While families across the United States plopped down on their couches at the beginning of July to watch the Women’s World Cup or tuned in to the new season of “Stranger Things,” Chase Wayland’s family excitedly flipped to the Food Network at 9 p.m. to watch him compete on “Chopped Junior.” For the next hour, the Waylands watched him cut veggies, boil pasta, and taste sauces to prepare for the judges and audience.

“Chopped Junior” is a reality cooking show hosted by Ted Allen in which four young chefs compete against each other to win $10,000. With ninety-seven episodes and eight seasons, “Chopped Junior” has hosted hundreds of contestants since it started in 2015.

Wayland learned to cook from his father at home and had always been interested in “MasterChef Junior.” The show’s seasons take almost three weeks to film, but Wayland didn’t want to be away for too long. He looked into “Chopped Junior,” which is a one-day show, and went to the website to apply online after initially seeing an ad for auditions on Twitter. 

“When he first started cooking, it was always a gamble whether or not the food would be edible,” Wayland’s sister Tess Wayland said. “By now, he makes me fresh baked good and delicious taco dinners so I can no longer complain. He’s a better chef than my mom!”

“He loved to cook, and when you’re watching them cook on T.V., you get inspired,” Wayland’s mother Jennifer Wesley said. “You think, ‘I can do that.’”

At the end of January, he began the audition process with several interviews. In April, Wayland was notified that he had been chosen and they started filming that month. Wayland flew to New York for three days to the Food Network’s headquarters for filming. The chefs filmed an introduction on the first day, and the entirety of the competition took place the second day. 

“It was crazy to walk on the set and see something that you’ve watched so much,” Wayland said. “The set seemed a lot smaller on T.V., so when you see it with the cameras and everything you realize how big it is.”

The experience was surreal for Wayland’s family. “They pigeonholed him into a specific character,” Tess Wayland said. “It was like watching someone who was both totally my brother and not him at all.”

In preparation for the show, Wayland cooked dinner for the family almost every night, his favorite of which was carnitas and seared lamb chops. Using ingredients from a food delivery service, Wayland created a new recipe to serve. 

Wayland and his three competitors, Harper McDermott, Ian Richins, and Virann Welbourn, began the episode with a “virtual culinary tour.” Entitled “Basket Bon Voyage,” the episode’s theme was foreign food, and each contestant had a mystery basket with ingredients from a European country. They began in Italy for the appetizer, where they made bacon cannoli, head-on shrimp, baby zucchini, eliche pasta. The judges, Amanda Freitag, Marc Murphy, and Kardea Brown, eliminated Wayland after the appetizer, and the three remaining competitors moved onto to an entrée of apfelstrudel and a dessert of English breakfast tea. 

According to Wayland, the hardest parts of filming were the time pressure and trying to include each basket ingredient in the dish. There was a lot more filming than he expected for the one hour show–the filming lasted the entire day–and the interview process was “incredibly intensive, but fun.”

Wayland’s time on the show was stressful but fulfilling. “Suddenly there are twenty minutes left, and the time goes by so fast,” Wayland said. “It’s a weird phenomenon.”

According to the judges, the zucchini Wayland cut was too big, rendering it difficult to eat, which ultimately ended his time on the show. Though Wayland was cut in the first round, he learned various cooking techniques from cutting zucchini to the competition process. 

“I always cut my zucchini super small now,” Wayland said. “It was a lot less about cooking stuff and a lot about how you don’t always win, and people can be better than you.”

“It’s about the process and the experience,” Wesley said. “You learn a lot of the things they teach you at Parker.”

Though Wayland doesn’t see himself competing in another game show soon, if he were to try again, he would be more realistic about his goals. “I wouldn’t go straight into it thinking that I will win,” Wayland said. “It was fun in the moment, and I’d wanted to do it for two years.”

Tess Wayland believes that the experience gave him more confidence in the kitchen and understand the details and skills that make a significant difference. “I hope that he’ll view the experience as less of a defining moment and test of his skill,” Tess Wayland said, “and more of a fun learning experience that will always make a great story.”