The Truth About Tim McDiarmid From Chopped: Alton's Maniacal Baskets
Raised picking vegetables in her mother's garden in Canada and then stress-tested in the restaurants of New York City, Tim McDiarmid finally settled in San Antonio, Texas to open a catering company (via Society Texas). For a decade now, McDiarmid's Tim the Girl Catering has been feeding guests at weddings, special events, and corporate functions in San Antonio. McDiarmid also opened The Good Kind cafe in 2017, which offers healthy, sustainable, and often locally sourced comfort food, per the cafe's website. She also runs an event space in San Antonio called Ivy Hall.
Tim McDiarmid has definitely made her mark in San Antonio. Now she's trying for whatever share of TV fame might come from winning Food Network's latest variation on the "Chopped" theme, per Food Network. "Chopped: Alton's Maniacal Baskets," with Alton Brown, premiered June 22, with new episodes coming weekly.
McDiarmid combines rural and urban influences with international flair, leading tours of Italy's culinary scene (via Society Texas). But her farm life has always been an important part of her identity. "I always knew I would work in the culinary industry, ever since I was 3 years old and picking peas in my mom's one-acre garden," McDiarmid told Society Texas. Her promotional material often says "For her, farm-to-table isn't a fad — it's her history" (via Dish'n Dames).
Tim McDiarmid focuses now on helping women run restaurants
The gimmick behind "Chopped: Alton's Maniacal Baskets" is that the ingredients in those notorious "Chopped" mystery baskets are chosen with help from Alton Brown's fans on social media (via Food Network). We'll see if a farm-to-table chef who told the San Antonio Current her favorite ingredients are vegetables can succeed at cooking with bizarre ingredients in the limited time "Chopped" provides.
McDiarmid has already proven herself in kitchens many times over. At this stage of her career, with three businesses to run, she isn't putting on an apron every day. She was able to lean even more into her identity as an entrepreneur after becoming one of only 20 women chosen to participate in the James Beard Foundation's Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership program (via Society Texas). Cooking is her passion, but leadership might be her purpose. "It's one thing to have passion," she told Dish'n Dames. "It's another thing to be able to run a company. There's times when I'm like, I didn't want to just be sitting here managing people and running a business, but I do want to create a company that is able to show women how to run a business."
McDiarmid wants to teach women how to run restaurants that are both sustainable and healthy. "San Antonio is a city with serious health issues, and I would hope to encourage others to not only eat more healthfully, but also to open restaurants and adapt menus to help their city," she told Society Texas.