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In the Chopped kitchen, simple ingredients are rarely present. Each self-contained episode of the Food Network cooking competition includes three rounds鈥攁ppetizer, entr茅e and dessert鈥攚ith an accompanying mystery basket of required (and often bizarre) ingredients.

In an , Los Angeles-based professional chef and cookbook author Christina Xenos, BSJ 鈥�02, relied on her background to defy the odds and conquer the 鈥淐hopping Block.鈥� Despite her success鈥攊ncluding running 鈥攑ersonal cheffing wasn鈥檛 Xenos鈥� original plan. OHIO Today News spoke with Xenos about her nontraditional path to becoming a Chopped Champion.

What drew you to OHIO for your undergraduate studies?

I鈥檝e always really been into writing and journalism. In high school, I was the editor of my school newspaper and the literary magazine. I really also enjoyed cooking, but my parents were first-generation Greek-Americans, and they said, 鈥淵ou have to go to college.鈥� My brother was at OHIO, so we learned about Scripps. I applied, and I got into the magazine program.

Journalism is a huge love of mine. I really respect it. And my education I got at OHIO, it doesn't get any better than that. I loved it. I worked in the field for around 15 years before I started cooking professionally.

How did you transition from a journalist to a professional chef?

I went to Cincinnati after graduation and worked for a company called F+W Media doing fine art book publishing. I started working with artists and helping them break down their process; in hindsight, that really helped me with the step-by-step for cookbook publishing and how to break out recipes. 

I was there for three years, and then I moved out to Los Angeles and started working for Where magazine. It was an entertainment magazine that was basically the visitor guide to the city. I started our first consumer-facing website and wrote content for the website鈥攃overing restaurant openings, profiling chefs, things like that. That started to rekindle my love of cooking and excitement about fine dining.

I started culinary school at that time; I just took a professional track at night for 14 weeks. I learned about personal cheffing and wrote a business plan, and that鈥檚 how that transition happened.

How did the skills you learned at OHIO transfer into building your own business?

As a journalist, you are always coming up with your own story ideas, and you have to pitch them. It鈥檚 kind of the basis of being an entrepreneurial person鈥攊t makes you really proactive. You just go for what you know, go for the story, go for what you want to do. It鈥檚 a constant state of reevaluation. And after working at Where for 11 years, I was reevaluating. I was like, I can do this [professional cheffing].

I think coming out of Scripps and coming out of OHIO, you鈥檙e coming out of an incredible program. It鈥檚 important to always know you have the skills and be confident in the skills that you learned. 

What was the process of getting on Chopped like?

Being in LA鈥攁nd I think because of my Instagram account鈥攕ometimes casting companies reach out to me to audition for different shows. I was on Food: Fact or Fiction as an expert. A couple of years ago I was on Frankie vs. the Internet, which is on the Tastemade network.

I had auditioned for a couple of other shows, but then they got me in the pool for Chopped and I auditioned. They sent me the audition tape in early 2023, and then I didn鈥檛 hear anything until the beginning of this year, when the producer called me and said, 鈥淲e can鈥檛 tell you anything for sure, but you might want to start looking for airline tickets.鈥� She told me they were doing an episode with all-Greek ingredients and all-Greek chefs. I was really excited, because I got to cook the food that I know.

How did you handle the pressures of time and ingredient restrictions?

Yeah, there鈥檚 no lying there. The clock is real. I had about three weeks [to prepare] going into it, and my husband trained me. He would go out and buy the weirdest stuff, like eel and random vegetables. And he would make boxes and run the clock, and I would have to do it. I basically brainstormed, which goes back to journalism because we are always making lists. I made a huge list of all of the possible ingredients and what I could do with them.

Because I鈥檓 so familiar with Greek food, a lot of what I did was second nature. It was just so second nature to stuff the leg of lamb [in the entr茅e round], because that's another recipe in our cookbook, and I make that all the time for pop-ups and client dinners and things like that. Nothing was easy, but coming up with what I was going to make wasn鈥檛 as hard as I thought it would be. I felt really prepared going into it.

It seemed like in the dessert round, there was a moment where it looked like the win was slipping away. How did you overcome that?

They played up the drama of the cream cheese filling not setting, but that wasn鈥檛 actually the problem. The problem was that the sauce was really hot, so I knew I had to chill it and firm it up. Everything happened at once, and it was stressful. I didn鈥檛 know if the dessert was gonna work.

I think dessert was my hardest round, because most of the traditional Greek desserts take so long to make. Coming up with a dessert that you can make in 30 minutes was always going to be a challenge for me. But when I was prepping, I was coming up with some no-bake recipes. And when they gave us the mosaiko, oh, I was like, oh this is all perfect. I鈥檓 not going to try to make a cake from scratch in 30 minutes. I'm not going to even attempt using the ice cream maker鈥擨鈥檝e seen so many disasters with that.

What was going through your mind when you saw Chef Christos鈥� dessert on the Chopping Block?

It was all really unbelievable. From the moment I walked into that studio at 6:30 in the morning and I saw the guys, I was like, 鈥淥h, I鈥檓 so screwed.鈥� These guys were high-level restaurant chefs, I鈥檓 just this second career private chef. I think they really discounted me. I just thought they wrote me off from the start.

I knew Christos was a formidable chef; he is amazing. I saw his beautiful dessert and was like, I鈥檓 probably screwed. But in the dessert round they go through to your other dishes; they rate you based on everything, so I thought I had a chance. You don鈥檛 make it to the dessert round without really, really wanting to win. Because it is a very long day and once you make it that far, you鈥檙e like, 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 come here for nothing.鈥� I really wanted to win.

When I saw his dish on the chopping block, it was just unbelievable to me. I think I was in shock. It was a very surreal moment. I haven鈥檛 had many moments in my life where you work so hard for something and then it finally happens.

The Chopped Champion takes home a $10,000 cash prize. What do you plan to do with your winnings?

I want to open a cooking school in Greece. I鈥檝e been working on a business plan since I鈥檝e been here and brainstorming what this can be.

We鈥檙e looking at properties, nothing immediate yet. It takes a long time to realize something, but the step this year was realizing that we really want to be there. I narrowed down the area I want it to be, looking at properties and houses. I鈥檓 waiting for the right thing to come along, and hopefully we鈥檒l move forward. 

Featured and story photos courtesy Christina Xenos.