![]() ![]() METRO WEEKLY: Let’s start with how you got to D.C. “I just care too much to share the story and to do it and Story District justice.” Carla Hall - Photo: Melissa Hom “The thing is, I wouldn’t be nervous if I didn’t care,” she adds. Win Tickets to Chef’s Best Dinner & Auction 2023īy contrast, in situations such as at Story District, “there’s a point in the storytelling where you’re holding back part of the story and you’re having to tell it in the present, where you’re actually feeling the emotion of the story. It’s not eight minutes of being up there and people saying, ‘entertain me.’ It’s pretty easy, I feel, to be in the moment and present.” It was a breeze, in comparison, “because that is not telling a story. hosted the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington’s RAMMY Awards. Even though people assume, ‘Oh, you do television all the time,’ it’s something very intimate and it makes you feel very vulnerable to be on stage telling a story in a succinct manner.”Ī few weeks ago, the longtime resident of D.C. “When I get up and talk to people, it’s pretty nerve-racking and scary. “I’ll be talking about one of my experiences when I was on Top Chef: All Stars and the first time that I made an African dish, pretty much, in public,” Hall says. Fellow Top Chef alum and James Beard Award-winning chef Kwame Onwauchi of D.C.’s Kith and Kin will join Hall on stage along with Washington Post Food Editor Joe Yonan, veteran journalist and former chef David Hagedorn, plus four other culinary experts, all sharing food-related personal stories. On Saturday, July 27, Hall will embrace those nerves head-on at Story District’s Breaking Bread: Stories by Celebrity Chefs and Industry Insiders. I think that’s a life skill that you learn so much about yourself that you’re going to use over and over and over again.” More specifically, rather than shy away from a nervous-making situation, Top Chef helped Hall. “Without a doubt I am very grateful for that.” She learned many useful skills from her stints on the show, none greater than the boost it gave her to “become comfortable with being uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t have the other successes that I have had if it wasn’t for Top Chef,” Hall says. So this was a way of being with people that helped me not miss home so much.”Ĭharlie Puth Announces New Single With A Sexy Photo “In hindsight, it was a time of recreating the Sunday suppers at my grandmother’s house. “I would go and get cookbooks and then I would cook for people just to thank them for letting me couchsurf,” she says. She soon taught herself how to cook, partly as a way to thank her friends and also to reminisce about her Nashville childhood. “When I was staying with friends in Paris, they would have these Sunday suppers, and the girls were cooking and I was like, ‘Oh, this is what happens in a kitchen,'” Hall says. “I loved eating.” Hall didn’t start cooking until a few years after graduating from Howard University, during the years she spent working as a model in Europe. ![]() “I would have never thought I would be here.”įor one thing, Hall didn’t grow up cooking in the kitchen. “Sometimes I look at my life and I pinch myself because I’m surprised at this path,” she says. ![]() ![]() After finishing near the top on two different seasons of Top Chef, and emerging as the audience-voted Fan Favorite during season eight’s Top Chef: All Stars, becoming a celebrity chef and culinary star remains a novelty for her. Listen in to the episode for the full conversation.Carla Hall is as surprised as anyone by her career trajectory. This week on The Sporkful, we'll hear all about how Carla got to this point. "I want to show people that there's a lot of pain in, in this culture." "I didn't want that joyful book, I wanted all of it," she says. Her journey back included false starts, U-turns, and a mail truck full of sandwiches.Īnd her new cookbook, Carla Hall's Soul Food, is not like anything she’s ever done before. When Carla started her career, she turned her back on the food she grew up with. "I didn't want to show up as my blackness if it wasn't going to be accepted," The Chew co-host says of her first foray into food media. On TV, Carla Hall is known for her quirky, energetic personality.īut in some ways she’s very different today from the woman who first appeared as a contestant on Top Chef more than a decade ago. This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player or iTunes/Podcasts app. ![]()
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