Top Chef and single mom Camille Becerra says "I'm dating myself!" 

When I emailed the publicist for Top Chef contestant-- and single mom — Camille Becerra I was floored when she wrote back to me herself. After, all, 35-year-old Chef Becerra is a celebrity.

So what if she had to leave the show after judge Tom Colicchio called her pineapple upside-down cake “rubbery”? Any single mom — and solo restaurant owner — who gets a spot on Top Chef — is a Big Name in my book.

When I suggested that I email a few questions to Camille, who owns Paloma in Brooklyn — which she named after her daughter — she said that she’s prefer to chat on the phone. I’d anticipated speaking to someone stressed out and rushed. Instead, I dove into an open, genuine, warm chat. I can’t wait to visit Paloma next time I’m in Brooklyn!

Camille won a spot to fly down to Miami for a month-and-a-half for the show’s third season, which aired last summer. She was told, however, that she would have “absolutely no communication or contact” with her daughter during the filming. It was the first time that Top Chef had a parent on the show — and a single mom nonetheless.

Still, Camille had thought they’d make an exception for her daughter’s six-year-old birthday. But no.

“I wasn’t even able to call her,” she says. “My motivation sunk after that.”

Fortunately, Camille’s daughter was well taken care of back home: Paloma’s father is involved, and both sides of the family are in the New York area.

“It’s so important to have family,” Camille adds. “I wouldn’t be able to do any of the things I do without this support system.”

Her daughter, Paloma, who’s now seven, helps out in the restaurant kitchen a lot. They left their loft in TriBeca and moved to Brooklyn after September 11 because Camille was worried the effect of the polluted air on her daughter’s lungs.

Of course, I had to ask if Camille is dating anyone. “I told myself this year I wouldn’t date anyone, so I’m dating myself this year!”

“At the end of the day, I just want a family, I think we all do… but I’m super busy right now. And it’s kind of exhausting wanting that, and looking for that.”

Not dating is a stretch. “I’ve never done this,” Camille says. “I’ve never said, ‘I’m not going to date.’ ”

But it’s working so far. When she recently went to a bar, she “wasn’t scouting all the boys who were there. It was a mini-revelation about how I’m always looking.”

So, single parents, I’d love to know:

If you had a once-in-a-life chance to do something big — like be on Top Chef, or trek through Greece, or swim with dolphins in the Bahamas — but you couldn’t speak to your child for over a month, would you do it?

I don’t know if I could.