Local chef team competes in new MasterChef season

Two Sioux Falls-area home cooks will be among those competing in the new season of “MasterChef,” which brings a twist with it.

Show photos courtesy of Fox

The popular Fox series features a new theme in its 15th season — Dynamic Duos, in which pairs of home cooks will vie for a $250,000 prize and the MasterChef trophy.

This season, Gordon Ramsay and restaurateur Joe Bastianich return, alongside a new judge, James Beard award-nominee chef Tiffany Derry.

Tonna Jacobson, a Brandon resident and longtime fan of the show, decided to look into applying last year. A health and lifestyle coach, she owns Coaching by Tonna.

“I just went to Fox and saw an application and applied and did a couple submission videos,” she said. “And shortly after that, they had announced it was going to be duos season, so I drug Cait in.”

Daughter Cait Jacobson is a fourth-year undergraduate at Minnesota State University, Mankato on track to earn her bachelor’s degree in dietetics and health sciences in 2027 and a master’s degree in dietetics in 2028.

“She goes, ‘I know this is going to sound crazy, but would you want to do this with me?'” Cait said. “I was like, ‘Oh let’s do it.'”

Dad Jon Jacobson required a bit more convincing, especially because it would require Cait taking time away from school.

“I was a full year ahead, so it’s not like it set me back,” she added. “We ended up convincing him, and after that, he’s been our biggest cheerleader.”

Life is short, Tonna added.

“I’m just a go-getter, and if there’s an experience, I want to take that experience, and I wanted to drag her along with that,” she said, laughing.

For Tonna, “I just loved cooking and then I ended up making a lifestyle change of my own, which led me to the whole coaching side of things,” she said. “One of the things I found I was good at was teaching people how to make healthy meals that tasted good, and that’s my main content focus — helping people get in their protein and have lower-calorie meals.”

It also helped inspire Cait’s career path.

“Our relationship is centered on food. We started baking and cooking together, and that’s kind of where our bond started,” Cait said. “In my senior year of high school — 2022 — her and I did a bodybuilding competition together, and that’s where I started getting into the macros and meal prep and into cooking.”

In the kitchen, “she got super-creative,” Tonna said, remembering a particularly successful tomato soup that caused her to ask “Wait, how did you do that?”

While their similarities are striking, the Jacobsons share with the national television audience that they aren’t biologically mother and daughter. Cait’s mother, Darla, died from cancer in 2011. Tonna became Cait’s stepmother in 2014, when she was 10 years old.

“She’s no different than my children I gave birth to — she’s just a child of mine,” Tonna said.

After a months-long audition process, they received word they’d be headed for the show.

In addition to the Jacobsons, the season will feature married and dating couples, siblings and best friends.

For the audition round, home cooks will go head-to-head with only one pair receiving a coveted white apron and moving forward.

The Jacobsons watched their first episode with a big crowd of family and friends.

As they waited to be called to compete on the show, “there’s just this pit in your stomach, and you’re just nervous,” Tonna recalled.

When it was their turn “then you get even more nervous,” Cait said.

For their dish, the Jacobsons cooked the judges a bison steak with sweet potato puree, green beans and a red wine reduction mushroom sauce.

“We wanted to bring South Dakota to the kitchen,” Tonna said. “I thought, well, what better way than with bison?”

Using the MasterChef kitchen “was an adjustment,” she added. “You’re not using your own equipment or stove. You kind of have to get used to where things are at.”

Plus, “you’re focused on doing good for these three judges in front of you,” Cait said. “And you’re like, wait, I don’t remember how to cut garlic.”

Meeting the celebrity judges induced a bit of a starstruck feeling, they both said.

“She told me not to fan girl,” Tonna said.

But when Gordon Ramsay talked directly to them the first time, Cait also found herself a little speechless.

Once the dish was prepared, Tonna said she felt confident, “but you’re so nervous because you’re going for an apron.”

In a head-to-head battle, “even the smallest mistake could cost you that,” Cait said.

Looking at their competitors’ dish, “then you really start getting in your head and thinking, is this good enough?” Tonna continued. “There’s not a bad dish out there. They take the top cooks in America, and they put them all up against each other.”

The judges’ feedback was edited fairly short in the episode that aired, but Derry was enthusiastic about the bison.

“That bison is nice. It is nice,” she said.

Ramsay critiqued the potatoes as needing to be further cooked.

But their dish was enough to overtake a team of “Southern glam-mas” who cooked a scallop-based dish.

When they walked back to their fellow contestants wearing the coveted white aprons, “it was the biggest relief I have ever felt in my entire life,” Cait said.

It was a moment filled with emotion, Tonna added.

“I know I cried. I was so thrilled,” she said. “It was a huge relief, and I was just flattered. I was like, ‘Gordon Ramsay likes my food!’”

This season of “MasterChef” will include 17 episodes with one dozen duos competing for the title.