After what she described as a rough childhood, budding chef Janelle Williams found solace inside the four walls of the kitchen.

She was just 18 when she started her career as a kitchen helper at Grotto Bay Beach Hotel, delivering coffee to chefs some mornings and peeling large bags of carrots, onions and potatoes.

But these days, Ms Williams, who works at Docksider Pub & Restaurant, is looking to set herself apart as one of the Island’s top chefs to watch.

The 27-year-old was recently selected as the only female chef to take part in this year’s Rising Chef of the Year Competition, hosted annually by Bermuda Hospitality Institute.

Ms Williams will be pitting her culinary skills against 11 other chefs in the competition, which starts on Monday, October 20 and concludes on Tuesday, October 28.

She said: “I want to win this competition because it means a lot to me. Cooking isn’t just a job to me, it’s my life.

“But whether I win or lose, just getting to this point for me means a whole lot. In my heart I feel I’m still a winner, no matter what the outcome, and I’m happy to have been recognised enough to make it this far.”

Ms Williams has been cooking now for eight years, but didn’t dabble with it much as a youngster.

“Growing up I didn’t know anything about cooking,” she said. “I had a kind of rough childhood and didn’t have much time to do all that.

“My mom passed away in 2007 — and before that we had a strained, on and off relationship.

“So when I was 15 years old I went to go and live with my foster mom, Sheree Jacobs. She was amazing enough to take me under her wing. She was actually my teacher at Spice Valley Middle School and I had given her a hard time because I was the class clown in those days, but we met up again once I joined a Christian organisation called Young Life. Ms Jacobs took me in after that and pretty much started my journey in my personal walk with Jesus Christ.”

The budding chef said whenever she steps into the kitchen she forgets about the challenges of her past and simply focuses on the culinary task at hand.

“Cooking has become my outlet,” she explained. “Instead of venting or dealing with what happened to me in a bad way, cooking allowed me to turn it around and use it in a good way.

“Because of that I’m hoping that I can inspire other people to not give up.

“In my eyes all it takes is patience, love and time. I feel like I cook with a lot more than just salt, I cook with a pinch of passion.”

If she’s successful in the competition, Ms Williams plans to dedicate her win to her foster mom Ms Jacobs.

“She was there for me when times got hard” the chef explained. “She’s the one who took in a broken child and turned me into a humble, loving person.

“She was also around during all of my struggles and I want her to be able to share in on all my successes.”

Ms Williams was encouraged to sign up for the upcoming cooking competition by last year’s winner Kieshe Simmons.

Miss Simmons happened to be not only the youngest competitor in last year’s event, but also the only female as well.

“I hadn’t even heard about the competition before then, but Kieshe inspired me and said to me that this year could be my year. After that I decided to go for it.”

Ms Williams admitted she was excited to go head to head with the boys in the upcoming event, but she doesn’t want to be overconfident before going into the semi-finals.

“I am just trying to maintain a humble spirit,” she added.

In order to prepare for the competition, Ms Williams has enlisted help from some of her food-loving friends.

“What I’ve been doing at my house is I pick a random day and invite my friends over and tell them to buy mystery ingredients, which they can then pull out of their bag for me to cook for them,” she said. “It’s definitely preparing me for the big day.

“I made a chickpea sauce for them that went over really well recently.

“One friend brought over a bag of chickpeas, salmon and apple cinnamon rice cakes as their ingredients and at first I looked at it and thought ‘What can I do with all this?’

“But I ended up using my creativity to make a really nice sauce from the chickpeas. It went over the salmon, which I then added lemon and herbs to.

“In the end my friends couldn’t believe how good it tasted. They were like ‘Wow, that’s awesome!’”

For more information on the upcoming Rising Chef of the Year Competition, visit www.bhi.bm.