A Sonoma County chef will be among the 32 competitors battling it out on Food Network’s holiday-themed “Tournament of Champions: All-Star Christmas,” debuting next month.
Crista Luedtke, chef and owner of Guerneville’s Boon Eat + Drink and proprietor of Boon Hotel & Spa and The Highlands, will make her fourth appearance on the program, which is hosted by longtime Sonoma County celebrity chef Guy Fieri.
Luedtke, who is also a veteran of Food Network shows like “Guy’s Grocery Games,” where she has both competed and judged, said Tuesday she was “super excited” to get the call for the all-star competition.
“For me, (the holidays) is less about all the gifts and more about just being with family and celebrating togetherness, and always centered around food,” Luedtke said. “So this was the best of both worlds, to be able to do that on the big stage.”
For the first-ever holiday iteration of the competition, chefs will work in teams of two, with each pair facing off in the sudden-death, bracket-style tournament. They will compete for a $100,000 cash prize, as well as an additional $50,000 to donate to a cause close to their hearts, according to a news release.
Teams will prepare both a savory and a sweet dish each round, which will be judged by a panel of culinary experts. Floor reporters Tiffani Faison and Justin Warner will be joined by Hunter Fieri to provide insight into each team’s strategy.
In a Thursday Instagram post, Luedtke revealed that her tournament teammate is chef and television host Aarti Sequeira, who will be making her debut on the program.
“We’ve been friends for quite some time,” Luedtke said. “But this was my first time getting to cook with Aarti, so we spent time talking about our strategy and how we wanted to play things out, just getting ourselves aligned to go into battle without having cooked (together) before. But I knew that was going to be easy given our personalities.”
Luedtke also said Tuesday that she was “cast as the sweet chef” of the team, which led her to dig back into her past baking experience.
“Obviously, I think I’m sweet, but I’m not much of a pastry chef,” Luedtke said. “So I basically spent a month or more working on sweets — measuring, practicing my timing — to try to pull off doing pastry (on the show), which was quite a feat but was super fun. And my partner was very happy to be able to try all the samples that I was making every day at home.”
Chef teams won’t know who their opponents are or what dishes they will be cooking, as the show’s five-wheel spinning randomizer creates progressively more complex combinations of ingredients, cooking styles and equipment.
“That’s really who you’re competing against in the end. It’s everybody against that wheel,” Luedtke said. “You’ll see some of the twists and turns, and there’s always something fun and interesting that Guy pulls out of his hat.”
“Tournament of Champions: All-Star Christmas” airs on Food Network at 8 p.m., Wednesdays, beginning Nov. 5.