Brooke Baevsky, alumna and chef, competed on Food Network’s “Chopped.”
Alumna and chef Brooke Baevsky ’18 (@inthekitchenwithbae) will combine her passions for food and creativity as she competes on Food Network’s “Chopped” on Tuesday, Feb. 8, at 9 p.m. ET.
For the Valentine’s Day-themed competition, Baevsky was paired with another competitor—blind-date style—who she only met a few minutes before the competition. Using a basket of unique ingredients, including steak, passionfruit and matcha, four teams were tasked with creating an appetizer in 20 minutes, an entrée in 30 minutes and a dessert in 30 minutes to impress judges and chefs Maneet Chauhan, Scott Conant and Mark Murphy. The winning team will receive a $10,000 prize.
Baevsky’s interest in food began at a young age. Her hometown of Longmeadow, Massachusetts, is adjacent to several communities with food insecurity rates as high as 30%. As a teenager, she taught children’s cooking classes, focusing on the importance, affordability and feasibility of a healthy diet.
After graduation from high school, she didn’t immediately want the traditional “high school straight to culinary school” route.
“I did not want to work in a traditional restaurant, creating the same meals day after day. I am very creative with food trends and unique food product development. I wanted my career in food to challenge this creativity and span beyond restaurant walls,” Baevsky says. “It has always been a dream of mine to create industry-disrupting health food products and have my own cooking show.”
When Baevsky came to Syracuse in 2014, the new industry of food media and “food on the internet,” from Buzzfeed to meal kits, exploded in popularity. At Syracuse, she found a way to pursue her passions by pursuing a dual degree in retail management from the Whitman School and advertising from the Newhouse School.
After graduation from Syracuse in 2018, she went to work for Macy’s, where she worked on the development of food products for all stores under the Macy’s Corporation. In 2020-21, she received a degree in health-supportive culinary arts at the Institute of Culinary Education.
Baevsky specializes in “cooking for all,” catering to all allergens and dietary restrictions. Her original recipes are free of gluten, dairy, refined sugar and soy. She is now the manager of product development for Freshly, the nationwide meal delivery service. She works on new product innovation and menu development with some of the largest food companies in the world and caters to private clients around the United States.
Previously based in New York, she is moving to Los Angeles this month to focus on her high-end private catering business, while also planning to continue her volunteer work through cooking classes for inner-city youth.
And what did she take away from her “Chopped” experience? “The timer is real,” she says.
The experience also confirmed for her the path she hopes to pursue.
“It made me love being on television and putting on cooking demonstrations,” she says. “I love cooking in front of a large audience and teaching what I love.”
