Social media star/food and lifestyle entrepreneur Tabitha Brown is taking over.
Now, she’s bringing her entertaining brand of vegan cooking to Food Network as the host of its new competition series, It’s CompliPlated. Each episode features four chefs cooking for a tricky-eater with specialized requests like vegan, gluten-free or no vegetables. Brown spoke with The Root about what foodies can expect from the show, whether she considers herself competitive and how she balances her ever-growing empire.
The Tab Time host has been vegan for five years. It all started with her family doing a 30-day challenge, after which Brown stuck with it. However, with her husband still eating meat and her kids wanting something different, she had to figure out how to cook one meal everyone would love. That experience led her to It’s CompliPlated.
“When this show idea came to me, I was like, this is exactly what the world is, because this is how I live my life,” she said. “So many people now are gluten-free, have peanut allergies, are dairy-free. People are vegan, and they’re plant-based, or they’re meat eaters and they hate vegetables. What I really wanted was a way to bring people back to the table together.”
The premiere episode features a picky eater who doesn’t like fruits or vegetables. For a plant-based foodie like Ms. Tab, that was the wildest curveball of the season. “When he said that, I was like, ‘Oh, Lord Jesus help us all,’” she said while laughing.
If you’re obsessed with Food Network competition shows like me, you know they can get extremely intense. While Brown doesn’t consider herself competitive, she did get wrapped up in the creativity of the chefs. She even found herself taking note of a few tricks to try at home.
“The way these chefs’ minds work blows me away,” Brown said. “I love to see how they compete, because they get 30 minutes to whip these meals up and these things look like something at a restaurant. It’s very mind blowing for me, so I enjoy watching the competition.”
With a successful YouTube children’s show, a fashion line at Target, her own special seasoning from McCormick and an upcoming cookbook, it’s clear Brown is the entrepreneur we should all be getting advice from. Like most of us, she tries to find balance between her business and personal life.
“I put myself first. I got to check in on Tab. If I don’t take time for myself I can easily burn out and that is just not an option. I put me first, then my family and then business. That’s the bonus, to be able to do what I love,” she said. “And when you don’t feel well, don’t show up. Don’t make somebody else’s emergency your priority. If you don’t feel well inside, take time for yourself until you feel well enough to do things. That’s how I live my life.”
New episodes of It’s CompliPlated premiere every Thursday on Food Network and Discovery+.