DURHAM, N.C. – A little over one year ago, Tye Hall Brown and her family decided to try something unique for New Year’s. Instead of making the typical run-of-the-mill resolution, the Brown family vowed that each of them would participate in a contest they had never done before by the end of the calendar year. For Hall Brown, a former Duke basketball player who is now an Associate Professor at Howard University, this ended up providing the motivation to embark on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
As the Brown family was sitting around the television watching Masterchef last October, a casting call appealing to home cooks aired at the end of the episode.