Dean Karadimas

Strongsville native and Cleveland resident Dean Karadimas was chosen to compete in the first round of season four of Fox's MasterChef with Gordon Ramsey, which premieres at 8 p.m. May 22.

(COURTESY OF DEAN KARADIMAS)

If the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, the same could be said for his culture – nothing quite binds and bonds us like the food we share.

That was a lesson Dean Karadimas learned at an early age.

“Ever since I was little I would always try to weasel my way into the kitchen to help Mom and Dad,” Karadimas said. “But I was too short to reach over the stove.”

That weaseling eventually turned into helping, and the 2005 Strongsville High School graduate weaseled his way all the way onto season four of Fox's "MasterChef with Gordon Ramsay," which premieres May 22 and continues at 8 p.m. May 29.

Karadimas, a 26-year-old Cleveland web designer-by-day who describes himself as “extremely Greek,” said his passion for cooking grew out of those early days with his parents.

“It turned from just wanting to spend time with my family in the kitchen into a beautiful passion for food,” Karadimas said.

But just as he was developing his passion, Karadimas’ life was thrown off kilter when his parents were in a near-fatal car accident.

“There were a lot of hospitals, and traveling around to different hospitals, and we even had a hospital bed in the house for my mom,” he said. “The doctors told her she may never walk again, but six months later she was walking.”

During that time, Karadimas said, the family spent fewer and fewer time in the kitchen together, and his passion for cooking was temporarily put on hold.

Key word: temporarily.

“When I moved to Pennsylvania, I re-ignited that passion,” he said. “As I relocate, I re-ignite my love for cooking all over again.”

But one of his early dining influences came from right here in Strongsville.

“The first time I ate at Don’s Pomeroy House in Strongsville, I was completely opened up to a whole different realm of food and fine dining,” he said.

Karadimas – as any good cook should – frequently draws on different cultural flavors in his cooking.

He described his style as a hybrid of modern American and Mediterranean, but he said h

“My influences come from not only my parents, but it all goes back to eating other people’s food and wanting to replicate it at home,” he said.

That's an attitude evident in his website, dudecookingfood.com, as well as his signature dish – which he created and presented to the judges during the first round of "MasterChef" – the Panko Crusted Pork Chop, served over a bed of Swiss Chard and poached garlic cream sauce, topped with flambéed Shiitake Mushrooms.

As for being on the show, which has already concluded filming, Karadimas said, as an already emotional kitchen inhabitant, it was enough to take him over the top.

“My presence in the kitchen is very energetic and very emotional,” he said. “And cooking on TV definitely brings out the emotion tenfold.”

Karadimas couldn’t divulge any results of the show, but said working with Ramsay was surprisingly pleasant.

“Gordon Ramsay is probably one of the nicest men I’ve ever met,” he said. “He does play a role as being very snide and very cruel, but all three judges were amazing people.”

Karadimas is throwing a watch party at Liquid on West 6th Street in Cleveland at 7:30 p.m. May 22 for the two-hour series premiere. Karadimas will be joined by a few other fellow contestants, including Akron-native Tori Cunningham, an 18-year-old high school student who's also an ice carver.

The event is free and will also feature serving small samples of the Panko Crusted Pork Chop.

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Contact Shaffer at (216) 986-5479 or cshaffer@sunnews.com.

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