It recently occurred to me that I have yet to write a blog about my experience on the cooking show in which I competed America’s Test Kitchen: The Next Generation Season 2. It was truly one of the most incredible experiences of my life, and I want to share some things about cooking, competing, and myself along the way. I believe these things I learned can apply to many places in life, not just the kitchen.
If you haven’t tuned into the show yet, I may be biased, but I strongly recommend you do! But if that is the case, the show is a 10 episode cooking competition hosted by America’s Test Kitchen in partnership with Amazon. The premise of the show is to compete in cooking and media challenges with eliminations every episode, with the winner receiving $100,000, a cookbook option, and a job with America’s Test Kitchen.
“You don’t have to know everything, but really own the things you do know.” This is something I really started to realize along the way. Going into the competition, I felt like I needed to know everything. It didn’t take me long to realize that it’s just not feasible, and if anything, that mindset could spread me too thin. I found that I just needed to be sure of myself, my knowledge, and my training, and really own the things I’ve learned through the years.
Throughout the competition, I made an effort to focus less on competing with the other contestants, and focus more on competing with myself. I felt that if I focused on outperforming myself from previous challenges versus outperforming others, I would be far less distracted by what others were doing. I think this strategy can apply to a lot of competition formats. It might not be universal; I wouldn’t recommend it for a boxing match. But, I would compare it to a race. If you’re in a race, looking behind you to see how far back others are is only going to slow you down. It’s far more effective to focus on yourself and keep pushing forward.
Next, I think a huge thing I learned is that I am capable of so much more than I ever thought. I think this applies to just about everyone. The hardest part about anything can be putting yourself out there and just trying without being afraid of failure. I think this can really apply to home cooks. In my time at The Chopping Block, I have talked to so many students who have told me of things they have wanted to try making but have been too afraid to attempt it as it is out of their comfort zone. I really want to encourage people to live outside of their comfort zone, even if it’s as simple as making a cake that seems slightly out of your skill set. There is so much value in attempting things even if you think you might fail.
If you took the time to watch the show, I really do appreciate it. If you haven’t yet, give it a go if you have time! It’s a lot of fun, and I still refuse to spoil it.
I hope these few lessons I learned can help you in some way, and especially in the kitchen. If you want to push yourself a little bit outside of where your cooking comfort zone might be, I think our Culinary Boot Camp is the perfect opportunity to do so. We still have some spots left for our bootcamp starting Monday, September 8, 2025!
