 I can't believe I haven't told you guys this story yet, but I guess it's better late than never. And some of you might have already heard me say offhandedly that I auditioned for MasterChef Season 9 back in February of 2018. I was on a few seconds of the commercials, but I never actually ended up in an episode of the show. I wish I kept notes of this whole experience of the events as I have a pretty poor memory, but I'm going to try my best here. To give some background, I've worked in restaurants as a waiter or bartender, always had a passion for food, and I've experimented a lot on my own in my personal kitchen. I cooked food regularly for my family and did carnivore-type dishes for myself. So for those of you wondering, Frank, how are you cooking stuff if you were on the carnivore diet? The stuff I was cooking for myself was carnivore, and I would taste food and spit it out here or there. So at the time when I was auditioning for this, my YouTube channel wasn't really that popular, so I figured, hey, this MasterChef thing might be a really good opportunity, might give me a new career direction in life. I mean, keep in mind, guys, I've been bartending up until even earlier 2019. I was still working in various hotels in Manhattan. So the audition was in September of 2017, and I drove down to this location they had in, I think it was a Marriott Hotel, and I was actually one of the first people down there. You know, an audition required you to cook a dish, and I made three different types of sourdough breads with corresponding spreads. One was a bone marrow cream, one was a salmon rocrema, one was a macro butter. They liked my dish enough to get me through to this group interview phase. Then out of like 30 to 35 people, I was one of four or five that they chose to interview the next day, which involved me going back down to that hotel, being recorded on camera in my outfit, and they were going to send that video to the producers. Over the course of the next few months, there were quite a few back and forth emails between myself and MasterChef casting. Initially, it was some background checks, then they asked me for my four signature dishes, but I wasn't actually told I had to go to LA until a week before I had to fly out. This was now early February 2018. At the time, I was working at Salt Bay Steakhouse, which was the most lucrative job I have ever had in Manhattan, and I decided to leave it for my opportunity to go on MasterChef. This was big for me, guys, because I never really made a decent living in Manhattan. You guys might have heard bartenders and waiters doing really well. I wasn't one of them. I was barely making minimum wage, and I finally had this like glimmer of hope. Finally, a good job. I'm making enough money to enjoy myself and relax and lose the stress, but I dropped it all, and this wasn't even a guarantee to be on the show. This was, again, a final audition phase that required me to fly out to LA. The persona they had me as was some slick Italian guy from New York City that dressed up, wore suits. This is because I wore a suit to the audition. I thought it was a good idea. I had all of this stuff. I thrifted, and I never wore it, so I packed up like 10 suits into this suitcase. They paid for my flight to go out to LA, and they actually asked if my parents were able to make it out to cheer me on. There were a couple scenes, but they didn't offer to pay for my parents, and my parents couldn't afford it at the time. In hindsight, the reason I didn't end up on the show was likely because my parents couldn't make it out there. And before I went out there, the casting team, the producers, were super excited to have me on the show, and as soon as my parents couldn't make it, it was like I was put on the back burner in a way. I wasn't as important. And even when I was actually out in LA, I remember them having a few conversations with me like, are you sure your parents can't get out here? And I remember after those conversations, things really shifted gears from the priority of the casting around me. So it was a few $1,000 mistake of what it would have cost my parents to fly out there. And that might have ended up actually getting me on the show. So pretty unfortunate that I put so much effort into it and spent so much time. And if I knew all of this, in hindsight, I would have just spent all of my savings for those plane tickets for my parents. Later, when I was talking to some of the other people that were auditioning for the show, I found out that they actually offered to pay for their parents to go out for free, or their family members, that is. So I guess they thought I was well off and could afford to fly my family out. But what are you going to do? So I arrived at the airport in LA, and I'm irritated that my bag of 10 suits is on this carousel that's just open to the public like anyone could just take the bag. But I guess that's LAX for you. My brother was actually there because he lives and works in Los Angeles. It was nice to see him. Along with the MasterChef cast member that was looking for me, they were in a MasterChef shirt. And there were also a few people from New York that I was chatting with because there were a bunch of other auditionees from New York that were on the flight to LA. So after waiting for a little while, Ovan picked us up and took us to a Marriott Hotel where we had to give up our cell phones. And for the two weeks I was out there, couldn't leave the hotel, use a cell phone, no internet access, no contact with the outside world. I mean, you could call, I think, your parents or like your family once or a few days to check in on them. But it was kind of like this psychological experiments they were running on us. And, you know, we were bored out of our minds. And over the course of these two weeks, there were various scheduled events. Every one needed to attend them in some capacity, except for the weekends. We had group meetings with producers, went to test kitchens to practice cooking, a lot of time sitting and waiting. I remember like every single time we got in the van, we spent at least an hour, an hour and a half actually sitting in the van with the other cast members while we're either waiting to leave the hotel, going to the production facility. But there was a few glimpses of actual fun, but it was mostly a lot of like meeting, sitting and waiting, nothing too exciting. And I spent a lot of my downtime actually taking cooking notes, reading cookbooks. This is what I spent literally all of my time doing, literally just reading cookbooks. You were allowed to bring like five cookbooks with you, I believe. And all I did this whole time was just like take notes of recipes, all ideas and stuff. I actually have that book that I spent dozens of hours over those two weeks coming up with recipes and that I haven't gone through again. I think I have it somewhere in my room. I gotta go through it because there's a lot of carnival recipes in there too. So I did take that from it. And there was actually this group challenge event that we had there where we had to prepare a dish with certain ingredients in a set time. And I realized how incompetent these other cooks were. By no means am I a professional chef, but when you're out there it puts into perspective how little most people know about cooking, let alone compare two said professional chef who would literally walk circles around everyone. It's like comparing a major league baseball player to someone who's never played baseball in their life. These master chef casting people, it has nothing to do with talent whatsoever. So the schedule was like a regular work week. Monday through Friday during the day was when we spent most of the time doing the production stuff. And then on the weekends we had the time off. We were still confined to the hotel on the weekends, couldn't really do anything. Most of the day was, as I said, sitting and waiting. Maybe we had a meeting. Maybe we went to the facility to work in the test kitchen for an hour. But 90% of the day was us just sitting in a casting room. That was really, really cold. It was LA in the middle of February. And for some reason I was freezing like my balls off the whole time. That's what I remember, how cold I was. I had like my long johns on. I was wearing a suit yet I was still cold. So after we got back from the casting, most of the night was spent hanging around outside. The hotel had like a pretty nice pool, a nice patio, there was a bar. People were drinking, talking, like a reality show kind of setting. And it was interesting to see the stereotypes. They had like three Southern guys for that stereotype. Three black girls, three gay guys. And I remember actually made this black girl cry because I told her that no one gives up about her biscuit recipe. And then there was this one like decent looking brunette girl that wanted to see me make out with one of the gay guys. But nothing too exciting or too crazy. They, the first night, like people were drinking a little too much, but there were some past like MasterChef seasons where it got really crazy. So it was like almost like prison. Like we always had someone watching us at all times. There were like adult babysitters. You could tell they had problems in the past with like the hotel rooms and now like for, you know, MasterChef season nine, they have things buckled down and they're running a tight shift. So each of us had a roommate. I had this like, I can't remember the guy's name, but it was this massive black guy, like six, two, six, three, like 400 pounds. Poor guy was a little overweight, but really a sweet guy. I just wish, for some reason I can't remember his name. It'll probably come to me. I couldn't sleep the whole two weeks I was out there. The first week because that guy was snoring. And then when he was sent home, it was likely the high EMF environment. And if I knew how cheap those hotel rooms were, I would have paid, you know, $40 a night for that shit whole hotel room just so I could have some privacy to myself. So after one week of all of this nonsense, they sent half of us home. So the auditions started with like 70 or 80 people and now there were 40 left. So they had like three or four people for each of the stereotypes and they narrowed it down to two. I was one of these 40 people and this next week was to be us filming the initial cookoffs. Like this whole week has been tests, trials, seeing how you behave. We weren't really in front of the camera, you know, filming any of the show at all. But now it was showtime. So we had a weekend where we were still confined to the hotel as I said, still no internet, no cell phone, no outside food besides a grocery store. And most of these people were eating like the hotel food but me being on a high quality nutrient-dense corn of war diet, I couldn't, you know, I didn't want to eat the bacon, the eggs, the sausage. I didn't want to eat any food there that I wasn't used to that might upset my stomach because I wasn't sleeping anyway. And this is where my health issues started getting really bad. For those of you that are unfamiliar, all of my sleeping problems and health issues started when I was out in LA on this show. You know, I can't emphasize that I literally did not fall asleep for two weeks straight. My head pain and my back pain was really high. I was taking the maximum dosage of Tylenol and Advil every few hours. And there are some interactions between acutane, retinol, vitamin A and Tylenol. That's definitely what triggered it. If I didn't start taking those pain killers and those pain medications, my problem might not have been nearly as bad. But, you know, my health knowledge now could have prevented what's been, you know, a downward spiral of almost two years now. So the cookoffs that we were doing involved certain people filming on certain days. Like the Southern people were against the other Southern people. You know, I was against some black girl for some reason, I don't know why, like... But the stereotypes were pitted against the stereotypes. And people were set to cook on certain days. And that day you cook was the day you found out you were eliminated. And we were scheduled, like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Unfortunately, I wasn't scheduled until Thursday. So I basically had to, you know, I was driven to the casting room. Just had to sit in this room all day with everyone else. And, you know, we're waiting for the rest of the people while they're competing. And we're like, you know, there's some scenes where, like, we're supposed to be part of a crowd. So we're part of the show, but it would have been nice to be on the Monday or Tuesday because I wouldn't have had to wait, you know, two, three, four days to know if I'm on the show or not. And by the way, guys, so we have a hotel where everyone is staying at. And then this van drives us to, like, a production studio. I can't remember specifically where it was, but, like, really tight security. And it's where they filmed all the Masterchef stuff. So all the Masterchef stuff was filmed at this, like, production studio. So granted, I would have been on the show. Like, it would have been where we would have been filming the whole time. And the food was so horrible. It was, like, so disgusting. There wasn't enough food. I, like, I don't know how they could even, it was, like, the worst, like, half-cooked raw chicken. People were getting sick from the food they were eating. People were literally, it was so bad. I don't know if it just wasn't in their budget, but people were literally vomiting and getting sick from the catered food that these people were eating. And my brother had it too. He was complaining about it so much. But from that grocery store that we went to, which was a Ralph's, oh, what's that? There was a famous celebrity that I met. Andy Something, I think, was his name. He was, like, drugged out of his mind. Someone will know. It's like Andy, I think he wears glasses. He's an older guy. Some guy, like, came up and picked him in a car, picked him up in a car. He actually asked for my number. I was pretty sketchy. Outside this Ralph's grocery store, we were at one night. And at that grocery store, I was eating, like, mostly raw egg yolks and smoked salmon. One night I had some raw lamb, which I didn't do again. You know, there's nowhere to cook in the hotel. One day I had some raw cheese, but it made me break out really badly and I had a zit that thankfully went away in a couple days, so by the time I was filming the zit was gone. But the food situation was really terrible. That story with that celebrity, I can't remember his name, but then I remember he tried to, like, take his bike, but he was too drunk, he fell off. But really, really funny. Someone in the comments will probably know his name. When it was my day to be filmed, my brother, you know, was kind enough to make the drive out to support me. I mean, it was maybe, like, 45-minute-an-hour drive for him in LA, but, you know, he's working all day and then after, I think actually he had to take the day off. But so we have this little crowd outside, you know, where they're filming us, like, cheering people on, whether they come out with an apron or not. And my brother was part of that crowd. I was part of that crowd for some of the day. And the actual part where I was to cook my dish went horrible. They told me I would have, like, time to take my suit jacket off and get set up, but they lied. I had three attempts to make my dish in the test kitchen beforehand, and I never actually made the dish correctly. So my dish was, like, a lobster scallop noodle with, so it turns out my own, reduced lobster base. It wasn't too complicated of a dish. I saw this famous French chef, Raymond Blanc, make a lobster scallop quenelle, which is, like, a spoonful of, like, basically fish puree, and they poach it in, like, a broth. I tried doing that with noodles, which was a really bad idea. If I made the quenelle, I might have been able to actually execute the dish. And I just had a really hard time, you know, doing it under stress in the test kitchen, but I practiced three times. I was comfortable for the show, but they didn't give me time to, like, get set up and prepare. They just, like, kind of threw me to the wolves. Super high EMF environment. You know, I didn't sleep at all the night before. I was super nervous. I literally sliced my hand open three times so badly. You know, there was blood everywhere, completely botched and messed up the dish, couldn't get it done in time. You know, whether I, if I messed up the dish or not, would that have actually determined me getting on the show? I don't know. You know, there's a lot of things I could have done differently. Maybe I'll show you guys that dish. Maybe I'll show you guys that dish this weekend, but I think, creativity-wise, it's pretty good. It's up there. I wouldn't say it's too complicated. It should have been something that was easy to do in 30 minutes, but under those conditions of, you know, me not having slept for two weeks, you know, them throwing you into a high-pressure environment, me just, all that combined, I didn't have the hand-eye coordination. I just completely filleted my hand open. There might have been a video back in, it would have been around, like, February, March, 2018, where you saw I had, like, I'll look and see if I can find it. I had, like, wraps on my fingers and stuff, but I think I might have deleted that video and I never re-uploaded it when I deleted the videos on my channel. So that moment in time, I'm, like, really disappointed. I know I messed up. I sliced my hand. I'm, like, in front of some of my idols, like Joe Bastionis, Gordon Ramsay, Aaron Sanchez, and you know, those guys are, like, made for TV. They've really practiced it. And I didn't really have much to say. You know, I was just kind of, and I, maybe if I did say something, it would have changed how things went, but I was just, like, so disappointed that I spent all this time, all this effort, and to mess it up by slicing my hand open to me was just, you know, kind of crazy. So, like, they compared my dish with the Black Girls. Just, obviously, they tore into me, you know, because I messed up the dish. You know, I found out I wasn't getting an apron. And when I went out, you know, the producer said, oh, do you want to film a shot where, you know, you have to, like, film a shot where you go out and you don't have an apron. And I didn't want to film the shot. I was just, I was pretty upset. I just wanted to leave. And, you know, they booked me a return flight to New York just a couple hours after that. So, you know, they immediately drove me to the hotel after I didn't get an apron. They packed everything up. You know, was at the L.A. airport within, like, three, four hours. You know, my brother and my parents called me to see if I was okay. And I was fine. I was just, like, not sleeping for two weeks. I was just hoping that when I went back to New York I'd be able to sleep. I could have probably stayed out in L.A. and done a couple of things, but I wanted to get my YouTube channel back up and going and film some videos. But the sleeping better part never happened. And that was the beginning of me, you know, figuring out a few things pertaining to my health. Overall, definitely some positive, some negative learning experience. You know, worst thing was, you know, me losing that job, which was very lucrative income and my health correspondingly declining and I couldn't really work. Thankfully, you know, my effort into my YouTube channel has given me a different direction in my life over these, you know, these next few years. I did get to cook a steak for Good Day New York Memorial Day, which was fun. I'm sure some of you guys saw that video on my channel. That was nice. I was really excited for that. And that was actually another night I didn't sleep. The one time I've ever worn makeup in my life was on Masterchef and on Good Day New York Memorial Day because I wasn't sleeping. They had to cover up my under eye bags because the lack of sleep, I looked like a zombie. If I was getting some sun and tanning, it might have been okay, but I actually ended up auditioning for Masterchef again the following year, but they didn't want me on the show. So 2018 fall, I went to the audition. I made it through the first round of auditions again and they never called me to be on the show. So that ship has definitely sailed. It would have been a nice opportunity. You know, I really like culinary stuff. So I'm looking forward to maybe filming some pilots and producing some food related stuff, hopefully in the near future as cooking has always been a passion of mine. You know, the ingredients and the focus on that is something that's given me an element to my YouTube channel that other people don't have. They don't understand how much I care about food, how much I like food and how much time I've invested in food. Maybe I'll get my, I'll see if my parents want to talk about or my sister wants to talk about Masterchef and what they remember from it. So let me go grab them. In hindsight, my parents probably don't really remember anything except you remember me asking you if you could make it out there and you guys just couldn't afford it, right? Yeah, it was twofold. Besides the course. Oh, he had the blood clot in his leg. My husband had a blood clot in his leg and it was such short notice. It was like, I think a three day window. Yeah, it was the end of the movie. And you know, we have our daughter. We had no way to watch. And it was, it was very disheartening. I was so proud of him and so excited. And we were there in our hearts but we weren't physically there. So I asked our other son, Dante, you have to go and see your brother. He's going to be our Masterchef. If you could at least just surprise him and be at the airport. Do you remember the rest? Yeah, no, and then he, and then he came and ended up coming out to, and then he ended up, and I told him the story, like he came out to support me. And he was there for the, he was there for to be in it. And then, but then when I came back, that's when I had the sleeping issues and I wasn't sleeping at all. In hindsight, when you think about it, we're just so proud that he got to that point. And I knew even when he auditioned in New York, I said he has something so unusual with the bone marrow and whatever else he prepared. Yeah, I told him about the dish, yeah. Yeah, I said, I know he's going to be in it, but I didn't want to tell him because you just in your heart of hearts know it was going to happen. Well, the backstory too, with the triplet, the whole background, no one really had as unique of a background. Yeah, and not only that, the fact that he endured, he unfortunately it didn't work out that he filleted his fingers, but then he did get other opportunities. He was on, Yeah, I told him about it. And if I knew, so I'm talking about grilling a steak. So I have to say the producers and everything of that show were really incredible how they reached out to him and he was still promoting the show. And I think it was a great experience for him. And like I said, we're just so happy he had that experience. And I always just say in general, do whatever your heart tells you to do and follow your dreams because everything's possible. All right. Thank you.