Philly's Courtney Lapresi wins 'MasterChef'

With a meal for the judges that included crispy pig's ear, sumac duck breast, and cherry meringue, Center City's Courtney Lapresi was named the season winner of Fox's MasterChef.

She gets $250,000, a book deal, and bragging rights.

Lapresi, 25, worked the stove in front of Gordon Ramsay, Joe Bastianich and Graham Elliot. The show brought together 30 home cooks in a boot-camp-type show.

If you follow the logic of blogger Stormy Elizabeth of CelebrityDirtyLaundry.com, it was a boob-camp show.

Elizabeth accused Lapresi of getting preferential treatment - "winning when her dishes don't seem to be quite up to it" - because she was a stripper at Delilah's while in college.

She later was an aerial dancer - clothed - in a nightclub show at the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City.

Lapresi's background was Topic A among her competitors.

"When I think legit aerial dancer, I think Cirque de Soleil, not boobs out on a pole," wrote Elizabeth, claws out. "One's art and one's something else entirely." Well!

Fox did not mention Lapresi's stripping before the season launched in May. Dancing as "Winter," she won the strip club's Entertainer of the Year prize twice.

Lapresi, who grew up in Geneva, N.Y., studied dance at the University of the Arts, a talent that no doubt helped her as an ecdysiast.

Early Monday, Lapresi said she was proud of her portrayal on the show, which she described during a brief chat today as a "once-in-a-lifetime experience and a life-changing one" for the culinary knowledge she gained.

"I know people had a lot of questions, like, 'Is she being authentic?'" she said. "I know I was."