Ad
'MasterChef All-Stars Live!' ready to saute up a storm at the Kiva Auditorium
Published
Modified
The stage is heating up at the Kiva Auditorium. “MasterChef All-Stars Live!” is whipping up a performance in Albuquerque on Tuesday, Oct. 21.
Finalists for Season 15 of “MasterChef: Dynamic Duos,” Rachel Sanchez and Julio Figueredo, will be on stage cooking alongside past winners Michael Leonard, winner of Season 14, and Gerron Hurt, Season 9 winner.
The couple finds the lack of competition makes the live show different from the TV version, but said there is still pressure.
“It’s a beautiful pressure, because we can definitely see and feel the love, and this is something really cool that we get to do,” Sanchez said. “Because we feel like we want to give some of that love back to the audience and some of the support that we have received.”
Sanchez had dreamed of competing on “MasterChef” and applied several times as a solo competitor before applying for “Dynamic Duos” with her husband, Figueredo.
“I was defeated. But then I just decided to give it a last try with Julio,” Sanchez said, “and to be able to not only participate, which was my dream, but (to) participate with my husband cooking with me, it was even better.”
After the season, the couple was invited to participate in the live tour. Sanchez said they thought it was a good opportunity to cook in new cities.
While they are new to the tour, both Sanchez and Figueredo have been cooking from a young age.
“I started cooking when I was very young, like 6, 7 years old, just helping my grandmother in the kitchen,” Figueredo said. “Just more bothering her than helping, but just learning from her, seeing how much she loved feeding all of us.”
He said he loves making meals for himself, his family and friends.
Ad
“It’s just a great moment to connect with everyone,” Figueredo said.
Figueredo said that the couple’s connection with food has grown, and it feels like what they are supposed to do.
“So we’re studying more, we’re researching more, trying to, you know, go full on into this cooking world, so we can make a career for ourselves,” Figueredo said.
The couple said they have learned not only from their time on the show and on tour, but from all the cooks they have met along the way.
“They all have different backgrounds and different cooking styles,” Sanchez said. “Being able to learn from them and also from the judges in the competition, that helped us to improve our cooking skills.”
The couple also hopes people have learned from them. Figueredo said they give out tips and tricks on how to cook and improve cooking skills.
Both have a rich cultural history, and they wanted to bring that into their creations.
“We wanted to not only tell our story, but the story of our family, ancestors, and all the people that came before us, and then our story coming into the U.S. as immigrants ourselves as well,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez’s family emigrated from Spain to Cuba, and then she immigrated to the United States. Figueredo’s family emigrated from Italy to Brazil and then to the United States.
Sanchez said when they cook at home, they have all the time in the world, though not as many ingredients.
“The food that we have in our faces is going to be different somehow to the food that we had in the competition or here on stage,” Sanchez said. “Even though it’s a little bit different, the environment was still cooking with the same love, the same passion that we do there, in here as well.”
