Burnt Hands Perspective
This is a raw and unfiltered look into the state of the restaurant industry as a whole, powered by longtime friends Chef/Owner Antonio Caruana and former bartender turned News Anchor/TV Host Kristen Crowley.
Representing all aspects of the industry from the front to the back of the house we will dig into the juiciest stories and pull from decades of experience in one of the sexiest and most exciting industries in the world...the food and beverage industry.
From international chefs, sommeliers, industry pros, and so much more, this show will cover all of it without a filter. You turn up the volume; we'll turn up the heat.
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Burnt Hands Perspective
BONUS SERIES - WFC - Little Gringa, Big Flavor: Meet 13-year-old MasterChef Champion who is smoking the competition
Another special guest from World Food Champtionships in Indianapolis joins the show! Meet 13-year-old Raelyn Barker, the champion of MasterChef Junior Hope forthe Holidays and holder of the only Snow Globe MasterChef trophy in existence. This young culinary prodigy shares her journey from cooking at home at age five to sweeping barbecue competitions and starring alongside Gordon Ramsay on television.
• Started cooking at age five and began competing at six years old
• Won MasterChef Junior Hope for the Holidays working with Gordon Ramsay
• Recently became Grand Champion at World Junior Barbecue League, winning first place in brisket, ribs, and chicken
• Shares her competitive cooking experiences at World Food Championships
• Discusses the intensity of cooking competitions versus filming for television
• Brother Waylon, age seven, is also an award-winning junior chef
• Dreams of opening both a catering business and restaurants, including an upscale venue in New York
• Currently on a "cooking competition tour" with her family across multiple states
• Loves live fire cooking, homemade pasta, and various grilling techniques
Follow Raelyn's culinary journey on social media at @thelilgringa
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All right, kristen, this is a special, this is a special impromptu, special guest hero in the culinary world. You don't know that, do you?
Speaker 3:No sir.
Speaker 1:Go ahead and introduce yourself, because I can say it, but I want you to say it. It's a proud moment.
Speaker 3:So I'm Raelynn Barker and I've won MasterChef Junior Hope for the Holidays. So the MasterChef Junior Hope for the Holidays, so the MasterChef's holiday special. So right now I'm the only one with a Snow Globe MasterChef trophy.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're the only one Unique. I love it, so is that something that's going to continue on, or are you the only one that's it?
Speaker 3:We do not know actually. So I may. If they don't do another one, I may. If they don't do another one, I may be the only one with them.
Speaker 1:If anything, you'll be the master alumni, you'll be the one, you'll be the OB1. The OG, I love it. So working with Gordon Ramsay was fun.
Speaker 3:It was. He's really nice he was. If he needed to tell us to get to work, he would, but he wouldn't yell or get. Not like the other show. Yes, he wouldn't be like well what are you?
Speaker 1:Were you intimidated at first? Yes, sir, you weren't at all. Huh, I was excited. Yeah, so you're, how old are you?
Speaker 3:I'm 13 now.
Speaker 1:You're 13, so you have a huge portfolio already for someone of your age, mom, isn't this crazy?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it is unbelievable still.
Speaker 1:So her doing this is almost and let's, let's flip the script here for me to get what I need, or any chef that's out there who's in this industry. You really have to have support, whether it be a spouse or friendship or crew. Being a mom here, this is. You have to really support this. So you're starting now. It's not like you're supporting someone when they're an adult and they decide to cook. You have to deal with this now, the rest of your life. Yes, right, so you decided to take that plunge early.
Speaker 4:We have two, by the way, two chefs.
Speaker 1:Two chefs, and how old is the other one?
Speaker 4:So Waylon, he's here too and he's seven, and he actually won the American Royal Junior Barbecue League Burger Championship last year and he got third this year. So food in your house is not bad, you guys eat good.
Speaker 1:You guys eat good. So if you're tired, who's cooking?
Speaker 4:All of us still do. We all do Take over.
Speaker 3:What is?
Speaker 1:your favorite thing to cook at home.
Speaker 3:So just at home trying to think we do a lot of homemade pasta At home, trying to think we do a lot of homemade pasta, and then I do steaks and my brother does pork chops and burgers and then we eat. Right now we have a whole bunch of vacuum sealed barbecue.
Speaker 1:Because I was practicing a lot for World Junior Barbecue League, which I'm grand champion right now, and so no big deal.
Speaker 4:No big deal, I love it. She swept it by the way she swept it. Oh, you want to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is amazing. That's such good work.
Speaker 3:First in brisket, first in ribs, second in pork butt and first in chicken.
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh Like landslide, landslide victory.
Speaker 1:So you took it all.
Speaker 1:Did you save anything for anyone else? That's right. So that's what you should do every time you go somewhere in this industry Take it all. Just take it all right, because that just makes you stronger, more confident, more solid. So I'm going to tell you something this is not because I'm just saying this, I really thought of this. It doesn't take much to impress me because so many people are so talented, right. So many people have a lot going on. So, to impress me as a chef, it doesn't take as much as it takes to inspire me, right, and you inspire me, really, because you have such a charisma about you.
Speaker 1:You're starting at a young age. You're starting a passion. Before it was a necessity. A lot of people cook out of necessity, right. They get a job out of necessity and they decide cooking is what it's going to be and luckily, hopefully, they find a passion in it. Right, you have a passion well before it's a job, which means you're going to carry this on the rest of your life and you're going to be so influential to people that you don't even know yet, including myself, including her, including your mom, your little brother right, this is a huge thing.
Speaker 1:And when you're cooking and you're winning and you're landsliding this food, it's not because you're cooking. These other kids, too, are doing the same road. So it's not because they're kids and they're kids just like you right. They're young, so they have the same passion as you when they're starting. So you have no advantage. You're still winning the way you're supposed to be winning. You're still putting in the work, the effort, you're taking charge your palate's working. This is awesome stuff, I know. Now Kristen ask her that question. You asked her earlier. I was like whoa, hold on, we've got to let everybody know this one Ask her that question again.
Speaker 2:Well, since you've been in these competitive spaces so much, you're here at the World Food Championships and you're actually seeing it in the kitchens down there. So I asked you does it look like it's as intense as what you encountered? How intense was it for you being in the kitchen in that competition environment?
Speaker 3:So for here I wasn't necessarily nervous. It was a little stressful because I was more worried about plating, since it was a smaller dish and I'm used to making like plates of it and presenting it that way. But we had to do into these teardrops that were tiny and so I was a little nervous about that, because I had to make sure that everything was in place but wasn't smearing. And then it got down to like the last two minutes and I was like, oh shoot, and who ran the last two minutes? And I was like oh shoot.
Speaker 1:Who ran the food down the red carpet? I did, you did so. Was that a nerve-wracking time, or did you have plenty of time ahead of you?
Speaker 3:It was a little nerve. I was a little nervous because I didn't want to drop anything. And then yesterday my teammate's mom, she did the live. And then yesterday my teammate's mom, she did the live. They did the competition yesterday and she dropped a plate. Oh no, and it was. They had like a couple, I don't even know like maybe a minute, Minute and a half is what they said. Yeah, like a minute and a half.
Speaker 4:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:And they went and they sat down the plate. Well, they didn't, she held it. They went and they made another one real fast, and then it ran.
Speaker 1:So they did a replay in a minute and a half and brought it down.
Speaker 4:And rushed, so she got it in on time. Yeah, they made it. They made it. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:So when you were on the show, when you were doing the MasterChef show, you had a lot of time in between filmings and stuff.
Speaker 3:So was it as intense as this, or do you find this to be more intense, because it's right now, one shot, one chance, or what do you think was more nerve-wracking? Honestly, it was. Master chef, was the same way, really, that we didn't get any retakes on what we made. If you messed up on something, that was it so you, you cooked it.
Speaker 1:all the prep went into the filming, like we do here. We set up our set. The set production was set up Almost there doing their prep there too. So once that thing started firing, you guys pretty much only had one take one chance.
Speaker 3:So what we did was they went through, they set like they got like dishes and stuff put in there and then whenever Gordon Ramsay and them started the timer, you they didn't so it was just just like it was just like this. They didn't stop it for you. Sure, if you got hurt, you got hurt and you had a little bit of time go crying to walk yeah so, mom, was this nerve-wracking for you?
Speaker 1:were you there on set most of the time?
Speaker 4:no, I actually dad went but.
Speaker 1:I was.
Speaker 4:I was there for the finale and watching her cook in that kitchen with Gordon Ramsay, chef Aaron and Tilly and Daphne. I was.
Speaker 1:These are world-renowned, famous chefs, people that I'm an award-winning chef, I have my awards, I've done my thing and I'm inspired to work with them and would be nervous to not mess up. So you had an opportunity and you're just as nervous up in the crowd Just watching. I was praying, please don't spell.
Speaker 4:I was literally praying the whole time, yeah, and I was like God, oh my gosh. I don't know how to explain the emotions behind it, of watching her, this guy would be so proud, huh, as parents, we come from a really small town in South Texas, in between Corpus and San Antonio, and we live out in the country. There's no fancy cuisine.
Speaker 4:It's just our traditional house and country food and our Mexican food, traditional house and country food and our Mexican food. And I mean you really have to kind of just be creative with things around and so whenever they reached out, I was thinking like there's no way you can compete with these kids in my head, because we've seen the show before and we're like that is a lot to live up to you know with all that're right and so I was like ray, I don't know so what we did when they had reached out and she was able to audition.
Speaker 4:Um, it was just like girl we gotta figure out, like knife skills. But in my head, though, I'm thinking she's not like she's my baby girl, so I I don't. You left that apart, which.
Speaker 3:How you thought that, how you thought that the email they sent or the thing they sent, she thought it was a scam.
Speaker 4:I did, I was like OK. First of all, like how many more days. It was like deadline. I think I reached out back Tuesday and the deadline was Friday. So she almost didn't even go because I thought it was a scam and I'm very protective of my kid. You're a mama bear, so was dad.
Speaker 3:And then mom finally looked in and she's like oh, I was like okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 4:So we had to cram in a bunch of stuff. A whole bunch of stuff. It was a really under pressure experience on just the beginning.
Speaker 2:And what year was that that you were on the?
Speaker 3:show. So we filmed February, but it aired for uh, it aired last December.
Speaker 2:Okay so, but that's not your first rodeo, so we have to go back because you're only. We say you're only 13, but you have seven years of competitive experience.
Speaker 1:You've been winning for a while, so six years old was when you started.
Speaker 2:She started cooking at five. Five she started cooking at five.
Speaker 4:Five Started cooking at five. She started cooking competitively at five, and then she cooked with us, just at home, Like we didn't do anything crazy. We made tortillas, rice beans, carne asadas, you know our traditional Hispanic food, Mexican food. And it just kind of grew from there and she had her first competition In December. She turned five in October, so that December she got invited to go to a little pork chop cook-off in San Antonio, rodeo, and she didn't win. But when we got into the vehicle she was like, okay, cool, when's my next one?
Speaker 1:And we were like I don't even know, that's great, yeah, so what happens to you when you, you, you, we all know, especially as being chefs, we win some and we lose some, but sometimes you have to lose some to win some. Right, you can't just keep winning, because you can't just keep winning or just getting.
Speaker 4:Well, you can, but at some in time.
Speaker 1:What happens if you don't? You have to have that little bit of. You have to have the balance in between the failures. You have to accept it. You know and learn how to work past it, because if you're cooking in a restaurant, you have to perform like that right there every single day. So the difference between a competition or a show is I and my staff and my crew and both of my restaurant kitchen brigades. Every day the clock starts at 5 pm when the first reservation is there and that's the competition Every single day. We have to live, fire everything or else we fail.
Speaker 3:So you do live fire.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm using it as a general word, because every dish we cook is pretty much live, right there, and then the ticket comes in, it's fired right then and there it doesn't get more live than that. So we have to compete with our customers every single night.
Speaker 4:And they can be really brutal and rude.
Speaker 1:What's that?
Speaker 4:And they can be brutal and rude.
Speaker 1:Most of them can be Sure they can, they can. So you have to really not let that One bad review can be a failure to some people. Yeah, and if they don't know how to come back from that, they're not going to succeed in this, yeah. So confidence comes on both ends. You can confidently win, but you have to confidently lose. Exactly you know what I mean. And losing. I mean it didn't go your way. I'm not saying you have to take the L every time, but you do have to accept that sometimes it's not going to go your way. You're doing a great thing and where do you see yourself going in the future? Where would you like to be in the culinary world as of now?
Speaker 3:So I want to keep doing like my content, that I do and share what I do with people.
Speaker 1:So you're somewhat of an influencer online. Yes, if you want to plug that, go ahead. If you want to tell us where we can follow you, so it is loud. It is loud. You hear that we are live.
Speaker 3:They're excited down there the crowd knows that.
Speaker 1:So we're a very high-energy room, we're live and direct, and so the noise behind us. We're going to let it go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so y'all could. So my Instagram and well, all my social is at the little gringa, I At the Little Gringa. I was dubbed the Little Gringa whenever my sponsor was like but how did Gringo actually?
Speaker 4:dub me. You were six years old whenever he dubbed you the name.
Speaker 3:So I don't really remember necessarily, but I do, but he's the Gringo. So he was like all right, you're the Little Gringa Gotcha. Yeah, that's cool, he just got it. So go ahead and say the whole thing.
Speaker 1:So he was like all right, you're the little gringo Gotcha. Yeah, that's cool, he just got it, so go ahead and say the whole thing. What's your handle on social media?
Speaker 3:At the little gringo.
Speaker 1:At the little gringo.
Speaker 3:L-I-L. L-i-l.
Speaker 4:L-I-L, l-i-l, l-i-l.
Speaker 1:L-I-L.
Speaker 3:Friends that are your age, that try and cook with you or you influence to cook with you at home in person. I have one. I have um a friend and her sister. Her sister is a little older than me, or is older than me, though, but we went to um memphis in may. I don't. I don't know if you know what that is, um. So memphis in mays how do? I it's like a big oh pork world championship. Okay, if you know what that is. So, memphis and Mace, how do I? It's like?
Speaker 4:a big old pork world championship festival. Okay, I do know what it is, and then this year they had Smoke Slam as well. They brought in the first year of Smoke Slam and so World Junior Barbecue League, ran by or founded by Melissa Cookston, had the World Junior Barbecue League there, so she got to cook with a team from her hometown.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow, so she had a little network of Well sort of Well sort of. They do more of livestock so they show like 4-H, they show animals and stuff.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you this what is your favorite method of cooking? What do you find yourself intrigued with most Saute smoking baking. Where are you at? Where do you like to be?
Speaker 2:Definitely not baking, I'm working on that, you know who likes bakers?
Speaker 1:I mean baking Bakers, that's it. No one else likes it. We all have to do it, but I think bakers have the passion.
Speaker 3:Bakings for me is I'm working on it. I don't think of it as like a boring thing. I think of it as cool because there's a chemistry that goes into it as well, but it's not my specialty.
Speaker 1:The thing about baking for me is that the fun part of cooking doesn't release fast enough. I like the results of cooking, the smells, the quick fire stuff, the crackling, the sizzling. I like that Baking is kind smells. The quick-fire stuff, the crackling, the sizzling. I like that. Baking is kind of like do-do-do-do it is you know what I mean.
Speaker 4:You have to learn to be patient with it.
Speaker 3:I like mainly doing. I like to live fire, but I do multiple things. I do like I said. I do homemade pastas, I've done. I do grilling like steaks and burgers and pork chops and all that kind of stuff. I do live fire and smoking. I have a trailer that was actually gifted from my sponsor and it's a huge offset.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, so you're live fire, you're pitted out, you got the cages, you're doing the whole thing.
Speaker 3:Well, I don't have the cages, but we're working on it right now, sure.
Speaker 1:Keep working on it. Keep working on it. Where would you see yourself again? I think I asked already, but where would you like to be as far as a chef? Do you find yourself working in restaurants?
Speaker 3:Are you more towards the? Where do you think you'd like to be one day? Want to do is I want to have catering, but I also want to do a restaurant, um, and so I want to have my catering hand in hand with my restaurant, that I want to be a family, but I also want to have one in New York. That's like a really elegant, nice fancy city. Yes, sir, in New.
Speaker 2:York, yes sir.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, I like that.
Speaker 2:So when you and your brother since he's cooking too Do you compete at home Like, do you think you're better than him?
Speaker 3:I think that we're both equally talented. He's definitely the one that will be like oh, I'm way better than you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:He likes the seasoning called Cosmos. Okay, cosmos.
Speaker 4:Cosmo-key, right, I think it's Cosmos, I think it's just named.
Speaker 3:Cosmos. And so he's like that's my team, I'm on that team and I'm on Two Gringos Chupacabra, which is my seasoning sponsor, and so if he makes a video and he's cooking his burgers, he's like and don't forget, Cosmos is always better than Chupacabra, and don't worry, Ray, I'm going to get you. And he looks off to the side and I'm like oh, you want to smoke?
Speaker 1:It's on, so you, and he looks off to the side and I'm like, oh, you want to. So you guys get together, like holidays must be on you. You cook well, I'm assuming.
Speaker 4:Actually, we all learned with her when she was younger. So we did, we just did just Basic cooking, like that's all I can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but basic is probably good because it sounds good.
Speaker 3:Well, she kind of burns the rice yeah.
Speaker 1:No, call out or anything.
Speaker 4:That's okay, it's okay. No but we've throughout the years. It's really neat to see where this has taken us. I mean right now, basically, we're like on her tour. I guess you would call it a cooking competition tour.
Speaker 3:Because we went. The reason why we call that is because we went from Mississippi back to the house for a few days. Then we went to Hondo for the open fire meetup, which is ran by Al Fragoni, and then after that we went back home right For like a day or two For like a day or two.
Speaker 4:And then came straight up here.
Speaker 3:Well then we went to Kansas, kansas City, for the American Royal. Then we came, and now we came here, and then we're going to go to Chicago after today.
Speaker 1:You're awesome, so you're doing your tour. I just wrote.
Speaker 4:Barker Family Tour right now. Yes, that's great.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you like two or three questions. Ready Sounds good, quick answers. Besides a knife, what's your favorite tool in the kitchen to use?
Speaker 3:Spatula, because I don't, I don't have to grab, grab it and flip it.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's good. That's good. Favorite fast food. Uh, like junk food junk food, fast food, whatever.
Speaker 3:Oh, I don't know, we don't really eat, we don don't that's why it's a trick question.
Speaker 1:Most chefs don't. Well, some do. But let's see what's there let's see water burger water burger. Okay, water burger. Yeah, yeah, gotcha. Why don't you ask her a question?
Speaker 2:oh gosh, now you could be on the spot. I was like we had all the other ones. Um, what's next for you guys? What? What competition do you want to do next?
Speaker 3:We haven't really looked for more competitions yet. You want to take a nap. You want to take a break. After we get home from here in Chicago, we're going to go and help dad because he owns his own business and he does fence work.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:So for two weeks we're going to help dad with that and then we're going to head to Mexico for a vacation. I want on MasterChef.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:See, you're getting vacations, all right.
Speaker 2:So my kid's 11, and he can barely pop popcorn. So we are definitely he needs you to come to Virginia and school him, because he needs to get a little bit better at it.
Speaker 1:Well, if you ever make it to Virginia Beach area, I want you to come and I want to meet up with you and we're going to make pasta together.
Speaker 2:Into the kitchen that sounds great.
Speaker 1:That would be a lot of fun. Just let us know.
Speaker 4:We are very I mean, we're super flexible.
Speaker 3:The one pasta that I really want to make that we haven't got to make yet is squid ink pasta. Right now, that's my thing.
Speaker 1:I make all of it, Absolutely so when you come, we can set this up and we'll make squid ink pasta together in any form you want. Okay, we can extrude it, we can make filled pastas, we can make layered lasagnas with it, we can do whatever you want, but we could definitely make it Lasagna Definitely. I made lasagna last time I do a nice seafood lasagna, sometimes, you know, individual, very nicely plated with squid ink lasagna sheets, delicious, nice. So that's a great thing, that's a challenge, let's do it. I'm here for it.
Speaker 4:All right, okay, and I'm very glad. No, we're, we're down for whatever. Yeah, that'd be great.
Speaker 1:So we'll get up with you and we'll do that. That's it, challenge Challenge.
Speaker 2:I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 1:I'm extremely proud of you as well. Thank you for coming on the show with us. Sounds good and, mom, awesome work for you, your family, thank you, thank you. What do you have to say to any of the juniors out there that is working right now trying to get in this industry? What do you get from them? Give them one last goodbye, saying here.
Speaker 3:Just if it's really your thing that you want to do, do it. The cooking industry is awesome. There's going to be a little bit of challenges I mean, obviously there's going to be certain things that are going to be hard, but just get once. You get through it, it's awesome. And it's amazing to get to, just get to meet people like y'all.
Speaker 1:Same here. Put yourself out there, right. Put yourself out there and take the chance, and if you think it's burnt or it's not right, just either fix it or go with it and fix it and get it right. Don't stop doing what you gotta do, right? Awesome, well, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:Yay, Awesome seeing you down here. I'm going to go out there now and check out some more of the competition some of the stuff you gotta eat. Hope to see you, you together. Squid ink pasta is in our future. Sounds awesome. Ciao for now. Thank you, bye, thank you.
