Yachecia Holston

Hometown	Detroit, MI
Age	43
Occupation	Minister
Statistics
Mystery Box(es) Won	0
Skills Test(s) Won	2
Elimination Test(s) Won	1
Team Challenge(s) Won	2
Pressure Test(s) Survived	4
Top Entries	3
Bottom Entries	2
Placement	5th
Episode Eliminated	Something Fishy

Yachecia Holston was a contestant on Season 8 of MasterChef. She ranked in 5th place with Jeff.

Personality

Yachecia had an energetic, high-spirited, and motherly nature and was very friendly with the other home cooks. She was a strong, passionate cook with a big heart and started out as an early front-runner. However, she was not afraid to argue with anybody nor was she afraid to back down from an argument, as she had some problems with communication and leadership skills and generally yelled back, although she always took responsibility for her mistakes. While she was strong from the start, she became terribly inconsistent from the second half of the competition and her inability to replicate her strong performances in the first several weeks led to her elimination at the top six. She developed friendships with Jason, Daniel, Gabriel, and Cate, but had short-lived feuds with Dino, Eboni, and Jennifer over conflicting personalities, while having a long-running feud with Jeff (like most of the other home cooks) due to his terrible and disrespectful attitude.

Competition History

Week 3	High/Immune
Week 4	Win
Week 5	In/Low/In
Week 6	Win/Immune
Week 7	Pressure Test
Week 8	In/Win
Week 9	No Pressure Test
Week 10	High/In
Week 11	Pressure Test
Week 12	In/Immune
Week 13	In/Immune
Week 14	In/In
Week 15	Low
Week 16	In/Low
Week 17	Win
Week 18	High/Eliminated

Post MasterChef

• After her appearance, Yachecia is a Private Chef offering private dining experiences and has done a number of local pop up cookery events.
• She later moved to Nashville where she began working at the Hangar Kitchen and Bar inside the Cambria Hotel and Airport.

Trivia

• She won the first apron of the season.
• Yachecia holds the record in her season for entering the top three(not counting wins) in Mystery Boxes, being picked as a top three entry 3 times.
• She holds the record for the longest gap between Team Challenge wins, with it taking 13 episodes for her to win her second Team Challenge.
  • She was only on the winning team for the first and last Team Challenges in her season.
• It is revealed in Season 9 Episode 2 of MasterChef Junior that she beat Shawn Niles to receive her apron, whose son Asher eventually went on to compete in MasterChef Junior.

Quotes

• "Hallelujah!!!"
• "Just last week, I was preaching in Detroit and now I'm in the MasterChef Kitchen. I'm here to change my life. I'm 43 years old, I've raised my children, I've been married before. I'm ready to do me now. It's my turn."
• (During the Poached Oysters Pressure Test) "Newton's pasta is perfect. Newton's oysters are perfect. Does that outweigh what I did? I got all five elements, but they weren't all perfect. I don't know. The last head-to-head pressure test I was in, it was clear that I was the winner. This pressure test is clear as mud."
• "Food and ministry are the two elements that I'm most passionate about. Now I have the opportunity to take my food dream to a whole different level. This is extremely important to me."
• (After being eliminated) "I'm bummed about being eliminated, but it's kind of mixed emotions though because I'm so proud of myself for going this far. There's no way in the world that I can feel disappointed because I've grown so much in this competition."

Gallery

Season 8

Yachecia's Confessional

Yachecia's Audition Fried Chicken

Yachecia receiving her Apron

Yachecia's Grocery Bag Mystery Box Dish

Yachecia, Jennifer, and Brien in the Grocery Bag Mystery Box Top 3

Yachecia in the Blue Team

Yachecia in a Red Apron

Yachecia in a Black Apron

Yachecia's Scrambled Eggs Replication Dish

Jeff, Yachecia, Caitlin, Sam, Dino, and Heather in the Scrambled Eggs Replication Bottom 6

Yachecia's Scrambled Eggs Redo Dish

Yachecia's Skills Test Lamb

Yachecia and Jennifer in the Fish & Chips Pressure Test

Yachecia's Pressure Test Fish & Chips

Yachecia's Hanger Steak Dish

Yachecia's Shaun Mystery Box Dish

Caitlin, Yachecia, and Cate in the Shaun Mystery Box Top 3

Yachecia's Coconut Dessert

Yachecia and Newton in the Oyster Pressure Test

Yachecia's Pressure Test Oyster Dish

Yachecia's Skills Test Crawfish

Gabriel and Yachecia's Chicken & Potato Dish

Eboni and Yachecia's Tag-Team Mexican Platter

Yachecia's Pressure Test Box of Chocolate Truffles

Jeff, Yachecia, and Daniel in the Chocolate Truffles Pressure Test Bottom 3

Yachecia's Pasta Dish

Yachecia and Gabriel in the Pasta Bottom 2

Yachecia with her Daughter

Yachecia's Loved Ones Mystery Box Dish

Eboni, Yachecia, and Cate in the Loved Ones Mystery Box Top 3

Yachecia's 40-Minute Salmon Dish

Yachecia and Jeff in the Salmon Bottom 2

Jeff and Yachecia Eliminated

External links

• Yachecia Holston on Instagram