By Andrea Vasquez
Former hotel owner and English chef Andrew “Andy” Hageman has been cooking for most of his life and keeps stirring something special year after year.
Hageman, a writer for Athlon Sports and color commentator for New Mexico United who lives in the East Mountains, is competing in a national cooking competition.
“I love the kitchen and it loves me,” reads Hageman’s “Favorite Chef” profile, where he holds second place in his group. As of April 29, Hageman sits in the No. 2 spot in his group and, with the help of the community, wishes to make his dream a reality.
The “Favorite Chef” culinary contest gives chefs, home cooks and food artists the chance to appear in Taste of Home magazine and win $25,000.
The competition also offers chefs an exclusive cooking experience with chef, restaurateur, caterer and media personality, Carla Hall. It is hosted by Colossal Impact and supports the James Beard Foundation, DTCare and Favorite Chef.
“If you get to the final stage, you get to the point where you get a cooking, culinary experience with Carla Hall, and so you get to cook with her, she’s fantastic. I’ll be looking forward to that if it happens,” Hageman said.
Through his social media account, you can see the intricate plates he puts out that take much more effort than they would have otherwise before Hageman’s life changed.
Despite his undeniable love and skill, Hageman’s relationship with cooking is a bittersweet one.
In 2017, Hageman had to undergo multiple spine surgeries after a medical incident in 2019.
He suffered a staphylococcus infection and a brain hemorrhage after a surgery where a tip of a knee was left inside him.
“Everybody kept saying, Oh, Andy, you should go. You should join, you know. But I’m disabled, and so I don’t really spend a lot of time cooking. That’s why I don’t own restaurants now, because I can’t work at them,” Hageman said.
These medical complications left him disabled and in chronic pain, which significantly changed his lifestyle and led him to explore new interests and rekindle old (kitchen) flames.
Hageman also had to learn to survive and care for himself at a young age. This led him to learn as much as he could and develop an undeniable passion for the kitchen.
“When I was just a teenager, my mother left the family home, which meant eating meals my father had prepared, so I had to learn how to cook or suffer the weirdest culinary creations. Once I put on an apron, I knew it was a calling,” Hageman shared with The Indy.
Hageman’s plates for the competition so far range from a saffron risotto garnished with bacon and kale with sourdough garlic bread, coconut shrimp on a bed of a brown fried rice, garnished with scallions and drizzled with an also homemade spicy sauce, his wife’s favorite dessert: a lemon citrus posset topped with chocolate mousse, garnished with fresh strawberry among many other intricate dishes.
“My wife recently developed some food allergies (dairy) that created a need to learn more, and that is something I have enjoyed embracing with gusto and garlic,” he shared on his Favorite Chef Q&A session about his wife being the main beneficiary of his creations.
Hageman and his wife, Sarah, were business partners for over 10 years running Krystal’s NFL Shop.
“It was a fantastic business which kind of died a natural death with the online purchasing and those sort of things,” Hageman said.
When asked what he would do with the money if he were to win, Hageman mentioned that he would love to upgrade his dated knife set and would look into building a new outside grill as well as a wood-fire pizza oven.
“It is the stuff of dreams (both pizza and the oven feature in my nocturnal nappings). Since I became disabled after a hospital blunder, cooking became my salvation, so kitchen equipment will also get an upgrade,” he shared.
Hageman got into it for the fun and through encouragement from those who’ve had the privilege of tasting his food over the years in Albuquerque.
He now resides in Sandia Park, enjoying a slower pace of life where he can rest and pursue his many hobbies—like beekeeping, woodworking, and, of course, cooking—while also sharing his passion for soccer through New Mexico United.
“I entered the competition because I just thought it would be fun. And obviously, I’ve got a decent following on Facebook, and I thought I would be able to leverage some of that, I might get some public votes… So I just thought, hell, you know, this year I’m going to do it,” Hageman said.
“You could ask me to cook pretty much anything. And I. To be able to do it. So, yeah, I’ve got a shot…I think if I were in a cook-off with another contestant, I reckon I would do well,” he confidently added.
The Favorite Chef competition features public voting to determine the winner, with the finals taking place from May 30 to June 5.
For the initial rounds, competitors are randomly assigned to groups and compete against each other in the first few rounds.
As for finals, votes are reset, and public voting decides the overall winner. The 2025 winner will be announced on or before July 3.
To support Hageman and to stay in the loop of this national competition, you may access his Favorite Chef profile online.