Ayesha Curry Reveals Her Bucket List Goal Is To Win A James Beard Award
Most biographies you read about Ayesha Curry start with the same couple descriptors: She's an NBA wife, married to the Warriors' Steph Curry for almost eight years. And she's a mother of three to 6-year-old Riley, 4-year-old Ryan, and 1-year-old Canon. Family is a tentpole of Ayesha's brand—like overpriced wellness products are to Gwyneth and Twitter jabs are to Chrissy—so this isn't bad, per se. It's just that Ayesha is so much more than just a wife and a mom.
The 30-year-old is a B-O-S-S—so agrees the necklace she designed with accessories company Thirty One Bits. Ayesha's done more in her three decades than some people accomplish in a lifetime. It's a trope but it's true. That aforementioned jewelry line barely scratches the surface. There have been cookbooks, a restaurant, a wine label, an olive oil line, cookware, meal kits, a YouTube channel, and TV shows.
"When I started, I was so grateful for all of the opportunities that were coming in. It wasn’t greed—I just always felt I'd be silly to turn something down," Ayesha tells Delish. "It took a long time for me to realize that it really, truly is quality over quantity, impact over legacy. So it's, how is this going to impact me and the people around me longterm?—not what am I going to leave behind from this?" That's why Ayesha consistently lends her star power and influence to causes, too, like No Kid Hungry and a soon-to-launch foundation of her own with Steph.
At this point, Ayesha prefers to create her own opportunities, though—like Family Food Fight. The ABC summer show premiered to nearly three million viewers in late June, more than a year after Ayesha first started working on the project. "It's been a work in progress," she laughs. "We filmed in October, so I'm just happy it's all coming to fruition now and people are finally seeing it. It's vibrant and competitive, but it's positive, and I feel like we need some positive programming right now."
The show centers on eight teams, with three family members each, all of whom are going head-to-head for the title of America's number one food family. Ayesha is the host, an executive producer, and one of three judges. Family Food Fight is far from her first hosting gig (she did a season of Ayesha's Home Kitchen on Food Network in 2016), but besides one-off stints on Guy's Grocery Games and Chopped Junior, this is her first time judging a competition.
"Eliminations were tough for me—I hated doing it," she starts. "But it's the name of the game. These families together, all of them became so close. Tears would be shed when somebody went home because they really built these friendships, and I thought that was so special to see and to watch."
Just because Ayesha puts family first, though, doesn't mean she likes to come in second. Steph just so happens to have premiered a show—Holey Moley, a golf competition—the same night as Family Food Night. "Our family is competitive, but in the most loving way," she says. "I've been telling everybody since his comes on before me, he’s technically my opening act. So there’s that. That’s what I’m going to keep telling myself. He’s my hype man."
The show's barely taken off (it's three weeks into its eight-week run), but Ayesha's already dreaming about what's next. "My big focus right now is taking everything that I do have and making sure we're constantly creating new, innovative products within those things," she says.
Since she and Steph moved to the Bay Area a decade ago, they've set out to support what exists, revitalize what needs help, and build what's not yet there. Their new foundation will help the community nearby, and Ayesha's brick-and-mortar projects have all begun in either San Francisco or Oakland. Her meal kits just launched in Northern California Whole Foods locations (the next step is a national rollout), and Homemade by Ayesha Curry (Ayesha's pop-up shop) is thriving in Oakland's Jack London Square.
Then there's her joint-venture with chef Michael Mina, International Smoke. The restaurant features American and international barbecue dishes and has outposts in San Francisco; Houston; Aventura, FL; and soon San Diego. But a coast-to-coast expansion isn't the be all, end all. "A bucket list thing for me would be to one day win a James Beard Award—definitely for the restaurant and maybe even for the show," she shares coyly, as if saying it out loud jinxes the possibility. "I don’t know how I’m going to do that, but I’m gonna work my butt off and see what happens."
('You Might Also Like',)
