Local Chef to Appear on 'Chopped'

Taji Marie—the executive chef of Simple Gourmet, a catering company and cooking school in South Redondo Beach—will appear as a contestant on the Food Network's Chopped at the end of this month, according to her business partner, Melanie Barsuk.

"This is the show where they give you a basket of random ingredients and you have 30 minutes to create something spectacular," Barsuk wrote in an email to Patch.

There are three rounds in the competition—appetizer, main course and dessert. Four chefs begin the battle, with one being "chopped" after each round. The winner receives $10,000.

It appears that Marie will be competing on the episode titled "Without Missing a Beet," which is scheduled to air on the Food Network at 10 p.m. on April 30. Here's the episode summary:

With a pre-grilled protein and a dried fruit in the appetizer basket, the chefs attempt to make an amazing first impression in the first round. Jitters in the second round cause one chef to drop something on the floor: Will she be able to pull herself together to put together a decent entree? In the final round, the last two chefs are in a hurry to make curry desserts that the judges will love, but one chef runs into serious trouble in the final seconds.

In an interview with Redondo Beach Patch columnist Katharine Blossom Lowrie in January 2012, Marie, who lives in Los Angeles, said she fell in love with cooking at an early age.

“I’ve just been cooking my whole life,” said Marie, part of a Sonoma County family that cooked everything from scratch. “I started working in restaurants when I was 14 as an after school job [and], by the time I graduated college, I was managing the little café I worked at.”

Chopped airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on the Food Network.