CLASS NOTES | ALUMNI PROFILE PHOTO: ET PROJECTS
TOP OF HER GAME An Interview with
SASHA GRUMMAN By Debra Devine'81 Lee
Harbor Day alumna, Sasha Grumman'02, is also a recent alumna of the Bravo television program Top Chef. Since the show wrapped, she has been busy growing her focaccia business into a national brand. Recently, she took some time out to talk to us about her journey from HDS to the French Culinary Institute to Top Chef. D: What inspired you to become a chef? S: My inspiration to become a chef came at a young age. I grew up in a large Italian family, so we were always cooking together—grandma, great-grandma, and mom. All the ladies in the house, strong personalities—some of us had red hair—so I followed that tradition of strong women in the kitchen. It was definitely family but also Emeril Lagasse. He was my hero. I would watch his show morning and night. When I was five years old, I ran downstairs and told my mom how to cook a turkey on Thanksgiving—I was that kid. I didn’t really decide to go into cooking until after I graduated from college. I was coaching field hockey at Newport Harbor—I played field hockey in college—while I was trying to figure out what I was going to do, and I was cooking a lot. My sister and my dad said, “You’re kind of good at this. Maybe you should look into going to culinary school.” I decided to go to a culinary school that took me to Italy and connected my Italian grandmother to my future in the culinary arts. It was an awesome full circle moment for me. D: How did you come to be on Top Chef?
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S: A few of my past chefs have been on Top Chef and Top Chef Masters, and when you’re done filming that season, they ask you for recommendations. So my past chefs had put my name in the hat to be part of the show this year and it just happened to work out. D: I’m sure you had some preconceived ideas about what being on the show would be like. Was there anything about the experience that surprised you? S: Everything was exciting and surprising. It’s an experience unlike any other. I was very excited to just get there and start cooking and filming the show, but I think the biggest surprise was the community of chefs and producers. There are 200 people that are producing the show, that are making it happen, and seeing it come to life is pure magic. I have a new family of chefs, but also a new family of producers and casting people. There are so many people from Top Chef that care and check in. I didn’t expect for my family to grow by a hundred people. It’s been such a wonderful support network which, if anybody out there wants to go on the show, you need the support network. It’s really, really, hard—it’ll be one of the hardest things you’ll ever do, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
BEACON SPRING/SUMMER 2021
