What Chopped Winner Celeste Rogers Is Up To Now

With over 600 episodes under its belt, according to IMDb, it's easy to get lost in the shuffle of talented chefs that appear on Food Network's cooking show Chopped. Even if a chef makes a name for themselves in the hour on air, the culinary world can be just as cutthroat as the reality competition itself, and it's not too often we keep up with some of the talent that proves their way through each episode.

Celeste Rogers, however, refuses to blend in. After winning the healthy food-themed episode "The Light Stuff" in season 36, Rogers wasted no time making way in her career. Prior to her 2018 television appearance, Rogers had already carved a spot out for herself in the food game. According to her professional website, she was a published food writer and Culinary Institute of America grad long before her episode even hit the air. Following her big win, Rogers has continued to gain steam on her own personal path to success. Even through the coronavirus pandemic — which has been just about as high-stakes for the cooking world as any episode of Chopped — Rogers continues to find her niche and make a name for herself.

Even before her Food Network stint, Rogers was busy training professional chefs as an assistant resident chef at Sur la Table in New York, according to her LinkedIn profile. While Rogers has been consistently building upon her own personal skills in the kitchen, she's found meaning in preparing other cooks for their own time behind the stove.

While it's hard to instruct one-on-one amid the coronavirus pandemic, Rogers has found ways to educate despite the limiting circumstances. Most notably, she filmed an intensive 14-episode cooking course called Startup Library: Cooking, which brings new chefs through all of the fundamental basics of what's what in the kitchen (via LinkedIn). Whether you want to learn about the proper pans to fry an egg, must-know knife rules when it comes to chopping veggies, or how to use your pressure cooker once and for all, Rogers has it all covered in this crash course, available for $34.99 on Craftsy.

At the end of the day, though, Rogers is all about curating content. She has shared her best knife tips with Inside Edition and occasionally posts recipes on her own YouTube channel. Whether it's a full-on course on the art of cooking, or a short Instagram Reels video sharing her secret to "the most pillowy Challah," Rogers has made it her mission to educate other aspiring chefs of all calibers.

After announcing her departure from Sur La Table on Instagram in 2019, Rogers has been finding her way through growing her own professional cooking career. She's shared every step of the journey on her social media platforms. Recently, Rogers helped curate a Secret Table five-course menu filled with locally-sourced chocolate, which guests enjoyed at the top of Hawaii's Koke'e Mountain (where was our invite?).

While the pandemic has certainly shaken up Rogers' plans for her career after leaving Sur La Table, she seems to have proudly found her way back to her true calling: healthy living. Nowadays, Rogers is a private chef for a team of personal trainers and wellness professionals, whipping up vegan meal preps that would make any meat-eater drool. It's a career move that she talked about openly on her Instagram, writing that "Life really handed out some lemons this year, but in a strange twist, all of this uncertainty has led me back to my health and wellness roots."

Considering that the very episode that awarded her the Chopped crown was based off of better-for-you ingredients, we're certain that this pivot was just what Rogers needed to keep climbing up the culinary ladder.