Vegas local and LGBT community member D’Andre Balaoing is lighting things up with his marvelous cooking and fabulous shoes on the latest season of MasterChef. We recently caught up with the charming home cook and got to chatting about his fascinating upbringing, how he got into cooking, what his MasterChef experience has been like, what he thinks of Gordon Ramsay and much, much more.

Tell us a little bit about yourself. I was born in Barksdale, Louisiana, but I didn’t spend a very long time there. My mom was a single mother and shortly after delivering me, we moved to South Korea, where I lived until I was five years old. My mom was young and from the military and she was strong. She was the kind of women who didn’t need no man and I really value her for that. But throughout my life we’ve moved all over. I’ve lived in South Korea, Japan, Portugal, Guam. I’ve visited places that people would only dream about as a kid growing up. The airplane was my way of life. My mom met my stepdad when I was nine. We were living in Okinawa, Japan. He was this gruff, hardened military guy. The two of them got married and had my little brother when I was 11. 

My whole life, I knew that I was gay. It was normal for me. I was never made to feel weird about it from any of my friends or anybody that was close to me in my life. But my stepfather, who was more conservative, he didn’t really see that being a part of his life. And so when I was about 16 years old and finishing high school, he did make the decision to sort of give me the black sheep treatment. He did throw me out. And so I came to Vegas. I was 17 and I signed up for college. I lived out of my car for a little while I was getting work going and getting some money and living on campus. I worked washing dishes in the dining commons at UNLV. And that’s how I supported myself until I could do better. But my family and I, we’re making slow steps towards acceptance. 

What about your mother? My mom and I have always been close. That separation of me with her family was really difficult. I didn’t want her to feel like she had to choose my stepfather and little brother over myself. And so I told my mom, “I’m done with high school. I’ll be okay.” She gave me that strong will that she had raising me by herself and so I felt like no matter what happened in Las Vegas, I would be just fine.

Who else in your family has been in the military? My birth father was in the military, but he and I have never really had any true connection. The option was there when I was younger to reconcile and to be in contact with each other, but I felt like that was something that I didn’t need at that point in my life. My mother and stepfather were both in the military. They both served 24 years and retired. My mother retired as a tech sergeant and my stepfather retired as a master sergeant. They both worked out of Bolling in Washington, D.C., which is where they still are. My mother now works for the federal government and my stepfather is in teaching.

Do you feel like you grew up a lot faster than your friends? I feel like I had to. There were moments of joy but I think when you combine being an LGBT teen with being a military brat, my life is colored a lot with absence. Sometimes parents would have to go away for months, deployed, and you wouldn’t get to speak to them, you don’t know how they’re doing. Sometimes friends would leave and it’s hard to develop relationships. I didn’t feel comfortable going to dances or proms or things like that either because, one, I was an ugly duckling, but, two, it was hard to feel like you’re going to have these friends for life when you know that all of you are going to be moving to different parts of the world. I felt like I was always more independent than people who lived seaside. 

What do you mean by ugly duckling? I was in an accelerated military school course. I was in fourth grade in a hybrid class of sixth graders. They called me “Webster” just because I was so small. I was always the smallest person in my class. I actually had to carry around a Merriam-Webster dictionary to sit on so that I could see the board. That was kind of my booster seat. I had really bad acne and really thick glasses and I was just generally moving pretty awkwardly throughout the whole high school phase.

Well you sure have transformed into an amazing person with some incredible cooking skills. How did that come about? Cooking was always the most important thing in my family growing up with my mom and I. We didn’t have a lot in terms of money. We actually didn’t have a television in our house until I was I think 10 years old. But before that all the time that we spent together when she wasn’t at work or when I wasn’t at school was in the kitchen. It was really important to her that I walk away with some solid life skills. I remember being five or six and climbing onto the kitchen counter and making myself scrambled eggs and being so proud of that. As time went on and we moved to some of these great countries, I learned to smell, to taste, to not be afraid of anything, because when you don’t have a lot in terms of money, you have to really appreciate every piece of food that comes your way. And so nothing was weird to me. I sort of took that philosophy with every other culture that I came across.

Speaking of the show now, what are some of the most difficult elements to being on a show like MasterChef? I think the most difficult part is maintaining your sense of self. You want to show what you have and you want to prove to America that you have these gifts and that you’re competent and talented and passionate. But then you have to remember that cooking in the MasterChef kitchen is nothing like cooking in the kitchen at home. The pressure that you face, the cameras, the lights – we all do our best to minimize our starstruck-ness. We’re constantly being introduced to these culinary titans and these huge chefs that we grew up idolizing. You want to showcase what you’ve got, but you also have to remember that there’s a time limit. That means that you can’t always bring to the plate what you want. But the goal I think is to just give the judges a general sense of where you’re headed. They’re looking for potential and that means that sometimes another thing that’s difficult is feeling out pressured or out shadowed by your fellow competitors. What that means is that the strongest cook upfront is not always going to win. The person who’s the most impressive on day one is not always what they’re looking for. They’re looking for growth. And so it’s remembering that you were chosen and that even though a lot of the people around you might feel powerful, the judges also see you in that respect as well.

There’s a lot to be said about even just being chosen. It’s not easy.

There’s a lot of speculation floating around the Internet about time limits and about help – make no mistake about it: MasterChef is very real. What you see on television is a 100 percent portrayal of what happens in the kitchen. We don’t get extra time. We don’t get people to come and help us. You get one shot. You don’t get any recipes and so you have to lean on your intuition and know that you’re going to do this well. Because we really don’t get any sort of help. It’s very difficult.

Being an LGBT person on MasterChef – was that difficult? Was it something you made known to all the contestants? That’s such a great question. I’ve done a lot of interviews and I think that’s the first time anybody’s ever asked me about this. They cast a very wide net to find the best home cooks. They’re finding passionate people from all over the country with different backgrounds and beliefs. And not all of them, as you can probably imagine, took to my being LGBT as well as I’d hope or as anyone else could hope. But the one thing that I can say is cooking brought us together, especially as the groups got smaller and smaller. We bonded over that. Nobody really has time to talk about, “Oh my boyfriend” or girlfriend or wife or husband. The only thing we want to see is what you’re putting on the plate. That’s the only thing that’s really important. 

I feel like I don’t have to tell people that I’m LGBT. People can smell it on me at this point. It was never a conversation that I did have to have with people, but it was really important for me to be authentic and true to myself because I want people to see – I’m definitely not the first LGBT contestant on MasterChef and I certainly won’t be the last, but I wanted people to see me, to see the LGBT community, to see people, represented on the show, because I think that really does paint a true and authentic picture of what America looks like.

Were you the only out LGBT person on this season of the show? To my knowledge, I’m the only one. And that’s something that I’m really proud of.

Did you ever wonder what you had gotten yourself into? Or did you think it was just the best experience? I think the MasterChef journey is probably a combination of both of those things at all times. You’re super proud, but then you’re also given these challenges. To expect us to do it and hold us to a standard makes us better, but I also think it definitely strikes fear in our hearts. Off camera there’s a lot that you don’t see and there’s a lot that goes into making the show. When we do have off time, we are gathered together and talking with each other because we don’t have cellphones or the Internet or access to our families. All we really have is each other and I think the contestants are really good about reinvigorating each other and making each other feel supported throughout the competition.

Which of the friendships that you made on the show would you say is the most surprising? I started very early on in the show as somebody that I think the other contestants thought would go home soon. I was in the bottom two for the first two full episodes of the show. That’s never really a way that you want to introduce yourself, especially to Gordon Ramsay. But again, they’re looking for growth. My surprising relationship was someone that I was actually in the bottom two with: Barbara [Savage]. She and I have always been very close. As soon as we arrived in Los Angeles, she and I were like – she just looked at me and said, “Girl,” and I looked at her and said, “Hey!” and ever since then we’ve been really close. She was my mother in the competition. We were holding hands when the judges decided who to eliminate. She was wearing a string of pearls and when she got eliminated, she put them on me and kissed me on the forehead and told me to get my ass up to the balcony. I still have them. 

Were there any contestants from previous seasons that you looked up to as role models? I’ve always been a huge fan of Tommy [Walton]. Just because he’s funny and he serves up plenty of realness. But he’s also really talented. I think his passion took him a long way in the competition and I’m hoping it does for me as well. I’m also a really big fan of Derrick [Peltz] from season 6. I was impressed by his technique, especially in the finale. I think when you create dishes that look like that, when you have that sort of eye for detail, it’s hard not to draw a fan base. But I was also trying to pull from my own recipes from season 5, because I was cast into the top 100 on season 5 and tried out for the show then. And so it was a matter of comparing what I did last time and what I was going to do this time that was going to keep me in the MasterChef kitchen.

There are several Las Vegas-based contestants on MasterChef this season. Was there any connection there? There was an immediate connection. I think when we were all on the plane – you know, we can’t really talk about where we’re going or what we’re doing, but when you’re sitting on a plane and you look around you and there’s a big group of people and they’re all like reading cookbooks and trying to memorize everything, you kind of just look at each other and you’re like, “Hey, what’s up? Where are you going? Oh, a rental car convention? Cool. Me too.”

What’s great about this season is it’s actually the first time that you’re seeing anybody from Las Vegas featured in the MasterChef kitchen. Nobody from Las Vegas in all seven seasons has ever won an apron. This is the first time that our city’s on the map. 

It made sense. We have the best food in the world so we had to have some of the best home cooks in the world. I hadn’t met anyone from Vegas before, but I have heard of some of them. I used to work in professional gaming so I’ve heard of David [Williams]. I’ve seen David’s face before with the professional poker playing. And I’ve definitely been to Rockbar where Shaun used to be and I used to dance. I didn’t know that was him, the DJ, but we’ve passed each other before. Vegas is a really small town.

Gordon Ramsay lives in Las Vegas, doesn’t he? He does sometimes. He did just buy a house here. So he is a part-time Las Vegas native, but he also has his restaurants.

Gordon scares me a little bit. Was he difficult to deal with? Or is there a sweet puppy dog underneath that bulldog? If Gordon Ramsay is not scaring you, then you’re probably not listening. He’s not trying to scare us. I think what Gordon Ramsay is showing is passion. And it’s something that I was really worried about, to be honest with you, before I went on the show. Like, “Oh, I don’t want to get yelled at. I don’t want to feel stupid on national television.” But I think when you’re in the heat of the moment in the MasterChef kitchen, you tend to not think about things like that. Gordon Ramsay, he very quickly became a mentor to all of us. Sort of like a father figure. He really just wants us all to do and to be our best, whatever that means for us. So for some of us, we’re coming in with lots of technical knowledge and we need to work on plating for other people. We need to sharpen our core skills. Gordon Ramsay sort of recognizes all of our needs and tries to teach us as best as he can. He does look at all of our recipes and he does keep a very close eye on what we’re doing and how we cook, so I’d like to think that he know us pretty well.

Can we talk about the shoes you wear on MasterChef for a second? Tell me about those shoes. Did you make those or buy them? It’s a combination of both. There’s a company that makes them as well, called Electric Styles – I’m not doing any plugs. They’re USB rechargeable and they’re powered by battery. It’s about five hours of continuous use on one battery charge – it takes about two hours to charge. I thought it was important to bring them with me to the MasterChef kitchen because coming from Vegas I wanted like a little reminder of what home was like if I ever got homesick. I think they’re my Dorothy slippers. I just look down at my shoes and I remember what home is. 

Career-wise, what do you do outside of MasterChef? Where do you want to go next in terms of your career? I work, very proudly, as a bartender. I have for the last three years. Every now and again, by special request, you can catch me at the Huntridge Tavern on Maryland and Charleston, one of Vegas’ oldest dive bars. But my passion has always been about cooking. I’ve always regretted not going to culinary school and I’ve always regretted everybody’s naysay and advice. So my goal now is to sort of catch up. I’m working on a few projects that I’m really excited to release to the public once they’re finished. But right now I’m focusing on harnessing my cooking skills. I’m still working part-time as a bartender. I’m also working part-time as a web designer – I did get my degree from UNLV in web design. But for the most part I’m at home and I’m fortunate enough to have a partner who’s supportive to let me make a mess in the kitchen and photograph things. Hopefully all of this work that I’m putting into cooking and perfecting recipes will lead to something later.

So what’s your favorite thing to make at home? That’s a really tough question. I think without a doubt I have a really soft spot in my heart for fried chicken. It’s because it’s one of those things that when I was travelling the world I noticed that every country has. It’s sort of like the meatball or maybe even noodles. Every country has a fried chicken. And even though there’s different ingredients and preparations that get tossed into making that fried chicken, they all sort of come out the same. They’re crispy and they’re juicy. It’s sort of like a universal dish. And so that’s why I put everything that I had into fried chicken.

What about the boyfriend? What dish does he love for you to prepare for him? We’ve been together for seven years and I think I can pride myself on saying, “You’ve never ever been hungry.” He’s from New Jersey – he comes from a very strong Italian background and so he’s always looking for pasta. I find myself cooking pasta maybe two or three times a week. If he’s really homesick, he might ask me to whip up some pierogis.

Is it true you guys have chickens? It became important to me about last year to start reconnecting with where my food came from and so I decided to invest in chickens. I have two: Daisy and Scramble. They’re both great hens who give me eggs everyday. And we have a nice garden in the backyard. I’ve got 11 different kinds of tomatoes and eggplant and broccoli and Brussels sprouts. It’s just a way for me to feel closer to my food. There is an education aspect. I’m enjoying farming and raising in this desert climate. 

I’d like to ask you what advice you have for other LGBT community members who also want to follow their dreams? Something that I wish somebody would have told me when I was younger and dealing with issues about my sexuality and how that would relate to finding work and succeeding ultimately is that, “You are worthy and your dreams are worth it.” I think nobody should ever make you feel like you don’t deserve the best, because I think everyone does. And what the best means for different people is what it means for different people, but I think that you being LGBT is something that you should be proud of and something that you should draw strength from because as you move throughout the world, you find that there’s a lot of people who might aim to tear you down. And so holding on to the people that love you and the people that know you can be a really important thing.

So how can we get more of D’Andre beyond the show? If you want more of me and some behind-the-scenes fun, follow me on social media. I’m always available for catering. I love to do events and I’d love to come out and meet people. If you have a need for demos, if you want lessons, even just like a one-on-one dinner, that’s something that I’m always up for. Just reach out to me on social media.

MasterChef airs Wednesdays on FOX at 8/7c and is also on Hulu.