Jun. 25—Two New Mexico chefs put their skills to the test on an episode of “Chopped” airing today.
Israel Rivera, owner and head chef of The Shop Breakfast & Lunch in Albuquerque, and Tony Smith, head chef of Sassella in Santa Fe, will appear on the popular Food Network show at 6 p.m. The two competed against chefs Derek Christensen of Arizona and Ashley Brown of Colorado on the episode titled “Southwestern Strength.”
On “Chopped,” chefs compete and turn baskets of mystery ingredients into a three-course meal. The “Southwestern Strength” episode features baskets filled with ingredients from “America’s most arid and untamed lands,” according to the Food Network website. A cactus produce and a comfort food casserole stand out in the appetizer basket while a “spicy surprise” makes the competitors bring the heat in the entrée round.
It is not the first time the New Mexico chefs have appeared on a Food Network show. Rivera and Smith have appeared on “Beat Bobby Flay,” and Rivera was on a previous “Chopped” episode.
“Being in the ‘Chopped’ kitchen is super-surreal,” Rivera said, “because they’ve been doing it for 50 some seasons. I’ve seen that kitchen on TV since I was a young cook, since I was like 19 or something, and so to be in that kitchen, it is really cool.”
Rivera said the camera crew advised he take a minute to “take it all in” before competing.
“It was a really cool experience being there,” Rivera said. “I’m really glad I was able to do it.”
Smith grew up watching “Chopped” before he knew he wanted to be a chef. He said it was a lot of pressure appearing on an episode based on the Southwest.
“I was the only one who is a transplant. Everyone else is from here and had family roots attached to the region except me,” Smith said. “I grew up in New York, about an hour north of New York City. I’ve only been in New Mexico about over 12 years now. I’ve been in Santa Fe quite a good while, but it was a different perspective coming at it as a transplant, someone coming in from the outside.”
Smith said being on “Chopped” felt more like a camaraderie than a competition.
“By the time you get to competing, we’ve all kind of gotten to know each other,” he said. “(It’s) all friendly. It was a great camaraderie. We’re all kind of encouraging each other. We’re all kind of helping each other. You’re just helping each other through the stress of being on the show in the first place, which is one of the things that I like about the current food community is it’s very communal, very supportive.”
The episode took two days to film. Rivera said it was a different process from how things normally work in a kitchen. He said it was more of a stop-and-go process.
“In the first round, they take you off stage, and then they sit there, and then they kind of interview you, and then you kind of go sit with the other cooks,” Rivera said. “And then they record whatever you’re saying and then they bring you back for the second round. The TV world is weird, and even though it’s like the third time doing it, it’s something that’s kind of hard to get used to.”
Rivera said the “Chopped” crew has been filming the series for more than a decade and has streamlined the process to make it easy to navigate for the competing chefs.
“They had everything super-dialed in,” he said. “There was never a question of what we were doing next, which made it easier for us. When you’ve been doing something so long, it’s very systematic. And so it made it a little bit easier for us. They knew exactly what they wanted from us and so they were able to tell us that. … It was a really cool setting and a cool experience.”
