Sade Darcy (left) and Jennifer Salhoff (right).
The 13th season of Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen – the show where aspiring young chefs are put to the ultimate cooking challenge by culinary great, Gordon Ramsay – is down to four finalists and two are residents ofPhiladelphia.
Sade Dancy from Roxborough and Jennifer Salhoff from West Philadelphia will be representing the City of Brotherly Love in this intense culinary challenge.
A private chef before the taping, Salhoff opted for restaurant work upon her return to the world. She did not do badly – she is executive chef at Cuba Libre in Old City. But the time in seclusion, contestants are shielded from the general public, took a toll on her psyche. She told the Philadelphia Inquirer that after she got back, she had what she calls a panic attack in the supermarket.
However, Hell’s Kitchen did teach her something – to stop second-guessing herself in the kitchen. “It forces you to believe in yourself, or you will fail fast and hard,” she told the Inquirer. “It really pushes your mind, your creativity, and your time-management. You have to think on the fly.”
Dancy, who left her job at The Treemont in Center City about a month ago to do private catering, told the Inquirer that the show “made me tougher and push a little harder.” She also got a surge of confidence. “I had three goals: Don’t be eliminated on the first night. Win a black jacket [the point in the season at which all 18 chefs work out of a single kitchen]. And my third was win Hell’s Kitchen.”
The winner of this season – who will become chef at the Gordon Ramsay Pub & Grill, opening in February at Caesars in Atlantic City – will be named on Wednesday, December 17. Caesars’ Diamond Lounge will host a public viewing party from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. Tune in for the face off.
Original article by Michael Klein at The Philadelphia Inquirer.
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