Rather than watching the Saturday morning TV lineup of cartoons typical for a 6-year-old, Lukas Gilberstad remembers he would often turn the channel to the Food Network.
“My love for creating food entered around that time in my life,” says the 21-year-old Pikeville, Tennessee, resident. “I grew up always loving to cook, and my parents were very supportive.”
So supportive, in fact, they made a game of it.
“One of our favorite shows was ‘Chopped,’ and my parents would set up mystery baskets that I would have use to come up with dinner ideas to make on weekend nights,” he says.