Get to Know Our 2022 Chef Showdown Winner: Nicole McLaughlin

on November 8, 2022

Last month, celebrity chefs from across the United States and around the world participated in our 2022 It Starts With a Meal™️ Chef Showdown to raise awareness of global hunger. The chefs competed by sharing internationally inspired dishes in videos on social media, and people voted by liking, commenting and sharing their favorite. After a close competition, Nicole McLaughlin was crowned the winner, taking home the coveted Golden Whisk Award (which you can watch her receive in this video)! A few weeks after the competition, we caught up with Nicole on her win, the Haitian-inspired dish she created and why she got involved in the competition. Read more about our 2022 Chef Showdown winner below!

Congratulations on winning our 2022 It Starts With a Meal™️ Chef Showdown! How did it feel to win the cooking competition and take home the Golden Whisk Award?

You would have thought I won an Emmy or Golden Globe award… I was super excited!

How did you first hear about Rise Against Hunger’s mission? Why did you want to get involved in the work to end global hunger by participating in this year’s Chef Showdown?

I have a couple of friends from high school who work for Rise Against Hunger and I saw them post about the wonderful work of the organization. I was so excited to have an opportunity to play a small part in raising awareness for Rise Against Hunger’s mission, while also relating it to my passion for food.

For the competition, you made a Pork Griot Po’Boy, a Haitian-inspired dish with a New Orleans twist. Why did you choose that dish, and why do you love it?

From the small amount I know of the food from Haiti, I know there is so much flavor through spices and I love the comfort found in a lot of their slow-cooked meat and bean dishes. I had never made pork griot before, but it sounded amazing and right up my alley. I wanted to find a way to incorporate my personality through the execution, and a po’boy is one of my favorite indulgences. I love pairing something less familiar with something more well-known as a way to get people excited to try it. A po’boy is a sandwich filled with perfect bites, from the crusty bread and creamy sauce to the crunchy, cold veggie and warm, rich filling. It all just goes together so well.

By participating in the Chef Showdown, your culinary skills helped spread awareness about the movement to end global hunger, demonstrating how a variety of skills and experiences can be utilized in the work to end hunger. What would you say to people who are interested in engaging and being part of Rise Against Hunger’s movement to end global hunger?

So much can be done by simply spreading awareness, making it known to others how many people are in need, how they can contribute and what is necessary to make changes to end world hunger. Once everyone is educated, they can decide which avenue to take, because there’s always a way to help or help by spreading the word. Therefore, this information may be received by those who can help in the greatest capacity. Even the smallest contributions can make a huge difference.

We are so excited to have Nicole as our Chef Showdown winner this year and so grateful for her participation to help spread the word about our mission to end hunger. Looking for ways to get involved in our mission, too? Check out our How You Can Help page!

Strength, Stability And Hope

The gift that filled Nelly’s table.

“We were yielding very little, and the crops could not sustain us the whole year,” Nelly remembers. As a mother of seven and a farmer with two decades of experience, the stress of inconsistent yields was all-consuming. A poor harvest not only strained her family financially, but also limited their own meals to just two a day. Their story reflects that of many in their fishing and farming village near a lake in the Karonga district of northern Malawi. Here, heavy rainfall makes conventional farming methods nearly impossible. The entire village is, quite literally, saturated in food insecurity — a reality that leaves families struggling to survive season after season without a dependable source of nourishment.

In 2019, Nelly began participating in Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience, a sustainable agriculture project implemented by Rise Against Hunger in partnership with the Foundation for Community Support Services (FOCUS). The project works with 3,100 smallholder farmers in Malawi’s Karonga and Mzimba districts to strengthen food and nutrition security by improving production methods, nutrition practices and household income.

Just one year later, Nelly was ready to expand the variety of crops on her farm. What land once only produced maize began to flourish with sesame, cowpeas, rice and groundnuts during the rainy season (summer), as well as maize and vegetables during the dry season (winter). Through climate-smart agriculture training, she learned new techniques like manure making, pit planting and mulching, crop rotation and intercropping. Equipped with these tools, Nelly’s farm began to thrive.

After the 2023–2024 growing season, she sold enough produce to purchase an ox cart. Her harvests in 2024-2025 season yielded over 500 pounds of crops, including 22 bags of groundnuts, seven bags of maize, 12 tins of sesame and three bags of rice. With this surplus, she was able to invest in a motorbike, which she now uses to transport African doughnuts (mandasi) that she cooks and sells — creating yet another source of income for her family.

The transformation reaches far beyond her finances. Nelly now has the stability to provide for her husband and children. “I am able to eat different food types, pay school fees for my children and fulfill the visions that I have made with my family,” she beams. “I am now sleeping peacefully without any fears of food or paying school fees for the children.”

Her leadership has also grown. Today, Nelly serves as a leader in the Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience project, teaching other farmers in her district to adopt climate-resilient, labor-saving practices. By sharing her knowledge, she is multiplying her impact — empowering her neighbors to experience the same transformation she has achieved.

Across Nelly’s community, food and economic security are on the rise. Lombani, a government extension officer for the region, explains, “I can see the community is being transformed in the sense that in the area, there is food, income and nutrition security. Development is also happening at the household level.”

Nelly reflects on what it means to invest in holistic programs that address the root causes of hunger: “We are now healthy people. Children are going to school after eating their breakfast, having high yields and different types of crops due to conservation agriculture practices. With the support from the project, we have food, and we can access other food items from the market after selling our produce.”

This is the gift that fills: a future full of stability, strength and hope. It fills tables with food, families with security and communities with the resources to thrive. It’s an investment in futures rooted in resilience and hope.