Chef Alex Guarnaschelli dishes on filming Alex vs. America Season 5, plus her foray into matchmaking for friend and co-host Eric Adjepong.
Season 5 Features Some of Alex’s Toughest Battles Yet
Alex Guarnaschelli is a fixture on Food Network. With more than 20 television shows and 600 appearances as a competitor, judge, mentor and more, it is hard to come up with a concept that would surprise or rattle this tough-as-nails, wise-cracking New York City chef. Though on the latest Season of Alex vs. America, it seems producers may have done just that. With cutthroat competitors, including fellow Chopped judges, world-renowned Thai chefs (cooking Thai food!) and even award-winning bakers, Alex is out to prove that she is ready to fillet anything you throw at her.
Congratulations on the fifth season of Alex vs. America! This is a high-pressure show and the stakes keep getting higher. What keeps you wanting to come back for more?
ALEX: I will race my own daughter down the block and trip her so I can win! *laughs* I am a highly competitive individual … You know, some people want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, but I just want to beat everyone in the shrimp cook-off. It’s pretty normal to me.
This season it’s all-out war! It is you against your fellow Chopped judges, you against chefs who have beaten you before, you against Thai food … What was that like?
ALEX: The chefs that have beaten me before really pisses me off. *laughing* As far as I’m concerned, they beat me and then they vanish into nowhere and I never see them again! … But to have those people come back and remind me of my own losses, that’s a tough one for me, that’s ruthless.
ALEX: Thailand, I love a celebration of culture. Win or lose, the culture wins. America learns about the food of different cultures. That’s what Food Network is all about: celebrating the food of the world and its diversity, right? Take a sweet potato, take a bowl of rice, take a piece of chicken and take it around the world and how many different dishes would you get?
ALEX: But people that have beaten me before? Just stop. *laughing* Like you got what you wanted. That’s not enough? Must you come back for the curtains and the fixtures?
Did you get any say in what this season was going to look like or was this all a surprise to you?
ALEX: I don’t get any say in the judges, in the challenges, in the competitors, nothing. I come out. Eric [Adjepong] informs me of what is occurring. That’s why it’s Alex vs. America. It’s Alex versus the judges. It’s Alex versus the producers. It’s Alex versus Eric. It’s Alex versus, you know, a bowl of chicken liver mousse. They stack the deck, [and] the result is anxiety and good food.
At the end of Season 4, you could boast that you had never been eliminated after the first round in the history of the show. Can you reveal if your streak breaks this season?
ALEX: I can’t reveal. You’ll have to watch. But I have a lot of streaks that get broken this season … like my spirit … I break a lot of eggs. A lot of things get broken this season.
It seems as though you knew most of the chefs you competed against this season, who were you the most worried about when they walked out?
ALEX: Definitely the Chopped judges … we all have a big beef with one another because we’ve been competing on and off on Chopped for 15 years. So, there’s a lot of unspoken bragging rights on the set of Chopped, like, “Oh, nice job on that.” Or like, “Shut up. I don’t want to hear your opinion. I beat you last time we had a cook-off!”
That lingers in the locker room. That perfume stays in the building. So, that’s the one [that] really matters to me. I want to beat all of them and then shake their hand and go out for a drink after I’ve won!
ALEX: Marcus [Samuelsson] is amazing … I love watching Marcus cook. He’s so dynamic. And Maneet [Chauhan]. I mean, Maneet has won every competition on Food Network, like five times … They’re like, “Just sit on the bench, please.”
What dishes that you created this season were you most proud of?
ALEX: You know, if I’m being honest, I think this season I was more proud to finish and to have the dish sort of resemble the way I saw it in my head. Because I think a lot of chefs [do this], we get an idea in our head, and we see the dish — like we see it. And so you’re like, “OK, that’s what I’m doing, that’s what I’m making.” And then the smoke clears, they say, “Time’s up,” you look down, and you’re like, “Why is the divide between what I saw and what happened this big?”
I would say twice this season … I was like, “Not bad, not bad.” And by the way, I didn’t win. Often when I think I’ve won, [when] I’m like, “I crushed that,” I lose.
Which episode was the most difficult? Was there a particular ingredient you found difficult to work with?
ALEX: I find them all [difficult]. I don’t think I could pick one. There are a few themes this season where I barely have eaten the food I’m being asked to make, never mind ever cooked it. And one thing that’s really hard about Alex vs. America or any competition is when you’re looking to blend [into] a crowd and make a dish that’s authentic to the cuisine or pay homage to the ingredients, and you don’t know how to do that, and you’re fake. So, you can cook for 30 years and get your own show on Food Network, where you are challenging everybody to cook and literally have imposter syndrome.
What was your favorite episode this season?
ALEX: I love the Thailand episode because I love the chefs. I love the camaraderie, I loved that at the end of the episode, when we all saw each other together, there was a wild level of community. They all knew each other. They knew each other well. There was admiration, there was envy, there was … it was like an episode of Real Housewives. Check it out. Meow, meow.
You’ve been on The Kitchen, Ciao House, Iron Chef, Chopped, Alex’s Day Off, The Cooking Loft … I counted over 30 different shows on your bio. What has been your favorite experience personally and why?
ALEX: For me, Alex vs. America is sort of like the pinnacle of my own cooking achievements on television. And you know, I owe that to Food Network. For me, it’s like the best version of myself, and meanwhile, you watch the show and I’m just a mess! I don’t really know how to explain the divide between how I feel inside … having the privilege of making the show, and how messy and dramatic it ends up being! But whatever that divide is, it’s big, and it’s how much I care.
What do you like best, competing in a competition show or judging one?
ALEX: Oh, I always want to compete. I’d rather be the student than the teacher. You can always teach after you’re done being a student, but if you’re a student, you’re still learning, you’re still in there. You know, I would come home so many times having lost, and I would say to my mom, “I lost, you know, it just sucks.” And she’d go, “But you’re in there!”
I deeply love judging. I think it’s another art form … I have my list of people that I think are just great judges for a variety of reasons; honesty, no filter, expertise mixed with irreverence … It’s a whole bunch of different things. Judging is an art form, too.
I promise I won’t call the producers and share, but if you had to come up with your own episode for Alex vs. America, what or who would you make yourself compete against?
ALEX: I think I would take the Chopped “greatest hits” ingredients and just make everyone — no choice — use them. So like, giant durian, balut [a fertilized and partially incubated embryo in an egg steamed and eaten as a delicacy] … the thousand-year egg that they bury underground for months and then you eat it. Yeah, I’d probably use those wild, wacky ingredients.
I’ve always wanted to do an episode of just tea, all different types of tea, and how to use it.
I’d also love a viewer’s choice, when the viewers get to vote on the ingredients that we use. And you know what? … We [could] put up a grid and the viewers pick the chefs that I compete against, and it’s all anonymous, and they pick it.
I hear in addition to everything already on your plate, you’ve added matchmaker for your Alex vs. America host, Eric! How’s it going?
ALEX: [When I posted this on Instagram,] Eric’s DMs blew up, and now we’re trying to figure out just how to do it, but I feel that I’m gonna Mama Bear usher him into a new era of romance in his life, and he is trusting me. We’ve formed a real bond on Alex vs. America … we’re like brother and sister … we just have a great relationship … And he’s a handsome dude, family man, man of faith, [and ] has his own restaurants! He’s the full package … and that beard and that outfit? Come on.
