Family competes on cooking show

Joy Rodpai-Parham of Sparta is featured in episode 5 of Hulu’s original series “Buddy’s Holiday Recipe Rumble” with her mother, Pairin Rodpai, and younger sister, Pecharee Rodpai.

The Rodpai family competed against another family in two cooking competitions, displaying some of their most famous Thai dishes.

The reward for winning the final cook-off was $10,000.

“I have to say, I had an amazing experience,” Rodpai-Parham said. “Being on a cooking show was on my bucket list!”

In November 2023, she saw a casting call for the show and applied.

She received a call back during the summer and went through a series of interviews.

One of the struggles was coordinating with her sister and mother, who live in California.

Once they were chosen to be on the show, the trio had to coordinate with the food editor about what meals they were going to cook.

Rodpai-Parham said choosing Thai dishes was a no-brainer to them.

Her mother owned three Thai restaurants in California.

The whole family worked in the restaurants as Rodpai-Parham was growing up.

Her mother sold the restaurants after her father had a stroke

Rodpai-Parham is a patient care technician and dialysis technician at the DaVita Dialysis Center at Morristown Medical Center, but during the pandemic, she taught online cooking classes featuring Thai food.

Birthday celebration

Episode 5 of “Buddy’s Holiday Recipe Rumble” was filmed in August in Jersey City. It was on her mother’s birthday, and Buddy made a surprise cake with a bunch of confetti in the middle. The whole crew sang “Happy Birthday.”

“If there is something to be said about Buddy, it would be that he is a down-to-earth person and genuinely nice person who connected with all of us on the show,” Rodpai-Parham said.

“He actually sent us a 3-foot-long-by-2-foot-high box full of pastries and cakes from his bakery on behalf of A&E Network.”

Buddy Valastro, a New Jersey native, has been featured on many baking shows. He is most known for his TLC show “Cake Boss.”

He currently owns and runs Carlo’s Bakery in Hoboken.

The show was a wholesome experience for the Rodpai-Parham family, she said.

Her mom was a dialysis patient until she had a kidney transplant using a donated organ from one of her daughters in September 2023.

“You start to think, ‘Gosh, how much time do my parents have?’ “ Rodpai-Parham said. “That was one of the things running through my head when I applied for the show.

“I also thought how cool this show could represent my mom’s legacy and all of the hard work she put in with the restaurants and raising us.”