BY: KEISHA JOHNSON
Londyn Green, a ten-year old chef from Atlanta, GA, got the opportunity to live her dream when she was selected from thousands of other applicants to compete on Season 5 of Fox’s MasterChef Junior hosted by world renown chefs Gordon Ramsay and Christina Tosi.
The eldest girl of four siblings admits she had watched every season prior to being on the show.
She started cooking pancakes at age three with her dad, a professional chef and developed a love for the kitchen and all things culinary as she grew older and gained more exposure to various cuisines and cultures.
She knows how to make tender and tasty octopus even though she does not eat seafood. She’s mastered preparing Jamaican jerk dishes and exotic goat head recipes. Her signature dish, Londyn describes as a “Tiki bacon wrap, turkey tenderloin and super blueberry sauce” from the Southern palate. She also loves creating vegetarian meals and admits she has a signature dish for French and other cuisines.
When Londyn auditioned for MasterChef Junior in 2016 at age nine, she was successful in her first attempt.
Understanding how to manage time, pre-plan meals and create plates for the eyes and the taste buds are strengths she developed cooking at home with her family and assisting her dad in more professional settings on occasion.
“If you can’t handle the heat you shouldn’t be in the kitchen,” the ten-year old told me of her commitment to excelling as a chef.
“I want to have my own restaurant, my own talk show, my own cooking show, a cooking channel. I want to have a cooking brand and a cooking empire,” the A-student who goes by #queenofthekitchen, shared her vision for her future.
At her tender age, Londyn demonstrates what it takes to love what you do, make a goal of it, pursue it diligently, keep learning and improving and continue to dream big!
If you think that Londyn’s advantage is youthful exuberance, let’s consider Karlene Milllwood, who after devoting almost two decades to a career in IT, took a leap of faith to pursue her dream of being a film producer and director.
Through the lens of ‘stability’ and career advancement, it made sense to stay put in her comfort zone. She had studied to the graduate level, had amassed cross-industry experience, and developed a great reputation for excelling in IT. But when faced with an unplanned interruption in her seasoned career, Karlene briefly courted the idea of following her passion to write, direct and act.
Cognizant that the choice would cost her, she labored over the decision for months.
To do as well as she did in IT, meant she would have to be re-trained, expand into a new network, develop new competencies and build a career from scratch.
“I had just bought the closest thing to my dream home and had moved in only three months when I realized I’d have to sell it to afford to go to film school,” she shared.
“Still tentative, one month prior to the start of school I prayed for a confirmation to go and a stranger who did not know me or my situation told me God says ‘yes’,” Millwood told.
With that confidence, she jetted off to the West Coast where she knew neither friend nor foe. Undaunted by the fact that she was one of the more age-advanced students in her film class she embraced the challenge with a bulwark’s zeal and dedication.
“That experience reminded me how resilient I am and how much of a problem solver I can be,” Karlene reflected on her year in film school.
She has since returned to Toronto, ON, written and casted her new short film, When Destiny Calls and penned her latest book to inspire women to pursue their dream.
“Every day I’m amazed at God’s favor! I meet people who are opening doors for me I never imagined,” the author, writer/director, and radio host shared.
