Caymanian personal chef Jordy Rankine will make his television debut on 30 May as he goes up against three other chefs in Food Network’s popular series ‘Chopped’.
Rankine, who credits his grandmother Ethlyn Barnes for his love of cooking, says he cannot wait to put Cayman Islands in the spotlight when his episode premieres on Tuesday.
And though he says he has never been a competitive person, for the West Bay native being in the Chopped kitchen was an experience he will never forget.
“Chopped was definitely a milestone, yes, but [also] a big lesson for me that just because I’m from Cayman, just because I come from X, Y, and Z, doesn’t mean that I cannot achieve. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have value. So that was huge for me,” he said, in a recent Zoom interview with the Cayman Compass from Palm Springs, Florida.
The Chopped series involves intense competition among four chefs who have to prepare a full three-course meal within set time periods using a basket of mystery ingredients.
Due to contractual obligations, Rankine cannot say anything more about the competition, which carries a top prize of $10,000.
However, the father of two – son Raiden, 3, and daughter Noemi, 6 months – said just keeping the secret of being part of the show was tough enough.
“You know how many of my friends and family are mad at me right now? I have seen and spoken to them so many times and hadn’t said a word,” he said, laughing.
Rankine revealed his participation in an Instagram post on Wednesday, 24 May, as he encouraged his followers, friends and family to tune in to watch him compete.
It started with a DM
Rankine, who lives in Florida running his own personal chef business, says when he was first approached for Chopped, he thought it was a scam because the show’s casting director direct-messaged him on Instagram.
He said, looking back, all good things came to him through Instagram because that was also how he met his wife Zoe.
But when he got the message to be on Chopped, he was sceptical.
However, he said Zoe, who is in media and is also a chef, assured him the casting director was legit.
Even after confirming both the message and the person were real, Rankine said he remained hesitant to accept the spot.
Rankine said his wife convinced him and things happened quickly after that.
He said the experience was just as intense as it appears on TV, that “there is no magic behind the scenes”.
“You get in, they are organised, they know everything, you get out. That’s it. They’re amazing people… Everyone that I worked with [was] super helpful and they all love their job. So when you love your job, it makes a lot easier for you and the people around you. I didn’t have to do anything but show up and do what I came to do,” he said.
He said he was proud of his achievements and it was rewarding to have Chopped approach him.
“Me coming from the Cayman Islands, and me coming from where I come from, especially my story and my background, I almost should not have beat the status quo. I should have fallen right into the same place that Cayman had written for me to become just a regular. It hasn’t been an easy journey. It has not been fun,” he said.
However, Rankine said he is in a place right now that he could not have imagined when he started his culinary journey with a certificate course from the Department of Tourism.
Rankine had also attended school on Cayman Brac and lived there briefly.
He then attended the University College of the Cayman Islands after which he studied culinary arts at Johnson and Wales University in Miami, Florida, with a short stint at the Grand Cayman Marriott Resort in between.
“For the first time in my life, I actually see that I have opportunity,” he said.
Cooking with a Cayman touch
Though exposed to many cultures, he remains grounded in his Caymanian roots, using what he absorbed growing up to flavour his dishes.
“The Cayman cuisine isn’t just one thing. It’s not one-dimensional. I grew up eating Indian food. I grew up eating Jamaican food, which is another mixture. When I was in my late teens, I got introduced to roti from Trinidad and Tobago. I got introduced to French cuisine, I got introduced to New American, so many different cuisines, before I even decided I wanted to cook,” he said.
It was that mixture of cultures, he said, that allowed him to be open to opportunities with food.
“Your food doesn’t have to be just Italian. Your food doesn’t have to be just Japanese, Korean. When I cook, my food reflects a lot of who I am as a Caymanian, this mix-up, and I am okay with that. I think it’s beautiful. I think that’s why I cook the way that I do and I’m so successful,” he said.
Rankine works for many celebrity clients, many of whom he cannot reveal due to their insistence on privacy; however, he said his main client is rapper Timbaland.
He said it has been great cooking for him, but he cannot share too much.
“He loves his privacy and he is a lot more health conscious than people think. So a lot of the foods are calculated for quality, freshness, and geared towards his goals. Cooking for someone who works all the time has its perks, one being that he eats at consistent times to make sure he has time for meetings, calls and, of course, his music. He loves oxtail but it only gets made on special occasions,” Rankine said.
As he gets ready for his debut, Rankine thanked all his supporters who have been in his corner from day one.
“Moments like this is when you realise that you have a community. I’m sure a lot of people can relate. There’s a period in your life where you feel like you have nothing or no one, and I had a very long period of that, so getting to see the amount of support that I have right now, for this little point of my life, is beautiful and I can’t express enough how grateful and appreciative I am,” Rankine said.
His advice to young Caymanians was to make Caymankind a way of life, be good to others and kind, because that is the way he lives and to what he attributes his success.
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