Local Middle Schooler Competes On "Chopped Junior"

GLENVIEW, IL — A local middle school will put his cooking skills to the test against three other young chefs on an upcoming episode of the Food Network's televised cooking competition "Chopped Junior." Jake Dizon, a seventh grader at Marie Murphy School in Wilmette who lives in Glenview, has been helping out in the kitchen at home since he was in preschool but got serious about cooking in the last few years after watching competitive cooking on TV.

He applied to appear on "Chopped Junior" and traveled to New York this fall to participate in the show. His episode, "Rescue Mission," asks the four young chefs to get creative with wasted and leftover food such as cheese rinds and unwanted produce. The episode's first airing is Tuesday, April 18, at 7 p.m.

Jake has taken cooking lessons from from Jen Karakosta, a culinary arts teacher at New Trier High School, and from Chef Austin Yancey, executive chef at Elite Personal Chefs in Chicago. The young chef's signature dishes include seared sirloin steak with a shiitake mushroom cream sauce and adobo chicken wings, with a special sauce he created to honor his Filipino-American heritage.

When he's not cooking, Jake plays chess, swims, plays violin in Marie Murphy's orchestra, and loves to travel and try new foods.

» via Niki Dizon

Top photo: Jen Karakosta, Jake Dizon (Courtesy of Niki Dizon)