How to check to see if a random piece of an array is equal to specific array part?

I'm trying to get my string array to get a random string from it and if it is a certain string then it needs to print an outcome in my text area.

String[] items = new String[]{"nothing useful", "trash", "a fork"};

Said array.

Random rand = new Random();
String outcome = items[rand.nextInt(items.length)];

getting a random string from the array as a string named outcome.

if(outcome.equals(items[2])){
  textArea2.append("a fork" + "\n");
}

my attempt at getting it to put a "a fork" in a text area. All of my text areas work so that's not my problem.

I've tried to use .equals, ==, if(outcome=="a fork"), and various things like that without any of them working.

I need it to add 'a fork" to the text area named textArea2.