Kelly Unger, the director of the Doylestown Farmers Market and owner of The Rooster and The Carrot cooking studio, is one of 16 finalists in the national Favorite Chef competition, with a prize package worth $85,000 on the line.

She's currently ranked No. 1.

Unger entered the competition at the start of the summer alongside more than 20,000 chefs nationwide and advanced through multiple rounds of public voting to reach the finals, according to Patch. Voting closes Thursday, August 6, at 10 p.m. EDT. Anyone can cast one free vote every 24 hours at favchef.com/2026/kelly-unger, with additional votes costing $1 each as a donation to the James Beard Foundation.

"I couldn't have made it this far without the community's help," Unger said. "Now I need their help once again to push it over the finish line … Make Doylestown proud, vote for the hometown girl, and call attention to this beautiful community that I love so much."

What's at stake

The People's Choice grand prize winner receives a $25,000 cash honorarium, an exclusive cooking experience with celebrity chef Carla Hall on her show "Chewed Up" (valued at $10,000), and a minimum two-page advertorial photo shoot in Taste of Home magazine (valued at $50,000), according to the competition's official rules. The winner will be announced on or before Thursday, September 3.

Unger, a Johnson & Wales University alumna, has taught cooking classes for 12 years to students ages 3 to 93. She also teaches cooking to about 50 children at Maria's House Montessori School in Doylestown and serves on the board of directors of the Bucks County Foodshed Alliance.

Her signature dish: Slovak Kiffles, her grandmother's recipe, which she has tweaked over the years because her grandmother wrote recipes in shorthand and always left something out.

Cookbook dreams

If she wins, Unger plans to use the prize money to publish a cookbook about families cooking together. She said she would host a cookbook launch party for the local community and purchase ingredients from local farms, with the remainder going toward food photography and publishing expenses.

The Critic's Pick

Unger has also entered the parallel Critic's Pick competition, open to all quarterfinalists. She submitted a savory version of a Sardinian Pardula, a traditional sweet Italian pastry, mixing roasted mashed sweet potato with the traditional ricotta cheese and saffron filling, then adding rosemary and a touch of orange zest. Unger said she chose those flavors to evoke a Thanksgiving vibe, since the Gala for Good falls on Friday, November 6.