The best part about being on Food Network, says local mom: Her son now thinks she’s cool
Food Network is now four episodes into Season 21 of its hit show, “Worst Cooks in America,” and so far, Wichita contestant Chandali Gullick is still surviving.
But just barely.
The show, which on Sunday will air its fifth episode, titled “Seafood and Global Cuisine,” is set up elimination style, and each week, the two worst of the terrible cooks are sent packing. By the final episode, one of the kitchen losers will be named a kitchen winner and get $25,000.
Gullick, a local mom and YouTuber, has so far this season had a lot of screen time and has even earned a fun rhyming nickname — “Chandali All Day” — from celebrity host Anne Burrell.
But on the season’s third episode, which aired on Jan. 17, Gullick ended up in the bottom two after burning her cumin and failing to impress Burrell with her chicken enchiladas.
She managed to survive elimination that week but was back in the bottom two by Sunday’s episode, during which Burrell actually spit out a bite of the pork roulade Gullick had prepared because the sausage in its center was raw. Gullick again finished in the bottom two and was asked to turn in her apron, a sign that it’s all over.
Then, at the last second, the hosts announced a twist. Instead of sending the bottom two cooks home, they asked them to switch teams. In Sunday’s episode, Gullick will be cooking instead for chef Carla Hall’s blue team. Of the 14 original contestants who started the season, now only eight remain, and Gullick is one of them.
Speaking during a phone interview from Wichita this week, Gullick — a once horrible home cook known for setting several small kitchen fires — said that the weeks since the season started airing have been fun if not a bit surreal.
She’s been watching the show each week with her family, she said, including her wife, Taylor, her 12-year-old son, Adryan, and her mother. But she doesn’t tell them anything about what’s about to happen. At the end of Sunday’s episode, her mother was in tears, sure that Gullick’s time on the show was over.
Gullick said she’s been recognized in a few places around town, including at the nail salon, and that’s a weird experience, too.
The best part has been noticing her pre-teen son start to hold her in higher esteem and realize that maybe his mom isn’t all that uncool. After all, he got a few seconds of air time during episode one, when the cameras showed him at home with his mom, and that fact did not go unnoticed among his remote classmates.
“Just kind of watching my son get really excited about it has been amazing,” Gullick said. “He’s shocked that I’ve made half the things I’ve made. He’s really proud of me.”
So far, Gullick’s performance in the kitchen has been up and down. She’s earned a few compliments from the celebrity judges but has also had a few misfires, though none quite as bad as the raw sausage.
The show has presented her as a fun-loving person who’s not afraid to show off a bold new hair color. And even though she’s easily rattled by the hosts’ stern eyes, Gullick has shown she can cut a joke and make up a silly rhyme on the fly as well as anyone else in the cast.
Her family watch parties each week always include a little something homemade, like pizza or chicken wings, and Gullick said she’s keeping up in the kitchen now. She’s started no more kitchen fires since she returned home from taping, and her culinary know-how has vastly improved. Not only does she now know what a “roulade” is, she’s actually prepared one, even if she didn’t get it cooked through.
No matter how the show turns out, and she’s still not allowed to reveal anything about that, Gullick said she feels good about having participated.
“It gives me a chance to show other young Black girls like me that you can put yourself out there and it will be well received,” she said. “That just really resonates the most for me.”
Wichita can see if Gullick can survive another week when the season’s fifth episode airs at 8 p.m. Sunday on Food Network.
This story was originally published January 28, 2021 at 1:56 PM.
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