Elle Simone Scott, a chef and cookbook creator finest identified for her work on “America’s Check Kitchen,” has died. She was 49.
Describing her as “one in all [the organization’s] brightest stars,” “America’s Check Kitchen” Chief Content material Officer Dan Souza confirmed in an announcement Thursday that Scott died Monday after a protracted battle with ovarian most cancers. The information was first introduced Wednesday on “ATK’s” Instagram.
“Scott introduced heat and a vibrant spirit to every part she did,” Souza mentioned. “Buddies and colleagues will keep in mind [her] for her means to create group and supply alternatives for others, each inside and out of doors of labor … Her legacy will stay on at America’s Check Kitchen and within the houses and hearts of the thousands and thousands of house cooks whose lives she touched.”
A Detroit native, Scott joined “America’s Check Kitchen” in 2016 and have become the primary Black girl solid member on the favored PBS cooking present. Along with authoring cookbooks “Boards: Trendy Spreads for Informal Gatherings” and “Meals Presents: 150+ Irresistible Recipes for Crafting Customized Presents,” she hosted “The Stroll-In” podcast and labored as a meals stylist.
In a tribute on Instagram, pal and fellow TV chef Carla Corridor praised Scott for being “a power” and “a trailblazer.”
“At America’s Check Kitchen, Elle helped open doorways that had lengthy been closed — turning into one of many first Black girls audiences noticed within the take a look at kitchen, and doing so with grace, authority, and pleasure,” wrote Corridor. “Her voice mattered. Her work mattered. She mattered.”
In line with WBUR, Scott, who lived in Boston, pivoted to a profession in meals in 2008 after she misplaced her house, automobile and job as a social employee in the course of the recession.
“The thought occurred to me, ‘if I’ve to do one thing for the subsequent 25 years of my life, it higher be one thing I like,’ ” Scott mentioned throughout a 2019 radio section. “The one factor I might consider was cooking. It was the one factor that introduced me peace and pleasure.”
She grew to become an advocate for illustration in meals media and the culinary world, co-founding SheChef Inc., a corporation for girls cooks of coloration that gives mentorship to younger girls pursuing a profession within the discipline, in 2013.
“I assumed it might be a good way to create a community to deliver these underrepresented individuals collectively to see how we might assist one another, create a community the place we may help one another develop professionally — additionally to simply take care of the angst of being girls in kitchens the place we’re the one girls within the kitchen,” Scott informed WTOP Information in 2019.
Scott was first recognized with ovarian most cancers in 2016, based on the Detroit Information, however informed the outlet she was cancer-free in 2020.
“Elle confronted ovarian most cancers with braveness and honesty, utilizing her platform to teach, advocate, and uplift even whereas combating for her life,” Corridor mentioned in her tribute. “We honor you, Elle. Your legacy lives on in each kitchen you impressed and each cook dinner who lastly noticed themselves mirrored again.”
