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A teenage chef who won an episode of Food Network’s “Chopped Junior” has died at the age of 17. Fuller Goldsmith died Tuesday after a long battle with leukemia. Saturday would be her 18th birthday, reports WIAT, a CBS affiliate in Birmingham, Alabama.
Goldsmith appeared on “Chopped Junior,” a children’s cooking competition, in 2017 when he was 14 and won his episode. He also appeared in the first season of the similar NBC-Universal show, “Top Chef Junior”, the same year.
He was first diagnosed with leukemia at age three, but was in remission for four years. The cancer has returned this year and it has taken a worse turn this week, his father Scott Goldsmith told WIAT. “He was tired and was ready to go,” his father said.
From the age of 4, Goldsmith knew he wanted to be a chef. After winning “Chopped Junior,” he worked at the Southern Ale House restaurant in Tuscaloosa, WIAT reports. His fellow restaurant workers are now mourning his death.
“If he had the opportunity to go to a kitchen or work in a kitchen, that was something he really enjoyed,” his father said. “He met a lot of people and got to do things that most don’t have to do.”
The teenager has been in and out of hospitals for years – and it was the kitchen that got him out of bed.
“When I was sick the kitchen was the only thing that woke me up,” Goldsmith told Tuscaloosa magazine in 2017. “If I lay down without doing anything my feet and legs hurt, but when I lay down moving around in the kitchen, it wouldn’t hurt so much. “
On “Chopped Junior”, Goldsmith put the spotlight on regionally inspired cuisine, with Southern favorites like powdered sugar donuts, chicken fillets made with puppy paste and beer-battered catfish. , WIAT reports.
Goldsmith attended Tuscaloosa Academy, a prep school in the city of Alabama. Alan Barr, the school’s acting principal, said Goldsmith had never let his illness bring him down and he was in love with life. “He was just one of those people when they walked into a room, he was a little brighter because he was there,” Barr said.
Magical Elves, which produces the “Top Chef” franchise, said they were devastated by Goldsmith’s death. “He was an amazing chef and the strongest kid we’ve ever met,” the company said in an Instagram post. “From the minute he was introduced to us we knew he would impact everyone around him and be a positive force in the kitchen world. To his family we give all our love as we go. they mourn the loss of someone very special. “
Caitlin o’kane
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