The first female chef to lead a team in the WNC Chefs Challenge, Roque attended Johnson & Wales University in Charleston, South Carolina, and took an externship in the pastry department at Fontainebleau Hilton in Miami. She worked as a pastry chef in restaurants throughout the Southeast and opened Never Blue Tapas Bar & Grill in 2007. She’s appeared as a guest chef on cooking shows in Miami and locally, and last November launched a weekly radio show, The Chef’s Table, to answer cooking questions, discuss wines, offer tips and recipes, and highlight area restaurants. She lives in Saluda with her husband and two daughters.

Q: What secret ingredient would you like to work with?
A: Figs. They’re good with cheese, meat, ice cream—everything. You can even salt them and they still taste good.

Q: What edge do you have in this competition?
A: I would like to think my feminine side. Girls have an eye for details and everything for us has to taste as good as it looks.

Q: If you could make one phone call during the competition, whom would you call?
A: My grandma. She’s 94 and it would make her millennium to know I’m competing in this. She would say, “Do good and don’t make anything weird.”

Q: Favorite celebrity chef?
A: Bobby Flay and Guy Fieri. If I could meld myself into a blend of them I’d be golden.

Q: How does it feel to be the first female chef to compete?
A: I feel like Shirley Temple at the boys club.

http://www.theneverblue.com/

Photograph by Matt Rose