The Blind Cook – An Inspiring Culinary Journey with Christine Ha

Christine Hà

Christine Ha was born in Los Angeles County, California. Her parents were of Vietnamese origin; they immigrated from Saigon (present day Ho Chi Minh City) to the United States in 1975 after the Vietnam War. She lived in Lakewood, California and Long Beach, California as a young child before her family moved to Houston, Texas. Her mother died from lung cancer when Ha was 14.

Ha graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and finance along with MIS from the University of Texas at Austin. She also earned a master’s of fine arts in creative fiction and nonfiction from the University of Houston’s nationally acclaimed writing program.

Ha suffers from neuromyelitis optica, in which a person’s own immune system attacks the optic nerves and spinal cord. In 2004, she was diagnosed and gradually started losing her vision, and was almost completely blind by 2007. She describes her vision as “looking at a very foggy mirror after a hot shower”. She uses adaptive technologies to help her manage her social media profiles by herself. Hà utilizes the following assistive technologies around her house: VoiceOver, JAWS, Aira glasses, Amigo portable CCTV along with a thermometer, food scale and liquid level indicator that gives an oral reading.

Christine Ha was diagnosed with neuromyelitis optica several years ago, a condition which affects her optic nerves causing her to lose her vision. Despite of having being faced with this obstacle, she refused to give up on pursuing her culinary dreams. As a result of her persistance and determination, she was able to defeat over 30,000 home cooks all across America and managed to impress all three “MasterChef” judges (Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot, and Joe Bastianich) throughout the competition.

In the nineteen episodes where she competed on the third season of MasterChef, Ha won seven times in both individual and team challenges; additionally, she placed three times in the top three group. However, she was also in the bottom group twice. On September 10, 2012, Christine Hà was announced the winner of the competition and was awarded $250,000, the MasterChef title, the MasterChef trophy, and a cookbook deal.

Thanks to her fearlessness, tenacity, and passion, Christine Ha became one of the most memorable contestants to ever graced “Masterchef” and became an inspiration to aspiring chefs across the globe.

Her cookbook, Recipes from My Home Kitchen: Asian and American Comfort Food, was released on May 14, 2013.

Christine Hà cookbook – My Home Kitchen

In 2013, Ha began co-hosting the Canadian TV show Four Senses with Carl Heinrich, the winner of Season 2 of Top Chef Canada.

In 2015, she revealed on her blog and Facebook page that she would become a judge on the third season of MasterChef Vietnam, having been a guest judge in the previous series, and a guest judge of US MasterChef (season 4). she also returned as guests of US MasterChef (season 6).

She also revealed that she was the first chef/author to become the winner of Helen Keller Personal Achievement Award in 2014, an award given to people and organizations that “demonstrated outstanding achievement in improving quality of life for people with vision loss”.

She has also opened small-scale pop-up restaurants around the world in the 5 years since winning Master Chef (2012-2017).

She has traveled around the world to give TED talks about her life experiences as a blind cook and the lessons she has learned along the way.

In 2018, Hà opened a Vietnamese gastropub in Bravery Chef Hall in Houston, Texas named “The Blind Goat”.

As of June 2018, she was working on her memoir and second cookbook.

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