pork tenderloin. Her original recipe, she says she chose this one because pork tenderloin is a fast cooker.

She also had to produce a five-minute video of herself and submit that to the show's producer.

"I'm crazy," Perry says of the excitement she's feeling over this contest.

Montero's jokes about Perry's propensity for entering contests is, well, no joke. She subscribes to an e-mail newsletter that alerts her of all of the available contests.

"I just entered one yesterday," she says.

And she's entered many more than that. In fact, Perry was featured last year in The Daily Advance for winning a big recipe award that took her to Chicago.

Perry, a native of the Queens borough in New York City, moved to Elizabeth City 13 years ago to be near her family. She's been working in restaurants much of her adult life and says she probably should have gone to culinary school, yet it might not really matter because she's a very fulfilled cook as it is.

Perry says she loves creating recipes. She currently has 197 notebook pages of original recipes that attest to that fact.

"I love to take an ingredient and say, 'What can I do with it?'"

When she started working for Montero's, Perry was a line cook. That meant she was able to create four to five recipes a week for the eatery's specials menu. These days, however, she puts her emphasis on baking, but that doesn't mean a new recipe doesn't make it on the entrée list, nor does it mean she isn't creating original desserts.

"I came up with the Train Wreck Espresso Cake," says Perry of the popular dessert that consists of espresso pastry cream, coffee liqueur and crushed Heath bars.

In a world where people like to say there are no original ideas left, Perry may be one to prove them wrong.

"Everything hasn't been created yet," she says. "It just depends on your willingness to create."

And create she does, because, she says, she likes the contests and she loves the cooking.

"They (contests) keep me creative," Perry says.

So Perry is sharing her creations with restaurant patrons and that's been a success, but what about a cookbook?

"I've been asked to do a book but I want to have enough good recipes," she says.

Perry says she will wait until she has added 100 new pages of original recipes to her notebook before she sits down to plan a cookbook. She says at that point she will have enough to pick from and enough to help her work out a theme for the book.

Until then, she'll keep entering contests and, of course, creating delectable delights for the patrons at Montero's.

Perry says she hasn't learned the airtime for the Food Network show, but when she does she will pass it on.