By Karu F. Daniels, AOL Black Voices

Rock Harper has been crowned as the winner of the latest season of Fox's wildly popular televised cooking competition 'Hell's Kitchen.'

And the 30-year-old executive chef from Spotsylvania, VA is ready for the challenge -- winning the grand prize of becoming the new head chef at the Green Valley Resort and Spa in Las Vegas.

"This is just so big for me and my family," Harper said after turning the key to the door to his destiny during the finale of the Gordon Ramsay-helmed reality series. "I just won. Thank God, I just won! I owe everything I do to my family. The fact that I finished, that I competed, shows my son and my daughter that if you really stick your mind to something, you can do it."

Most viewers weren't the surprised that the B. Smith's chef made the finale. But some were a little shocked that It came down to him and Bonnie Muirhead -- a 26-year-old nanny and personal chef in California. Though I think she was out of her league, it proved to make great television watching them duke it out.

Nearly 10 million viewers clocked into Monday's finale -- giving the show its largest audience to date.

Though Harper, a married father of two (legally known as Rahman Harper), could be considered the token black man on the show, he didn't fail too many of the challenges that the show's foul-mouthed British Ramsay threw his way.

And who could forget when the episode of when his wife came to visit, he asked for a conjugal visit.

Just like a brother.

"We did not get the conjugal everyone keeps asking me about," he told a local newspaper reporter at a screening of the finale on Monday evening, referring to his most infamous on-air aside. "Stop asking!"

He's ready for his $250,000-a-year gig as head chef of Terra Verde -- Green Valley Ranch's Italian restaurant.

It's a departure from the nouveau soul cuisine that has become the signature of B. Smith's menus, but he said he's up for the challenge. "It'll be fine," he said. "I'm ready to learn some Italian. I mean I'm trying to be the best black Italian chef in the country."

He would have to be.

"Rock deserved to win Hell's Kitchen," said Gordon at the conclusion of last night's finale. "He's a very confident cook, and he has become a very good leader. He can motivate staff, he can create. All those qualities are not easy to find in one chef. Rock has all of them."

Fox has already ordered a fourth season of Hell's Kitchen that is scheduled to air in 2008 -- but Ramsay fans won't have to wait that long to see the hotheaded chef. 'Kitchen Nightmares,' a new reality series that follows him as he travels across America and helps restaurants in crisis, premieres Sept. 19 and will air Wednesdays at 9PM ET/PT on Fox during the fall.

This weekend, Harper plans to scope out houses and schools for his young children. "I've been in Virginia all my life, and I wanted something different for my kids," he said.

The gig at Green Valley starts in a month.