Former "Top Chef" Contestant Fatima Ali Announced She Has Advanced Cancer

FATIMA ALI, 29, a New York City chef and former contestant on the TV show “Top Chef,” once dreamed of opening her own restaurant.

Now, since being told that she has a year to live due to a September recurrence of Ewing sarcoma, she plans to frequent others’ establishments and live fully in other ways, too.

Ali shared her perspective on the diagnosis in a piece she wrote for Bon Appetit.

“When we think we have all the time in the world to live, we forget to indulge in the experiences of living,” she wrote. “When that choice is yanked away from us, that’s when we scramble to feel. I am desperate to overload my senses in the coming months, making reservations at the world’s best restaurants, reaching out to past lovers and friends, and smothering my family, giving them the time that I so selfishly guarded before.”