As Alexia DiGiglio-Mancini, a lifelong Johnston resident, waited on set for superstar Terry Crews to roll the numbers, her mind was racing. Eighty-four of the show’s 100 cooks had been eliminated, and the remaining 16 posed steep competition.
“You’re sitting there with your heart literally pounding out of your chest, and in that moment, you’re thinking, what can I make? What can I make in this challenge if I’m going to be called?” she said.
It would be a fun challenge, to cook a “cheesy dish,” and when Alexia heard her number (63), she took the kitchen by storm, dashing to the pantry for orecchiette, burrata, and pecorino romano. Smiling behind a cascade of salt and steam, she called out, “Mama always said, ‘Salt your water, make it taste like the sea!’”
In 35 minutes, DiGiglio-Mancini whipped up a pasta with a pink vodka sauce.
“Flavor wise, this is very classic, this is something that my nonna would have made for me,” said judge Nick DiGiovanni, a culinary content creator and fellow Rhode Islander. “It’s homey, it’s Italian, it’s you.”
From judge Alex Guarnaschelli, Alexia received the highest compliment: “No notes.”
DiGiglio-Mancini was scouted two years ago for “100 Cooks,” which launched on the Food Network this summer. A casting agent contacted her on Instagram, where she has built the culinary lifestyle brand “U had me at Kitchen.” Given her modest following on the platform, the message came as a shock.
“At first I thought it was a scam in my DMs,” she said. “I was really surprised that I was a needle in a haystack, but they really believed in me.”
She stayed patient as wildfires raged through California and halted filming. Finally, this past January, she got the green light and flew out to Los Angeles. There, she joined 99 of the country’s best home cooks to compete for up to $250,000.
DiGiglio-Mancini ultimately earned a spot in the top 10 contestants, appearing in all nine episodes of the series, the last of which aired on July 19.
She attributes her competitive edge to the authenticity of her food, which stays true to her Italian-American roots. She grew up in Rhode Island in the 1970s, and her family gathered every Sunday after church for dinner at her grandmother’s house.
“My life growing up was a beautiful, beautiful life,” she said. “I grew up around food and family, and that’s, to me, most important.”
DiGiglio-Mancini’s uncle owned the first meat market on Federal Hill, where the pavement outside still bears the engraving of her family name, DiGilio. She spent much of childhood cooking with her grandmother, Mama Mary.
“I was always hands-on with my grandmother in the kitchen,” she said. “I learned so much at a young age, and I just had a passion for it.”
Over the years, Alexia’s love for entertainment also blossomed. She sparked a career as a teen rapper and worked as a pop singer and songwriter through the 1990s. But when her record label folded at the turn of the century, her music career was squashed.
For a time, Alexia settled for a more private life. She got married, had two children, and worked for several years at her mother’s travel agency, Anyplace Travel in Johnston.
“But I still had a passion and desire to be in entertainment,” she said.
She started posting cooking videos on Facebook and YouTube, earning thousands of views. Before long, she landed a spot on a Rhode Island cable television network, creating a reality cooking show called “Bringing Back Sunday Dinner.” Each week, she gathered her loved ones for a warm meal, swapping stories of the old days.
Then, in the spring of 2020, the Food Network tapped her for a virtual COVID-19 episode of “The Kitchen,” where she made an Italian-style sangria.
So by the time Alexia started filming “100 Cooks,” she was no stranger to performing for crowds and cameras.
“The influence really just comes from my family,” Alexia said of the dishes she prepared on “100 Cooks.” The day she filmed Episode 6 was the anniversary of her father’s death. At 5 a.m., she said, she woke up and decided she would find a way to make Chicken Alexia, his favorite dish.
“I felt it. I can’t explain it. And when they called me, they said (the challenge was) cook’s choice,” she said.
She got to work on a crispy chicken cutlet plated with garlicky baby spinach, ricotta, San Marzano tomato sauce, mozzarella, and basil. But when her oven malfunctioned, she needed to pivot.
“In this competition, you really have to roll with the punches,” she said on the show.
She reached for a blowtorch, and unlike two of her competitors, she managed to cook the chicken through. When she presented the dish, she noticed Guarnaschelli’s necklace: a colorful beaded butterfly, a symbol that always reminds her of her dad.
“(Guarnaschelli) said, ‘Believe it or not, right before I went on stage, I had this omen come over me, and I changed my necklace,’” she remembered. “It was just so surreal.”
Throughout nearly a month of filming, DiGiglio-Mancini told The Local Insider, she rebuilt the kind of family she grew up with.
“I became so close with so many of these people, I can’t even explain it to you,” she said. “We all kind of bonded together and cheered for one another, rooted for each other, even if it was a competition. I can’t describe it. It was so authentic.”
When cooks weren’t competing in a challenge, many called out suggestions and words of encouragement from the stands.
“You can recook from this!” someone shouted as one chef’s chicken wouldn’t cook. “If it’s not working, grab wontons!”
DiGiglio-Mancini cried when other cooks were eliminated, even though it meant she was safe.
“You’re emotionally exhausted because your friends are going home, people that have the same dreams and passion, and one simple mistake sends them home,” she said.
She partly attributed the tight-knit community to the Food Network’s collaborative spirit. Though “100 Cooks” is a competition show, the network never pinned cooks against each other behind the scenes, she said.
DiGiglio-Mancini said she only had positive things to say about the network. The kitchen was always pristine and stocked with the freshest, finest ingredients, washed and prepped. Each time she stepped up to her station, she found the water boiling, the grill piping hot, and the cast iron warm in the oven.
“You will not find a blemish on a piece of lettuce,” she said. “I just want to live in that kitchen.”
She said she also appreciated that the Food Network donated leftover ingredients to food banks.
But after a month, she was worn down by the 15-hour production days, sleep lost to worry, and constant pressure of 125 cameras trained on the cooks. Even the judging process, quick and suspenseful as it looks on television, took around three hours per challenge. She said she felt numb, having “an out-of-body experience like I was in the twilight zone,” she said.
As a result, she said her performance suffered. Challenged to cook a “summer potluck” with a team of three, she tossed together a summer salad with fresh, golden corn. Though Guarnaschelli said she liked the dish, she struggled with the textural effect from the juices pooling at the bottom. DiGiglio-Mancini didn’t make the cut for the finale.
She left with a wave and a smile, hugging Crews (someone she called “one of the top 10 people I’ve ever met in my entire life”) and both judges. DiGiovanni offered a special goodbye, she said, addressing her as a fellow Rhode Islander.
“It was the most mentally, physically, emotionally exhausting experience, but also the most incredible, treasured, and memorable, and really inspirational,” she said. “I am going to be back better than ever.”
