Chicagoan Dustin Hogue in the finals of ‘The Julia Child Challenge’

“To be a great cook you have to have a like of the very good, a love of difficult operate, and a enjoy of building.” — Julia Little one

It’s honest to say that Military veteran-turned-residence-cook-turned way of living/fitness trainer Dustin Hogue lives by Child’s words and phrases. He has expended his adultlife accomplishing superior for state, serving two deployments to Iraq, and great for relatives and good friends, for whom the dwelling prepare dinner produces some quite extravagant supper events.

Tough perform has been the driving force by all of it, and if you’ve been viewing the Food stuff Network series “The Julia Baby Challenge,” you’ll quickly see that a enjoy of developing is at the core of his cooking abilities.

All those skills have attained the Chicago-based Hogue a spot in the series finale at 8 p.m. Monday, facing off versus fellow Chicago resident Invoice Borman and Californian-by-way-of-the-Amazon Jaíne Mackievicz.

In the series, which will take spot within a down-to-the-whisk replica of Child’s kitchen area, contestants set their spins on the recipes contained in her iconic cookbook (and culinary business bible) “Mastering the Artwork of French Cooking,” using the techniques Child produced well-known by way of the ebook as perfectly as her groundbreaking PBS cooking present, “The French Chef.”

Each episode functions two rounds of competitors: The initially calls for the cooks to produce a dish inspired by a single of Child’s, the second is a meal served family-style, that includes a second Child-motivated dish from each individual competitor.

The competitors is curated by head judge and celeb chef Antonia Lofaso and a sequence of visitor judges. A person cook is despatched household each individual 7 days.

The winner (8 contestants begun the weekly competitors back on March 14) receives an all-charges-paid, a few-month cooking system at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, the very same faculty wherever the late Little one gained her expert schooling extra than 70 yrs in the past.

On the show, Hogue discovered his love of cooking implies his buddies and relatives are addressed to a 5- to 6-course meal when invited to his dwelling for evening meal. Once in a while he hosts ticketed pop-up dinners. He’s also a yoga, cycling and superior-depth interval instruction instructorat Studio A few in Chicago and the founder of the Dwell Fantastic Journey life-style method. He was launched to Little one and her legacy in his 20s, largely via her cookbooks and looking at YouTube films of her show.

Hogue, who makes his dwelling in River West, not too long ago spoke to the Sunlight-Situations about competing on the display and his enjoy of cooking. Solutions have been edited for duration.

Q. How did you appear to make Chicago your house?

A. I grew up in Kansas Town. I moved to Chicago in 2011. I was in the navy out of significant college. I joined the armed service to pay for school and deployed to Iraq 2 times. Just after my next time abroad I just felt it was a superior time to transfer up to Chicago. … It’s a single of the finest meals cities in the world. I love feeding on [laughs], and there are so many good spots there.

Q. When did your curiosity in foods start?

A. There was often a thing in me that was captivated to food stuff. I grew up very humbly. We didn’t try to eat extravagant things, just really very simple dishes that my mom built with a ton of like. She labored two jobs, and she did what she could. I would help her cook dinner by chopping onions or bell peppers and factors like that. I was in elementary college. I was the child seeing Foods Community instead of cartoons. … I have usually viewed foods displays. Immediately after my 1st tour I was doing the job in Kansas Metropolis in dining places, tending bar and serving. I’ve hardly ever labored in the kitchen in a cafe, but with serving and bartending you close up trying a good deal of foods. It opened my eyes to a whole lot of items. As a broke faculty college student it was much more available to master to make dishes on my individual than to go to eating places. When I first begun cooking I was not pretty good by any means, but I don’t like remaining lousy at issues. If there is some thing I latch my tooth into I place a great deal of effort into it. And so cooking has turn out to be a passion of mine.

And I browse cookbooks all the time. I’m usually seeing meals shows. It’s my most loved time of the calendar year now simply because all the farmers’ markets are beginning, and I can go shop. All the elements change, and I love to experiment with what’s in year.

Q. I imagine there’s more to your cooking than skill, due to the fact your dishes on the series so significantly have been remarkably praised by the judges and your fellow competition, and there’s a genuine art to what you develop.

A. The cookbooks I read through, I study for the tactics that are in them. At the time you have a toolbox of methods you can enterprise off and experiment. And I like to expend time outdoors my consolation zone in my existence, not just in cooking. That is what helped me get greater with cooking. I’m Alright with producing errors and understanding from them and acquiring far better, as very long as it teaches me some thing about an ingredient or a new dish. Cooking is all about functioning with flavors and being familiar with how to balance them and alter them.

Q. Did you find out just about anything about cooking from your time in the military?

A. Very well, the food stuff we experienced was not the most effective foodstuff ever [laughs]. But they experimented with to give us a assortment of meals, and we ate a lot of distinct points. I never assume I ate a ton of greens till I was in the military due to the fact greens at house were canned or frozen.

Q. Do you have a favourite cuisine?

A. I often battle with this for the reason that my major target is to prepare dinner as seasonally and domestically as feasible. I do adore making clean pasta, but I also enjoy Mexican flavors. I traveled to Thailand, so I really like Southeast Asian flavors. I try to choose my experiences and vacation and have that manual my foods.

Q. What made you determine to contend on the present?

A. Julia Youngster desired to make superior food extra accessible to household cooks. And I see myself as a dwelling cook dinner and as somebody who type of has that identical mission, in sharing foods with people today and permitting them know they can make truly scrumptious points at dwelling, and it does not have to be intimidating. The chance to go on this clearly show based mostly on anyone who experienced the exact same check out as me and compete and cook dinner alongside other property cooks who have the same enthusiasm was extremely eye-catching to me.

Observe: Dustin Hogue is internet hosting a few future Move Outside the house fitness occasions. For information and facts and tickets, stop by eventbrite.com.