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Mercyhurst University culinary students will get to rub elbows with celebrity chef Mary Sue Milliken Friday.

The author of five cookbooks and participant on Bravo's "Top Chef Masters" will speak with dining services chefs and managers, students in the hospitality management program.

She'll speak for about half an hour and mingle, take questions and sign cookbooks until 8 p.m. when between 15 and 20 teams of students will participate in a competition modeled after the popular Food Network show "Chopped."

While the talks are reserved for the university's community, the general public is invited to watch the competition in Egan Dining hall.

"I think that part of it should be really fun, with the students bringing out what they're proud of," Milliken said. "And me being able to critique and tell them what parts I liked or what they might have changed, or opportunities to improve."

Milliken, 53, said she's been trying to schedule the visit to Mercyhurst for several months, and an opportunity arose because she'll be appearing on the Today show today.

She said she'll speak with students and staff about how the food landscape has changed since she got into the business in the late 1970s.

"When I was growing up, cooking was not sexy at all," she said. "It wasn't hot or cool. My parents were appalled."

And it wasn't easy to break into what was almost exclusively a man's profession. She remembers getting a chance at a job at the best French restaurant in Chicago.

"The chef interviewed me and said I'd make a good hat check girl," Milliken said. "He said 'You'd never work out in my kitchen. You're too pretty and you'd cause havoc in there.'

"I was devastated."

She didn't give up, though, and pestered the chef for weeks afterward. He finally hired her for $3.25 an hour. That was 1978.

Now Milliken co-owns several southwestern themed Border Grill restaurants in California and Nevada. She said ABC is working on a sitcom about the beginning of her career with business partner Susan Feniger.

She said after 30 years in the business, she can't believe how much the American food culture has changed.

"When I was growing up, people were grabbing tater tots and fish sticks, TV dinners and manufactured food," Milliken said. "No one was thinking about food or cooking."

Now, she said, Americans are seeking out new tastes and ingredients, and learning to cook for enjoyment.

"Cooking has become much more a part of entertainment," she said, attributing some of the change to the rise of the Food Network. "It's been the biggest catalyst in this whole renaissance of food awareness and excitement.

"I'm so thankful because it's something that was a long time coming."

For a time, Milliken and Feniger hosted "Too Hot Tamales" on the Food Network. While she's grateful for the time she had on the channel, and has participated in competitive cooking herself, she laments a little bit recent changes she's seen in the station's lineup, focused more on game shows and less on cooking for its own sake.

"I'm sad that our industry has become all about competition," she said. "The entertainment world is all about competition, losing the weight, cooking the fastest. I don't really get it."

Milliken said she's eager to meet students excited and inspired about food. She wants to take questions and talk about the future of food, sustainability and healthier modern diets.

"I'm interested in listening to where they'd like to take the conversation."