First Prize, No Show
A story about cooking shows, when gatekeeping goes wrong, and the dream that needed a different container
My love of Food Network had me sitting by the Hudson River line behind Chelsea Market, crying my eyes out for hours.
And not in a good way.
___
There’s a question I’ve been sitting with for a long time now. It’s one that I think that those of us in this food and hospitality industry who look like me have sat with, even if we’ve never said it out loud:
What do you do when the dream isn’t deferred…but flat out denied?
It’s a question I’m going to try to answer. Or, at least, take an honest look at the question.
The Early Years
Growing up, I was a hardcore Food Network girlie. The network was just coming into its own in the late 90s, and I could sit for hours watching Bobby Flay, Alton Brown, Ina Garten, and, of course, Emeril Lagasse. When they brought Iron Chef to the network, I was obsessed.
I noticed something even back then, though: there weren’t many chefs who looked like me. Not on television. Not in the front of the kitchens getting the recognition. Not in the story being told about what food excellence looked like.
I found myself wanting to be the first. Or at least, one of them.
As I started figuring out how to make that happen, watching Sunny Anderson, one of my favorite DJs from NYC’s famous radio station Hot 97, follow her culinary dreams in real time was the dopest thing I’d ever seen.
(Video courtesy of Food Network Asia)
Finding out later on she was also an alopecia girly like me? You couldn’t tell me nothing.
Life, as it tends to do, took a few turns before I got to the kitchen professionally. Law school aspirations gave way to education and psychology, and I ended up as a college and career specialist at an alternative high school on the Lower East Side. A daughter arrived before a degree. And one night, after reading her a book about a bear who dreamed big, my then four year old looked me dead in the eyes and asked:
“So Mommy, are you following your dreams?”
How do you tell a four year old who boldly asks you a question like that…that you’re not sure of the answer?
But later that night, as I sat down to do lesson plans, an ad for culinary school popped up instead of what I was looking for. I took it as a sign. Two and a half years of single momming, teaching during the day, and culinary school at night later…I had a culinary degree. I had a catering business, a business plan, and a dream that finally had a container.
Then, during another late night lesson plan session, another ad popped up - this time for Food Network’s Chopped.
I looked at it, then looked at the sky.
What y’all trying to tell me up there?
I clicked it and applied. I was brand new out of culinary school, so why not? They weren’t calling me anyway.
Except… they absolutely did.
The First Time The Finish Line Moved
The production company wasn’t calling about Chopped, though. They were calling about a new show for Bravo. Was I interested in auditioning?
What followed was months of phone interviews, in-person auditions, screen tests…and then silence. I’d made my peace with it (remember, they weren’t supposed to call me anyway. I’m a newbie, right?). Then my phone rang again.
Could I arrange childcare and come film for a week? In Los Angeles?
Um. YES!
The paperwork in and of itself was an education. Pages of rights waivers. An ironclad NDA lasting a decade. A social media scrub that took three of us a full day, not because I was controversial, but because they needed me camera-ready by their standards, not mine.
There was this one clause that gave me pause: if the show didn’t air in its entirety, the winner would forfeit the prize money. I read it twice, afraid to lose the opportunity - but I had to know.
I reached out to the production assistant directly: what are the odds this show doesn’t air?
“Don’t even worry about it. That’s just a technicality. This show is already green lit.”
Oh ok. Bet. So I signed.
We didn’t end up filming in LA, we filmed in Long Island City instead…which worked out better for me with childcare, in any case.
The days were grueling. Twenty hour days, easily, plus a full bio shoot. I ran through Whole Foods in Bowery, across the street from the school where I worked…grabbing ripe plantain and Caribbean seasonings while trying not to run into my coworkers. I’d go home each night, kiss my daughter, check in on my parents, and fall across the bed for three hours before a town car came to take me back to set.
On the fourth day, Gayle King (yes, that Gayle King) walked back into the kitchen to get a second helping of my caramelized banana tart.
And then Rocco DiSpirito handed me the champagne glass.
I had won. Or so I thought.
Six months later, I got an email with “not great news.” The show was still happening, for sure (remember, it was already green lit) but Bravo wanted to lower the prize pot and make some adjustments. Therefore, the pilot couldn’t air.
I wouldn’t receive the full prize money.
And because it was now an edited pilot, no footage could be released…not even to me, for my own website.
To this day, if you watch the opening credits of Rocco’s Dinner Party, you’ll see me. Running toward the backyard. Toasting champagne. Not my face…but everything else.
Disappointed was an understatement, but I took it in stride. I’d never expected to make it that far anyway.
But I was starting to learn something I didn’t have the language for yet.
Part Deux and Moving Goalposts
About six months later, the same production company reached out. They felt bad, they said. Would I want to do a special episode of Chopped? No audition required.
Was I skeptical? Yes. Did I say yes anyway? Also yes.
We filmed at Food Network Studios in Chelsea Market, with a theme of All American foods. My basket: apple pie, fried chicken, American cheese, and fresh spinach. While everyone else made salads, I made a grilled cheese chicken pot pie.
(Video Snippet Courtesy of Prime Video - and yes, I had to actually buy and download the episode)
And yet - I got chopped.
Which leads me back to where you met me: behind Chelsea Market, by the water, fighting back tears after recording my voiceovers - pretending to be cheery so no one would know the result before it aired.
What really brought on the tears? It was the production assistant, who had been with me through both experiences now, leaning in.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but hopefully it’ll help you feel not as bad. It was an All American episode. They wanted the firefighter to win.”
What I felt in that moment wasn’t sadness anymore. The tears I cried?
It was rage. White hot, searing down my spine rage.
I had made the most creative dish. I had done everything right. And the outcome had been decided before I ever opened my basket.
I swore off cooking shows entirely. I didn’t watch my own episode for years - even though everyone else did. Even now, when it airs, someone sends me a message about it. For me, it was always just a reminder of something I was beginning to understand:
You can be the best in the room and still not win.
And sometimes, the room was never really open.
Third Time is Not the Charm
I held to that conviction for years. Built my catering business. Kept my head down. Kept cooking.
Then, in late 2021, no fewer than eight people sent me information about a new cooking show on HBO: The Big Brunch.
“You’ll be great for it.” “I know you don’t do TV anymore. But this one is different.”
Against every instinct telling me “no” that I had, I applied. The auditions happened over Zoom and phone calls - it was the pandemic, after all. I made it to the final round. They began sending me preliminary logistics. My 40th birthday was approaching, and for the first time in years, something that felt like excitement started to bubble again.
I’m going to say that celebrating a milestone birthday helped squelch the quiet voice of warning.
Either way, they told me I’d hear back in the new year.
February 14th, 2022. Valentine’s Day.
It was the ten year anniversary of my grandmother’s burial. I woke up already carrying that weight. I said my prayers, spoke to her photo on my dresser, tried to find my footing in the day.
Then a WhatsApp message came in from one of my favorite cousins overseas. My youngest cousin had passed away unexpectedly.
I spent the morning in a daze: calling family, holding my mother through her grief, trying to find something…anything…I could do. I decided to go to the supermarket. Get some steak. Some lobster tail. Cook something nice for my parents. Cooking has always been how I soothe what I can’t fix.
As I pulled into the parking lot, an email came through from the HBO production company.
“We thank you so much for your time and effort.” “It was a hard decision between the two of you.” “Please don’t lose my number.”
I sat in the car and fought back angry tears.
Now. The person they chose was a fellow Black Caribbean-centered chef & fellow entrepreneur I knew personally, someone I’d done events with, someone I genuinely loved. She deserved it too.
But the timing.
On that day, of all days? It was just too much.
I felt betrayed…by my body, by my hopes and dreams.
A Pattern Emerges
A while back on this very Substack that you can read here, I wrote:
“Going back to move forward is important here, at least for the purposes of this particular story. I’m a big believer in understanding where you started in order to shape where you’re going. It is by doing this that you get to understand the behaviors, patterns, and fears that shape your decision making.
In the same vein, going back to move forward will better get you to see how I wound up failing the same test twice.”
One could argue that, in this case, I failed the test three times.
But what was the test? What was the pattern?
Was it following a dream that wasn’t mine? Or…was it expecting fairness and amplification from a system that isn’t designed for me?
It took time for me to realize that the dream itself was never the problem. The dream was always mine, and I’d had it since I was a teen…and it stayed with me watching Sunny from Hot 97 live out her dream on television.
The dream was always real.
What wasn’t real? My assumption that the system holding the door would open it fairly.
Three times, I did everything right. I signed the paperwork. I scrubbed my socials. I worked 20-hour days. I made the most creative dish in the basket. I made it to the final two. And three times, the finish line moved…not because I wasn’t ready, but because the room had already decided something before I walked in.
That’s not bad luck. That’s architecture.
Food television, like most media, is built around a defined narrative of who gets to be seen, who gets to win, and whose food gets to represent excellence on a national stage. That story has always had a face. And for a long time, it wasn’t mine.
The rage I felt sitting behind Chelsea Market wasn’t just about losing. It was the moment I really began understanding that I had been auditioning for a room that was never fully open. And that no amount of talent, preparation, or creativity was going to change the room’s mind if the room had already made its decision.
What Gets Built Instead
The dream doesn’t die when the system says no, though. It just needs a different container.
This Substack that you’re reading exists because I stopped waiting for someone else to decide my story, and the things about food, culture, equity, and access was worth telling.
The YouTube channel I created, the one that took me almost ten years to decide to do, exists because I had things to say, and creative ways to say it, that no competition format was ever going to let me say.
My supper club, Salt & Soil, exists because the conversations I wanted to have needed a table of my own design that hadn’t yet been built.
None of that is consolation. It’s a conclusion.
So if you’re reading this and you’ve been in a room that wasn’t built for you, a room that kept moving the finish line, that extracted your labor and your story and gave you back a fraction of what you were owed…I want you to know something.
The system not choosing you is not evidence that you weren’t ready. It’s evidence that the system has a preference. And that preference is not your problem to solve.
Your job is to build something it can’t contain.
I’m still building. Come pull up a chair.