Kristen Kish Is Top Chef’s New Padma Lakshmi, Unleash The Suits!
Let’s just get this settled right up front: There is no one on the face of the earth that can replace Padma Lakshmi, who announced her retirement from Top Chef after this year’s twentieth season in London. She is a singular voice in the food world. However, there is one person who has the skills and experience and charm to follow Padma’s culture-changing tenure, and that’s season ten winner and frequent guest judge Kristen Kish, who has also co-hosted Iron Chef and starred in the Bourdain-esque Restaurants at the End of the World. Luckily Bravo knew this truth and went after the widely beloved queer chef — and she’s signed on for season 21, which will take place in my wife’s home state of Wisconsin! Bring on the queer suits, Kristen Kish! Bring on the cheese!
Kristen posted the news on her Instagram with a video talking about what an amazing full-circle moment this is for her, and how excited she is to sit alongside judges Gail Simmons and Tom Colicchio, who are returning to the show, and to get to know these new chefs (and to hang out with old foodie friends).
And the Top Chef family is just as excited as we are! Look here at our dear Gail, who was shouting Kristen out as soon as the news landed this afternoon! “Can we all bring it in for my girl Kristen Kish, who’s officially joining our Top Chef team?!?” Gail wrote on Instagram. “Psyched beyond words to have her pull up that seat at Judges’ Table and join our endless feast.” She used an orange heart emoji, so I know she was directing her joy specifically at me.
In a statement from Bravo, Kristen said, “Top Chef’ is where I started my journey – first as a competing chef, then a guest judge and now as host I have the honor of helping to continue to build this brand. m thrilled to sit alongside Gail and Tom as we get to know new incredible chefs and see what they cook up. It feels like coming home.”
Congratulations, Kristen! We’ll be glued to our screens, rooting you on!
Queer Chef Kristen Kish’s “Restaurants At the End Of The World” Is Must-Watch Foodie TV
If you know me you’ve probably heard a million times that I used to work in the service industry. Working at different restaurants for years wasn’t always the easiest but it was really dope. Some of my favorite working experiences came from my time in service industry. I had the opportunity to help folks celebrate milestones and make those moments special, I found some of my best friends while working late nights, and the best part was meeting new people from all over the world.
I worked in some pretty famous restaurants in Chicago. Do you know how cool it is to meet people from the other side of the world while working in a tiny, underground restaurant and find them so cool that the chef lets them stay after hours just to tell stories? What about seeing folks beam the biggest smile ever when you seat them and they tell you they’ve been dreaming of eating at the restaurant for years and live way across the pond?
Food can be one of the great connectors, and in the new National Geographic series Restaurants At the End Of The World, queer and world-renowned chef Kristen Kish brings together travel, food, and connection. This isn’t the Top Chef winner’s first time bringing travel and food together on television. In the series 36 Hours, she and co-host Kyle Martino had 36 hours to explore a different city each week — and, of course, part of that exploration was learning what the culinary faves were. In this series though, Kish goes deeper and a lot further away.
She travels the world from Panama to Norway, visiting remote restaurants that have to get really creative not just in their dishes, but in how they procure what they need to make them. She goes to great lengths with the owners of these faraway spots as they take her through their day-to-day process of creating meals — including going down the sides of waterfalls and hopping on boats in freezing cold water.
What makes the show really interesting is that Kristen doesn’t just sit, eat the food, and talk to the camera. She is in the kitchen cooking and creating with the owners and chefs. She gets personal with the people behind these restaurants far off the beaten path. Kish becomes part of the process as they come up with dish ideas on the fly, and learns how to cook things she’s never heard of on the spot. She has years of working in kitchens under her belt — including her own spot, Arlo Grey, in Austin — but none of that has prepared her for going through some of the things that these chefs do.
When I was watching the four-episode-long season, I got a bit nostalgic for my days in service, especially in the moments when folks were together and eating around a table. Before every shift in most restaurants, there is something called “Family”, it’s a meal that the chefs and cooks create for everyone to eat and enjoy while you go through what’s going on at the restaurant that day. You never know what it’s gonna be, and the whole crew is eating away while listening to how many covers there are for the night, what’s been 86’ed, and who is gonna be first cut.
Everyone is laughing, listening, sometimes congratulating, and always complaining — but you’re there with your crew. This little community of folks that you come in and see every day and connect with in some way. All the episodes in Restaurants At The End of The World end like this in some way. People, in community together, enjoying food created by folks who care.
Watching it was like going on an adventure that ends in one big family meal and I was eating up every bite.
Restaurants At The End Of The World premieres on Nat Geo March 21st and the complete season will be available to stream on Disney+ March 22nd
Kristen Kish on “Iron Chef,” Power Suits, and the Freedom to Be Her Queer Self
This Kristen Kish interview contains very minor spoilers for Iron Chef: Search for an Iron Legend
In my home, when Kristen Kish appears on TV, it’s like Christmas morning. We never know when it’s going to happen. Maybe she’ll show up and judge an episode of Top Chef, which she famously won in 2012. Maybe she’ll be on the Travel Channel, exploring foods from around the world. Maybe she’ll pop up on the Food Network, competing again. One time I caught a glimpse of her while I was clicking through channels, and stopped in my tracks to watch TruTV’s Fast Foodies, which I’d never even heard of before. Kish is a world-renowned chef, and she’s also a ubiquitous presence on food TV. She’s charming as heck, she’s endlessly generous, she’s got a quick wit, and best of all, she is just so enthusiastic about food. And that energy is contagious.
Kish, who came out nearly a decade ago after winning Top Chef, is currently the co-host of Netflix’s new incarnation of the three-decade-old classic, Iron Chef. She joins longtime host Alton Brown in their QUEST FOR AN IRON LEGEND, which has already rocketed to a top ten spot on the streamer chart in only a week. She recently took some time out of her incredibly busy schedule to chat with me about her new co-hosting gig, the welcome shift in conversation around fine dining, and yes, her impeccable Iron Chef fashion.
Heather: Let’s just jump in and talk about the best part of Iron Chef: Quest For an Iron Legend, which is your suits. You are a queer fashion icon. My wife and I are as excited to find out what you’re going to be wearing every episode as we are about the Iron Chef secret ingredient.
Kristen: You know, honestly, I was really excited about this. During the preparation for the show, they’re like, “You’re going to have a stylist. Can you send us some of your clothing options to see what we’re working with?” I was sending stuff and I guess I didn’t fully understand it either. I couldn’t see the full picture that it was going to be me in these suits. I thought I was just going to wear my bomber jacket and a t-shirt. I’ve always wanted to weather a power suit, but I just never have.
Heather: Right, you already have so many other supremely gay looks in your pocket.
Kristen: Exactly — but when I started trying on these suits, my heart was so happy. It was everything I wanted it to be. Being on a show like this gets you to step out of your comfort zone with your choices. I was like, sure, let’s wear a pink blazer with stripes! I don’t know if I would ever have picked that out on my own, but Bre Fleming, who is our stylist, did a phenomenal job.
Heather: You do look powerful. You look like you. Isn’t it so cool to wear a suit and just feel like yourself?
Kristen: Yes! Just looking at yourself, feeling so good. Out of all the suits, there was only one jacket that I owned, that was out of my own closet. They were like, “This is great!” One jacket out of my entire closet! I was like, “Thank you… I guess?” I did wear my own pants because getting pants to fit the way you want is very difficult. And I wore my own shoes. But Bre just crushed the rest. And now I’m wondering, if there’s a second season, could I even up my suit game?
Heather: I can’t wait to find out if that’s even possible. At this point, you’ve done it all. You’ve won Top Chef, you’ve been on Iron Chef as a contestant, you’ve judged so many cooking shows, including the Top Chef finale in the most recent season — how does hosting something like Iron Chef feel different than all that?
Kristen: It was a full-on learning curve, for sure. I’m confident — well, “confident,” even though my anxiety is crazy high when I competitively cook — but, you know, cooking is what I do. I can talk about food in a way that feels judgey, but being able to host is hard! And it was new, learning how to do that, especially on a platform like Iron Chef, next to a guy that’s been doing it for 15 years by himself. The beauty of it is that I basically get to observe. I get to be excited about it. I don’t even have to feel nervous. All I have to do is convey what I’m feeling and seeing. And I don’t have to judge, which — god, that is so nice to be able to just sit at that table. To sit there and eat beautiful food and not have an opinion on it? It’s a dream.
Heather: You and Alton Brown seemed to have such an easy, natural chemistry.
Kristen: We have to give credit where credit is due. Tom Keller, who is kind of the driving force who paired Alton and I up, he saw something in us. Alton and I had met one time when I was a contestant on Iron Chef. And of course I watched him growing up. He’s very gracious. When I met him, he was like, “Oh I remember you too!” And I was like, “Sure okay, probably not” — but I’ll take it.
I don’t know how they knew it would work, but as soon as we started that first episode, we started developing the chemistry, and I was like, “Wait a second!” It was like the feeling of working with an old friend, and by the second one, we just started to click. As the episodes go on, we get more and more playful. We talked a lot about how we were learning to do the dance, together. After the first rehearsal, we asked: What can we do for each other? What can we do to make each other’s jobs easier?
Heather: I loved how, as the season progressed, you seemed to get more comfortable coming out from behind that desk and just charging down into Kitchen Stadium.
Kristen: From the beginning, there was kind of an expectation that I would go down there. For the first few episodes, I was nervous. I was talking to the producers in my mic like, “Can I go? Can I go? Can I go now? Now can I go?” But then I did just start sort of charging in there. And they were like, “Kristen, wait! We’ve got to get a camera on you!” But I couldn’t wait. I was so excited. I just wanted to be down there and get in it because it’s so much fun.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CdJFSPeua4u/
Heather: Do you find it hard not to coach when you’re in that position? Not just as a chef, but as someone who’s had so much success cooking competitively?
Kristen: Oh no, it’s very easy. I go in there fully knowing those chefs are so dialed in. I feel comfortable cooking, especially in my own space, but when you’re around that caliber of chefs, you’re like, “I’m not messing with any of this!” I’m just curious about what’s going on, I’m learning with the audience, these techniques and the way these flavors are developed. There were so many things I saw while hosting that I’d think, “I cannot wait to try this!” I’m there to be excited to watch my friends — because a lot of the chefs are my friends — do what they do best. And that is to just cook.
Heather: That’s such an awesome way to think about your role. I want to talk a little bit about this thing we’re seeing on Iron Chef this season, something we’ve been seeing on Top Chef the last few seasons, and that’s a real push to bring these shows into conversation with what’s happening in the broader culinary dialogue. We’re seeing more POC chefs on these elite shows, and we’re also seeing more freedom from POC chefs to explore all the facets of their identity when it comes to creating food. We hear it all the time now from POC contestants, that the food from their different cultures has always kind of been dismissed from the “fine dining” conversation, has always been looked down on because it’s not classic French cuisine, and now the door has been thrown wide open to really reimagine what we think of as “fine dining” food.
Kristen: God, it’s such a relief. It’s beautiful. Food, at its core, is storytelling. It’s storytelling on the part of the chef who’s cooking it, and a story all the way through to the person who’s eating it. Now we’re understanding that it’s acceptable to play with all kinds of genres of food, to think about where we’re from and where our families are from, and express ourselves more fully. We’ve all wanted this for a very long time. It’s kind of like coming out, right? You want to do it, but you’re afraid, and you think maybe you’ll just do it later — but when you finally really do it, you can just be your authentic self. There’s so much freedom there. Freedom to fully be exactly who you are. The storytelling of food is getting, literally and figuratively, more colorful.
Heather: Yes, and we saw that play out in so many moving ways on Iron Chef this season.
Kristen: Right, like Marcus Samuelsson cooking a Swedish and Ethiopian mash-up, and elevating it without losing any of its heart and soul. These foods from around the world, they’re delicious, they’re nuanced, they’re stunning. Also we have to rethink “fine dining.”
Heather: Talk about that more.
Kristen: Quite frankly, fine dining is, to me, food that is simply done really well. Period. I don’t care if it’s a bowl of curry. I don’t care if it’s Jollof rice. I don’t care if it’s Dominique Crenn’s Michelin-starred cooking. It can all be beautiful. Take care of the food, do it well, and that is fine dining.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CezXgyrP2MO/
Heather: Have you found more freedom, personally, as these conversations have shifted?
Kristen: Absolutely. I think maybe it’s a combination of my surroundings, my maturity, my age. Or, well, maybe also because I try not to give as many effs what people think anymore. But I do feel like I have more permission to be who I am, to experiment with who I am and what different foods mean to me. What feels right to me now might be different in a week. That’s what life is. It’s constant growth. It’s ebb and flow. We’re allowed to change. I’m going to cook what I cook and then tomorrow I might experiment with something completely different.
I took Midwestern comfort food and elevated it to a place where I can serve it in my restaurant. I’m currently in Korea. I imagine I’m going to come back and start playing around with those flavors, and I’m allowed to do that. I’m not scared of that anymore because we’re finally understanding that’s what people want. They want to experience your story through your food, whatever that story is, even — maybe especially — if they’ve never heard it before.
Heather: You were one of the first celebrity chefs to come out. You did it on Instagram back in 2014. Have you seen attitudes shift around queer people in kitchens since then?
Kristen: Definitely. 100%. I mean, here’s the thing: We were probably watching a lot of gay people cook before we knew they were gay, right? Before we even knew it, they were here.
Heather: For sure. That’s true in all areas of history.
Kristen: Right — so, like with everything, at first there’s a kind of panic or people getting triggered by gay chefs — but then it becomes the norm, like it is now. Gay chefs are everywhere and we’re not in some other category. It takes just a few people coming out, and then more and more chefs feel comfortable, and then we get to where we are today. Queer chefs are the norm.
Heather: Do you have any advice for aspiring chefs — or even artists, any kind of storytellers really — who exist at the intersection of marginalized identities? People who may not have been given the same opportunities, or who are worried about the kind of oppressions or struggles they might face if they pursue their dreams?
Kristen: The culinary community is very broad, we have a lot of different avenues. When you’re trying to find that in, you have to find like-minded people. Sometimes it does take a little bit of research to figure out where you’re going to place yourself. When I announced that I was hiring for my restaurant, I very naturally attracted a lot of queer people and people of color. It just happened. You have to find your crew. You have to find your people. When you do that, there’s a level of empowerment, a level of safety to try new things. Find someone you admire who’s already doing what they do — and that’s always a good place to start.
Iron Chef: Quest For an Iron Legend is streaming on Netflix right this very second.
An Ode to Kristen Kish’s “Iron Chef” Suits
If you were one of the millions of people cuddled up with Netflix this weekend, you saw the rebooted Iron Chef rocket to the top of the charts. It landed in the streamer’s top ten only a few days after dropping, which makes sense — people all over the world have always loved the high energy Japanese cooking competition. This time, though, there’s an even bigger draw than the world-class food and culinary chaos, and that draw is Top Chef champion and queer icon Kristen Kish, who joins Alton Brown as co-host in Kitchen Stadium in their QUEST FOR THE IRON LEGEND! Kristen brings all her foodie skills to her commentary, and also oodles of charm, that smile, and endless gay suits.
I’m not going to spoil anything about the eight episode series, but I will say it’s an absolute delight watching Kish zoom around Kitchen Stadium, talking up the contestants and judges. In previous seasons, Brown has mostly stayed behind his little host desk, with all his monitors, but Kish is always chomping at the bit to leap over the table and get into the kitchen areas to taste the food and pal around with her buddies (including Top Chef alum Gregory Gourdet and Mei Lin, both also good friends of another queer heartthrob Top Chef, Melissa King, maybe you’ve heard of her).
Even better than discovering the day’s secret ingredient and watching all the dishes come together? Seeing what suit Kristen Kish is wearing to the party. And here is an ode to them, visually.
The All-Black Everything
The White on White Pinstripe
The PYNK
The Vampire Slayer
The Schoolboy
The Schoolboy + Tattoos
The Bold Move
The Daddy (Not Dad) Plaid
(Not bad!)
The Ultra Gay Zip Fit
The Destination Wedding Suit
What was YOUR favorite Kristen Kish moment from Iron Chef?
Kristen Kish’s New Cookbook Helped Me Wine and Dine My Valentine and So Can You
Kristen Kish, winner of Top Chef Season 10, is back on the scene with her perfect hair and culinary skills that make lesbian knees weak worldwide to woo us all with her new cookbook: Kristen Kish Cooking: Recipes and Techniques. This is Kish’s debut cookbook and every recipe in here is genius. I’m in love, which is why I decided to make a three-course Valentine’s day meal based solely on recipes from this book and write about in hopes that you will do the same!
Last month I was doing my usual walk through the cooking section of the bookstore pining over all the cookbooks I aspire to one day own when this caught my eye.
Have you ever been turned on by a cookbook cover? It’s wild. Naturally my little femme heart couldn’t help itself. I snatched the book off the shelf and flipped through the pages to see what this gorgeous book of recipes had inside, and figure out whether or not I could actually successfully cook any of it. This is always my struggle with books written by professionally trained chefs; I want to buy them so desperately but the skill level required to recreate their culinary masterpieces far exceeds my abilities, so I inevitably place the book back on the shelf in defeat. I’ll be honest, I was prepared to buy this book for the photos of Kristen Kish alone even if it was out of my league. But as I scanned, I realized that Kish had done what so few chefs before her have and made her recipes complex yet totally accessible to home cooks. This made me very, very excited, especially given the approach of Valentine’s day and my desire to make a fancy meal for my girlfriend and I to celebrate at home. What better way to avoid getting caught up in cupid’s restaurant shuffle but still honor our super queer love than with a three course meal curated from a celesbian of color’s cookbook!
After Kish’s heartfelt introduction about her life and the events that brought her to her career and writing this book (that had me in tears), I moved on to the glossary. Here Kish explains very clearly every fancy culinary term and technique used in the book, covering not only what they mean but how to execute them so that nothing goes over your head. I cannot express enough how useful and approachable this is! After reading it, all my fears of jumping into a recipe and ending up with an epic failure were erased. On top of the glossary, there are also notes throughout the book on recipes that call for artisan ingredients that may be hard to find, and recommend substitutions if you can’t find them. Now feeling confident in the book and my cooking abilities, I made my menu, gathered my ingredients and got started with the first recipe: an epic tomato salad with wild poppy vinegar, orange oil, and garlic caramel. Hell yes.
This was hands down the best tomato anything I have ever eaten. The orange oil was out of this world. I want to put it on every salad ever. I did mess up the caramel because I didn’t have a pan small enough to make it without everything evaporating too quickly. I ended up with what I’d like to call a roasted garlic paste instead, but IT WAS STILL DELICIOUS. I also couldn’t find wild poppy vinegar so used a suggested substitution. After my girlfriend, Tara, took a bite she just said “oh damn” then immediately went in for more. She followed that up with “this garlic goo is SO GOOD.” That’s a win. I am going to make this every week when tomato season rolls back around.
For the main course I chose a recipe for fried chicken thighs with a honey & chile glaze served over labneh, a thick creamy yogurt, drizzled with more chile oil.
This recipe caused all manners to fly out the window. Tara took one bite then picked up her chicken thigh and ate it with her hands like it was a leg. When I looked up she was licking her fingers and I was jealous so followed suit. She couldn’t say anything besides “oh my god” for a few minutes and then went on a very long very adorable rant that started off about how crazy delicious the chicken was and a request to put the sauce on everything, but ended with her admission of now having a giant crush on Kristen Kish, wanting to meet her, gushing about how cute she is, then asking about her height. Fair warning, if you make this chicken for someone you like or love, they may fall in love with Kristen Kish instead. It’s that good. I couldn’t blame her cause I was falling hard too. The flavor combinations in these recipes will make you feel things that cupid can’t possibly compete with.
Despite being incredibly and happily full at this point, we still had the dessert round: sour cream cake with pecan crumble topping.
When I pulled this out of the oven Tara audibly gasped and said “what is that!” I then had to bat her away from cake while it cooled because she kept pulling pieces off then closing her eyes and nodding her head in a “yes” motion or moaning then saying “I really, really like this.” I really really liked it too. It’s buttery and light and melts in your mouth, and the pecans and caramelized sugar on top just take it over the edge. This cake is dangerously delicious. I will not admit how much of it we ate, but I will say I started making a second cake before the first one was gone. I regret nothing. Not pictured because I forgot to add it to the photos in all the food induced bliss is a malted whipped cream that goes on top. I almost fainted when I tasted it. Do I really need to say more? Go get this book, make everything in it, and proudly display your new membership to the Kristen Kish fan club this Valentine’s Day.
Kristen Kish and Her Perfect Hair Jet-Set Around the World in “36 Hours”
You may remember Kristen Kish from Season 10 of Top Chef, where she was eliminated in the Restaurant Wars challenge, then came back by dominating Last Chance Kitchen and ended up winning the whole damn thing! I remember. It was badass. Kish has been busy since then, recently leaving her position as chef de cuisine at Menton Boston to author a cookbook and travel the world as a guest chef. She currently lives in Boston with her partner and fellow foodie Jacque Westbrook.
Kristen Kish via the Travel Channel (Photo Credit: Mercure Photography)
Her newest project is co-hosting the original series 36 Hours, a Travel Channel show inspired by The New York Times column of the same name. Kish, her amazingly perfect alternative lifestyle haircut, and her co-host Kyle Martino will be dropped into a new city each week for six weeks, with a packed itinerary and just 36 hours to see it all. Kish and Martino will work against the clock to explore the local flavor, meeting fascinating insiders and change-makers along the way.
Kristen Kish exploring Berlin in 36 Hours
The first episode of 36 Hours debuted last night, Monday, August 17th, at 8:00 PM ET, in which Kish and Martino traveled to Berlin. The show is part travel guide, part history lesson, part food porn, and a peek into the most underground and unusual experiences in the city.
Kristen meets some bees at the hip urban farm, Princess Garden
In 36 hours, the pair manage to take a bike tour with a famous cyclist, visit the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin Wall, attend a spectacular Fritz Lang-inspired dance show, create graffiti art at a Berlin artist collective, heartily enjoy weissbier and weisswurst at a biergarten (the “best of the wurst” as Kristen called it), tour and taste an urban garden, play with toys at a self-described queer vegan feminist sex shop, peruse fresh food from around the world at a global indoor market, eat at one of the most exclusive restaurants in the city, belly up to a bar that serves bizarre and interesting science-themed concoctions, and end it all with an invitation to a private supper club (a single table in a young chef’s personal apartment). Phew! It sounds exhausting, but the pace of the show is inviting, not hurried. Over an hour, Kish and Martino meet interesting local guides, learn a lot of Berlin history, goof off a bit, and enjoy a lot of delicious food.
The historic Brandenburg Gate.
The best part of the show is watching Kristen gush over the food. Seriously, I will tune in just to hear her talk about food. She talks about food the way many people talk about art or music, with such genuine passion, whether it’s comfort cuisine or a small avant garde bite. I don’t typically feel like food travel shows are for me, but Kish and Martino make it fun and accessible. Kish is the chill and up-for-anything travel pal you can imagine eating your way through a vacation with. You can tell they’re having a great time.
Just some screengrabs of Kish talking about food in Berlin. It gets intense.
Tune in Mondays at 8:00 PM ET on the Travel Channel and follow Kristen Kish on twitter!
Kristen Kish Is Queer: Top Chef Season 10 Winner Has A Girlfriend
Kristen Kish, who rose to fame after winning Top Chef Season 10 (Seattle, which was the best Top Chef in my opinion) has just declared her girlfriend on Instagram! Yep, it’s confirmed: Kristen Kish is dating Jacqueline Westbrook, Assistant to the Editor-In-Chief of FOOD + WINE Magazine. Kish posted earlier today:
The caption reads: “Helicopter ride over Charleston. Happy 1 year love. You’ve made me incredibly happy @jacquentrenous”
Kristen was an amazing player on Top Chef who consistently make amazing food and presented herself professionally. She was the contestant you want to be best friends with because she’s smart and an excellent chef but she’s also hilarious. She was eliminated (big mistake! huge!) and sent to Last Chance Kitchen, where she battled against other eliminated contestants for five rounds. She’s the first Top Chef to come out of Last Chance Kitchen and win the finale, and also only the second female winner in the show’s history.
via Eater
Kish was adopted as a baby from Seoul, South Korea by a couple from Michigan, but mentioned many times during Top Chef that she wanted to take the winning money ($125,000) to go to Seoul and discover her roots. After studying at Le Cordon Bleu in Chicago, Kristen went on to become chef de cuisine at Barbara Lynch’s Stir, a demonstration kitchen in Boston.
She was recruited for Top Chef based on Barbara Lynch’s recommendation, and said of the experience, “The whole TV thing is very foreign to me. Going on the show – some people go on just to be on TV. I did it for the experience.” She left her position at Stir to become chef de cuisine at Menton Boston, another Barbara Lynch restaurant, but recently left that position about a month ago.
When asked what she plans to do next, she says she doesn’t quite know, “But I have to cook,” she said. “I have to. It’s what satisfies me and makes me happy.”
We’re excited to announce that @KristenLKish and @ChrisCrary will be on the #CelebrityInfinity sailing on September 19! #TopChefAtSea
— Celebrity Cruises (@CelebrityCruise) March 26, 2014
If you’re worried about Kristen falling off the map, don’t be. It was announced via Twitter today that Kristen will be on Celebrity Cruise Line’s Celebrity Infinity “Top Chef At Sea” setting sail on September 19th.
I’m excited to see what comes next for Kristen after seeing her constantly evolving style on Top Chef, where her food ranged from fine French cuisine to delicious-looking onion rings. The audience loved Kristen on Top Chef, so it’s no wonder she’s at a point in her life where she feels confident enough to rebrand herself, take a step back from working in someone else’s kitchen, and come out as a queer woman. Who knows if those things somehow intersected, but doesn’t she look happier than ever? I mean, the caption, “Happy 1 year love. You’ve made me incredibly happy” kind of melts your heart. Good luck on where your journey takes you next, Kristen. We’re excited to have you on our team.