Senior Emily Roche is a Jack of all trades. With experience from high school broadcasting classes and Tiger TV under her belt, the communication studies major is hoping to go into TV production after graduation. Roche is also a frequent dinner party host, whipping up her famous chicken and sausage gumbo with potato salad for her friends to enjoy.
Though it seldom comes up in conversation, these passions that have seen her through high school and college all stem from her time as a contestant on “Chopped Junior” nearly one decade ago.
“I really think that my time on ‘Chopped Junior,’ and also working with student media here at LSU, has influenced me,” Roche said.
Twenty-one-year-old Roche was the winner on episode 3, season 2 of “Chopped Junior,” a spinoff of the Food Network TV series “Chopped.” It premiered in 2015 and featured contestants ages 15 and under competing for the chance to win $10,000. Roche was the youngest contestant on her episode at only 11 years old.
When Roche auditioned to be on the show, she actually had very little cooking experience. For her 10th birthday, Roche’s grandmother gifted her with cooking classes at Culinary Kids, a small business in Roche’s hometown of Mandeville, Louisiana. It was at her very first cooking class that she picked up an audition form for “Chopped Junior.”
“So I took it home my very first class I ever went to, and I was like, ‘I’m gonna apply for the show,’ almost as a joke,” she said. “At first I was like, ‘this is stupid. This will be fun.’”
But what she lacked in experience, she made up for in personality. The entire casting process was over that summer, with Roche sitting in on Zoom interviews and sending in home videos, including a 12-minute-long edited video of her dancing in the kitchen and singing “They All Ask’d for You” by The Meters.
“I would say probably 60% of the casting process is personality,” Roche said, “Obviously, they would like you to cook, but they never tried my food before I went.”
In December of 2015, Roche found out she would be on the show. She and her mom flew out to New York City in February of 2016 to film at the Food Network Studios in the Chelsea Market over the course of three days.
For the competition, Roche and the three other contestants were tasked with preparing an appetizer, entree and dessert using four mystery ingredients per round. Each round was 30 minutes long, and the clock kept ticking even if one of the contestants got burned, cut or otherwise injured.
Despite the stress of the tight time crunch, Roche still remembers how positive the environment was. As part of the rules, contestants were allowed to help each other out if they were falling behind, and when another contestant dropped a mystery ingredient during the dessert round, Roche offered up some of her own.
All four contestants became very close over the three days of filming, and even after their episode wrapped up, they remained close friends and kept in contact for years.
By the end of the competition, Roche was the last one standing. Along with the $10,000, the young chef also received the coveted “Chopped Junior” chef jacket. After filming wrapped, Roche took her prize money to the Apple Store next to Central Park and bought an Apple Watch.
The whole experience, from audition to filming, lasted about a year, and throughout it all, Roche was contractually obligated not to tell anyone about her participation on the show. When her friends went over to her house while she was away, her brother told them she had the flu. It wasn’t until the commercial for season 2 of “Chopped Junior” aired that Roche could finally break her silence.
Ironically enough, Roche does not bring up her time on “Chopped Junior” all that often, usually only mentioning it when she has known someone for some time.
“It is kind of a hard thing to bring up in conversation,” she said. “There are a few times when people are like, ‘Oh, I love to cook, and I love to do this.’ And when it kind of just gets too far and I know them pretty well, then I’m like, ‘I should probably bring up the ‘Chopped Junior’ thing now.’”
Though Roche’s appearance on the show was almost 10 years ago, the impact of her experience on “Chopped Junior” has been lasting. In addition to cooking and baking recreationally, Roche also teaches advanced cooking classes at Culinary Kids, the place where it all began.
The show not only sparked an interest in cooking, but also in TV itself. Being on the set of the competition introduced Roche to the behind-the-scenes of media production. She took broadcasting classes throughout middle school and high school, and when she got to LSU, she joined the Tiger TV team for just over a year as a news reporter.
No matter what career she decides to pursue after graduation, Roche is certain that her time on “Chopped Junior” has had an undeniable role in encouraging her love of broadcast journalism.
“It’s been 10 years, and I’m still influenced by something I did as a young child.” Roche said. “I think I was so natural at being behind the anchor desk, because I was running around in a little kitchen when I was 11 years old with cameras all in my face.”
