Christine Ha, the first blind cook to compete on Fox’s “MasterChef,” wasn’t about to let Chef Gordon Ramsay intimidate her.
She can’t see his deeply wrinkled forehead scowl if he tries to stare her down.
“Not being able to see definitely helps,” she says.
The introduction of a sightless chef — with all the anticipation of danger that a blind person working around sharp knives and hot stoves promises — instantly pushed this year’s edition of the home-cooking championship into new territory.
Ha suffers from neuromyelitis optica (NMO), an autoimmune disorder that affects the optic nerves and spinal chord. She lost sight in one eye in 1999 and was completely blind by 2007. Obviously, that hasn’t stopped her from enrolling in a graduate-level writing program — one of the best in the country — or from competing on a nationally televised cooking show even though she has never studied cooking.
The “MasterChef” casting department approached her last year about attending an open casting call after reading her food blog, theblindcook.com, set up for her by her husband, John Suh.
“I kind of decided to marry my interests in writing and cooking,” she says.
“The people from the show found out that I could cook and had a good story,” she says.
Already, she has had an effect on the usually ill-tempered judges.
When Ramsay helped position her in front of cameras during her audition, she told him he smelled wonderful.
“He wears good-smelling cologne, and that was disarming,” says Ha. “Chef Ramsay was polite and charismatic.”
Polite? The MFA student at the University of Houston may be the first show contestant to use that word to describe the grouchy restaurateur.
In the show’s season premiere this week, Ha stepped up to the counter, folded her cane and prepared Vietnamese catfish and pickled vegetables.
She passed on to the next round, even though she did not serve the rice she cooked to go with the fish.
“We’re only allowed to bring 5 things from our home kitchens. I didn’t bring my rice cooker,” she says. “I have a pretty good Japanese rice cooker. I used the one at the audition, and I didn’t measure the rice-to-water ratio properly. It was too chewy and crunchy.”
Ha’s interest in cooking stems from her memories of her mother, who died when Ha was 14.
“She was a culinary inspiration. I liked to help peel the egg roll skin apart, but I wasn’t that interested in cooking when I was a kid,” she says.
“She didn’t really get a chance to teach me anything. I’ve spent years recreating the memories from taste.”
“MasterChef” has provided her with an aide who can find things for her in the pantry so she doesn’t waste time.
“I’ll say, ‘Can you please get me carrots?’ And they’ll find the carrots and put them in my basket,” she says.
Ha keeps a super-organized kitchen at home but goes grocery shopping with a friend.
“I’ll cook twice a week,” says Ha, who expects to graduate with next year.
“I put up all the groceries. That’s how I keep a mental inventory. That’s how I know where everything is.”