Two Marylanders compete for $25,000 grand prize on new holiday-themed ‘MasterChef Junior’

Just in time for the winter holidays, MasterChef Junior has cooked up a new show, “MasterChef Junior: Home for the Holidays,” premiering this weekend.

Competing for a $25,000 grand prize — plus ultimate schoolyard bragging rights — will be not one, but two pint-sized Marylanders: 10-year-olds Elijah Zelaya, from Ellicott City, and Zarah Spriggs, from Huntingtown.

“I was really nervous at first, having new people around me and being in a new environment,” Spriggs said of filming in the Master Chef Junior kitchen studio.

But, to answer the burning question on many fans’ minds, “Gordon Ramsay was so nice,” Zelaya said.

The new, two-night television special will kick off Sunday from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Fox, with the winner awarded a Viking Kitchen supply package and a snow globe trophy, in addition to the cash, by the end of Monday night. The episodes will become available on Hulu the day after they air on Fox.

And there’s a seasonal twist: The nine contestants from across the country will be cooking dishes fit for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and other holidays, to be judged by none other than Ramsay, his daughter Tilly Ramsay, Aarón Sánchez and Daphne Oz.

“Two brown kids, from Maryland … it was a prideful moment,” said Spriggs’ mom, Leela Spriggs.

Spriggs, a fifth grade student at Huntingtown Elementary School, “always loved to hang around the kitchen” from the age of 3, she said, prompting her mother to teach her how to cook. Salmon, steak “and anything with cheese” are her favorite foods to cook (and eat).

“She’s like my sous chef in the kitchen,” Leela Spriggs said. They cook East and West Indian dishes together, with plenty of vegan options mixed in. Spriggs also runs a cookie business with her twin brother, Aiden, called Aiden & Zarah’s NumNum Cookies.

Like Spriggs, Zelaya, a fifth-grader at a Howard County elementary school, said his first foray into the kitchen was around the age of 3, as his “mom’s helper.” By age 6, he was cooking independently — and he now counts moqueca de camarão (a Brazilian seafood stew) and chocolate soufflé among his favorite dishes to make.

Some of the Haitian dishes Zelaya cooks he learned from his grandmother.

“He’s always experimenting. He loves learning about new cultures,” said his father, Jeff Zelaya, noting TikTok as one source of inspiration for new recipes.

Zelaya cooks around 80% of the family’s meals now, his dad estimated, and posts about his cooking journey on Instagram. That’s where a producer contacted him about trying out for the holiday-themed MasterChef Junior competition, he said.

Spriggs’ application process started last winter, her mother said.

The episodes were filmed in Los Angeles at the start of the year after a group of contenders were flown to the city to cook for the judges in person, Leela Spriggs said. Departing for Los Angeles, she remembered seeing Zelaya at the airport and suspecting he was also headed to the MasterChef Junior set.

“Being there and not knowing what the future would hold for our children, and the amount of stress that they went through … it was really, really, really stressful,” Leela Spriggs said.

But the young chefs befriended their competitors.

“They’re rising to the occasion,” Jeff Zelaya said. “You see their skills increase, you see them encourage each other. … Even though they’re competing, they’re shouting to each other, ‘Hey, you can do it.’ Rooting each other on.”

On the show, Zelaya cooks dishes for Noche Buena, Haitian Independence Day and Christmas, and Spriggs cooks a Diwali meal, they said. The specifics of their dishes were kept under wraps before the big premiere.

“It was fun to cook, but then when you actually bring up the dish” to Ramsay and the other judges, it was intimidating, Zelaya said. “Because you couldn’t run away. … All you could do was just stand there.”

Zelaya and Spriggs said they learned practical skills in the kitchen, like safe and efficient techniques for chopping, peeling and scooping up cut vegetables.

“The pantry was full,” Zelaya said of the cornucopia of ingredients at contestants’ disposal. “They had a lot of equipment I had never even seen before.”

They also developed ways to keep their cool.

“If the pressure is unbearable, step away, breathe for a moment and come back to your station,” Zelaya said.

“As a parent, I learned just how resilient my kid is,” Jeff Zelaya said.

To those looking to try their hand at cooking, the pair of young Maryland chefs suggested having fun with it — and not taking criticism too hard. Flops are a chance to learn something new, Spriggs said.

In the MasterChef Junior kitchen, the stakes are high. But for contestants, the craft is familiar.

“I just did what I know,” Zelaya said.