Yahoo Lifestyle The 'MasterChef: Generations' Winner on What Brought Them to Tears
The final three home cooks surviving in MasterChef: Generations were representative of only two of the four generations that competed: Becca from Gen Z and Kamay and Michael from Millennials.
But at the end of the night, it was 27-year-old Michael Leonard from Myrtle Beach, S.C. that impressed judges Gordon Ramsay, Aarón Sánchez and Joe Bastianich sufficiently to be named the winner, walking away with the title, the trophy, the $250,000, a complete state-of-the-art kitchen from Viking, and a supply of kitchen gadgets and utensils from OXO.
“Wow, it meant everything to me to win honestly,” Michael told Parade. “I know winning isn’t everything, but at the end of the day this was a validation that this is my talent, this is what I want to do. And no matter how many times in life I segued away from cooking, it always called back to me. Getting this validation of winning is like a trampoline, it’s a jumping platform for me to shoot up and just keep going. I don’t plan on stopping.”
The final competition was the usual three course meal, and Michael’s winning menu was:
Appetizer: Truffle Tortellini with a mint and pea purée, preserved lemon vinegrette, asparagus and wild mushrooms
Entrée: Herb-crusted rack of venison with butternut squash and a duck fat purée, swiss chard and blackberry wine sauce
Dessert: Deconstructed peach cobbler with white chocolate pound cake, passion fruit zabaglione with a buttermilk ice cream, streusel crumble, grilled peaches with a passion fruit syrup
“[My plan was] to take you on a journey from my roots all the way to where I am now, where I was in the MasterChef kitchen at that time, kind of ending right there,” he says of his menu choices.
Courtesy: FOX
Related: MasterChef: Generations Results Tonight: Who Survived Elimination and Made the Finale
During our Zoom chat, we talked more about Michael’s strategy in the MasterChef kitchen, how he came to the show, and what it means to win the $250,000.
You started off a little bit slow in the season but then you picked up steam. Were you playing it safe so that you didn’t get eliminated until you really found your footing, and then that’s when you took off?
Well, I think it’s the way that I approach a lot of things. I like to analyze before I just jump in, kind of like testing your foot in the water before you jump in just so you don’t get a big shock. That’s kind of what I did, I wasn’t necessarily trying to play it safe, I just wanted to analyze what’s going on and make sure I understood the competition and what the judges were looking for.
In the finale you seemed to be more emotional than the ladies. You had tears for a couple of the times you made video packages and your hands were shaking a little bit. What was going on?
When you make it that far, you always want it, but once you get to the point where it’s literally tangible and it’s in your hands, losing it at that point just would be a lot. So, I wanted to make sure I left everything on the table and did the best I possibly could in that scenario so that I could look back and say, “Hey, you know, I did the best I possibly could.” So, that’s where the emotions were coming from, but that energy, I think, really did push me to do the best that I possibly could.
You had some tough competition in Becca and Kamay, but then Becca, she made a small mistake in her appetizer. Was there a point where you thought, “Oh, I might have this?”
To be honest, I tried to keep those thoughts out of my head while I was cooking in the finale. I just tried to clear my mind and not think, “Oh, I’ve got this,” or anything. Because I feel like that’s how I end up making mistakes. When I do make mistakes, it is because I feel confident that I’m going to be able to … “Oh, I’ve got this, this is in the bag.” I just never wanted to have that attitude, so I just kept in my mind that I needed to keep going, keep going, keep going.
When you came into this, you owned your own business, an irrigation business, but are you now transitioning to something in the culinary field?
Yeah, definitely. I’m looking to do something that’s going to push this journey a little bit further. I’ve always wanted to do something in the cooking field, I just never really had that opportunity, but now, of course, with the platform I’ve been given with this opportunity, I definitely am going to run with it as far as I possibly can. Whether it’s private catering, restaurants down the line, and, of course, social media. I definitely want to do content creation and posting, collaboration with other people, even other contestants that are on my season. So, I’m just going to keep running with it, have fun with it and enjoy it the best I can.
Let’s talk about your menu. You won your apron with pasta and then you went with pasta for your appetizer in the finale, what was the plan?
So, the beginning of it was basically taking to my roots, growing up in New Jersey, a lot of pasta dishes, Italian dishes. That segued into the next dish. I wanted to make it woodsy, that’s why it had that green color to it with the mushrooms and it was very floral with the mint, and then it moved into the venison. The venison represented South Carolina.
When I came down here [Myrtle Beach], my dad wanted to hunt and live off the land a little bit, so all the ingredients in there were ingredients that you would find, what we would cook with. There were blackberries in the backyard, rack of venison, and I used pecans inside of the actual herb crust. And then we go to the final dish, and it represents getting kind of jarred, because even the dish itself being dessert, it represents not exactly my strong suit but that represents my mom as well because that whole situation with her [dying] was jarring.
Her favorite dessert was peach cobbler, so I decided to deconstruct something simple and make it into this beautiful dessert and that represented the end of my journey, taking a very tough, difficult situation, and turning it into something beautiful.
What’s more exciting, winning the $250,000 or the full Viking kitchen?
I am so excited for the kitchen, I have been waiting for a range like that for such a long time. So yeah, I’m extremely excited about that, I keep thinking about it. Obviously, money is great and everything, but as a cook looking at a kitchen, it’s pretty cool.
When we saw early clips of you at home, it looked like you had an electric range top. Now, you’ll be cooking with gas.
Anytime I get on a gas stove, it definitely brings my cooking up another level. Cooking on an electric stove, there’s not much you can do with it but I make it work. I think gas does elevate me a little bit because it pushes me to have to really try to create good flavors.
Related: And the Winner of MasterChef Season 13 Is...
How did you come to MasterChef initially? Was it something that you decided to apply for? Did they see videos of you online and ask you to apply? How did that work?
It was out of the blue because I had applied but it was to the season prior. I never thought anything of it, I never heard anything back, but after everything happened with my mom, I was sitting there one day and I just got a phone call out of the blue. They said, “Hi, this is MasterChef casting, we were wondering if you were still interested in being on MasterChef.” I was like, “Uh, yeah, of course I am.” That was basically it. From there I just practiced every day till I got out to audition.
Courtesy: FOX
Do you have to watch videos of previous seasons so you know what to practice, the kinds of competitions that they have?
It’s funny you say that. I had already seen every season of MasterChef prior to even getting the call, but as soon as I got the call, I started watching it from Season 1 all the way to Season 13. I watched every single episode of MasterChef, I studied it like a book to get everything in my head. The things the judges critiqued, what they don’t like, dishes to avoid making, things like that.
I can see where you can practice the food, but the leadership, the having to captain a team, maybe because you have your own business, does that make it easier for you to take on a leadership role?
Absolutely. My dad has owned a lot of businesses as well. As I grew up, he’s had landscaping businesses, all these kinds of things and I’ve always worked side by side with him. He’s had crews, I’ve had crews of people that you just must be on top of, and especially when you have big jobs, you’ve got to be on top of the jobs. So having to delegate and make sure that everything is done in a specific order definitely translates into the kitchen seamlessly.
What was the most challenging part of it? You had the cooking down, you had the leadership down, but was there a particular challenge or some aspect off-camera that we didn’t see?
Well, I’d have to say the most difficult part about it is just waiting. If we’re talking about the overall experience, it’s when you know, all right, we’re about to go into the kitchen and we’ve got a challenge, and you don’t know what it’s going to be, just that feeling. Sometimes it takes an hour, sometimes it takes 10 minutes, and you’re just waiting to see, Okay, what’s going to be the next challenge? What are we going to have to do? What are we going to have to cook?” That is the toughest part because you’ve got to make sure you stay mentally strong before you get in that kitchen.
Last year’s winner Grant Gillon came back, did you get a chance to talk to him and get ideas from him as to how he used this platform to launch more of a culinary career?
I didn’t have the opportunity to talk to him directly, I had the Immunity Pin that episode, so I was up in the balcony. When the judges come around, you get to talk to him, I didn’t have that opportunity. I did get to hear a little bit about his journey because he did tell us how afterwards he was very busy, he started doing pop-ups and social media and stuff like that. So, I definitely heard a little bit about that, but I would have loved to got to pick his brain a little bit, but I’ll definitely reach out to him.
Now that the world knows you’ve won, what’s the first thing you hope to do?
I definitely want to celebrate with my friends and my family, because now it’s going to be all out in the open, everybody will finally know what happens following this journey. And then after that, I’m just going to try my best to just reach out to as many people as I can that are in the field, learn a little bit and see where I can go from here. Just to keep going, like I said, and build this platform.
MasterChef is now casting for talented culinary duos from all types of backgrounds and with a range of cooking styles. If you and your duo think you have what it takes to become the next MasterChefs, visit www.masterchefcasting.com for eligibility rules and other terms and conditions. Must be 18 years old or older as of October 11, 2024.
