Melissa King Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City.
Today's guest is Melissa King, "Top Chef" champion and Cherry Bombe cover star, and now cookbook author. Melissa's debut book, “Cook Like a King: Recipes From my California Chinese Kitchen,” just dropped yesterday. It's a beautiful book filled with recipes that blend Melissa's background with a fascinating culinary life that's taken her from cooking for her working parents when she was a kid, to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, to working for Dominique Crenn in San Francisco, to the Winner's Circle at "Top Chef." Melissa is one of our keynote conversations at this weekend's Jubilee Los Angeles, and I'm so excited to listen to that chat. She'll be interviewed by our friend, Ellen Bennett, of Headley & Bennett and the show “Kitchen Glow Up.” For those of you coming to Jubilee, I can't wait to see you. Stay tuned for Melissa King.
Today's show is presented by Square. What if your favorite sports bar only showed women's sports? That's the big idea our friend Jenny Nguyen turned into reality in 2022 with The Sports Bra in Portland, Oregon. Thousands of fans showed up on opening day, and within eight months, The Sports Bra had served fans from all over the country and brought in nearly $1 million in revenue. But behind the scenes, the tech couldn't keep up. Their point-of-sales system kept crashing during game days, right when the bar was packed with so many excited fans. That's where Square came in. Square is the restaurant point of sale that helps you manage it all from one place: payments, staff, customer insights, and more. Now, The Sports Bra runs on Square. From faster service to better reporting, the team finally has a system that works as hard as they do. And with Square's help, Jenny is planning to bring The Sports Bra to cities across the country. When your business is growing, you need a point of sale tool that's on your team like Square. Go to square.com/big to see how Square can help you.
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Team Cherry Bombe is headed to Los Angeles this weekend for Jubilee L.A. Oh my gosh, it's finally here. I'm so thrilled we're doing Jubilee in one of my favorite cities. Follow along on social media for all the happenings and I'll be sure to share more when I'm back. We have so many great speakers and folks taking part in the day. From today's guest, Melissa, to Courtney Storer and Joanna Calo from “The Bear,” Aran Goyoaga, the gluten-free baking expert, and Nancy Silverton, such an icon. Check out cherrybombe.com for all the speakers, the schedule, the menu, which is amazing. Goop Kitchen is doing our lunch, the Bombesquad booths, the book signings, and more. Of course, thank you to our sponsors. We could not do Jubilee without you. Square, S. Pellegrino, California Prunes, Enterprise Mobility, Ghirardelli, Zacapa, and Dona. Now, let's check in with today's guest. Melissa King, welcome back to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Melissa King:
Hi, thanks for having me again.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh.
Melissa King:
I love it here.
Kerry Diamond:
It's such a big day for you.
Melissa King:
It is.
Kerry Diamond:
Your book comes out tomorrow.
Melissa King:
Book drops tomorrow, there's a lot happening.
Kerry Diamond:
I saw a lot of videos of you signing books. How's your hand feeling?
Melissa King:
Oh, it's hanging in there. I think holding pots and pans, all those years of training, I've been training for this day.
Kerry Diamond:
I love it. And tell me where the party is, your book party.
Melissa King:
Yeah, our book party's at, we're doing a little friends and family at Phoenix Palace in Chinatown. And yeah, for me it was just important to support the community where I can, whether it's through the book party or just even some of my speaking guests for the moderated speaking panels.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, you have a whole tour?
Melissa King:
Oh, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. How long is the tour, and what are some of the highlights?
Melissa King:
It's about, I think eight days. Some of the highlights, we have Esther Choi at Rizzoli Books in New York, love her. Oh, we have Eric Adjepong in D.C., also love him. Just, yeah, it was a way to just sort of celebrate the people that I look up to, have a fun conversation and yeah, meet some people through the process.
Kerry Diamond:
I have so many questions for you, oh my gosh.
Melissa King:
Let's do it.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, first off, I have to thank you in advance for coming to Jubilee, and I can't wait to hear you and Ellen Bennett in conversation.
Melissa King:
I'm honored, I'm honored. It's just, what you've built for us and the whole community, it's just incredible to be able to be a part of it, and so I'm really excited for this year's Jubilee.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, well, you've been a big part of everything we've done. I mean, when I think back, you've been on the cover. Oh, we shot it here.
Melissa King:
We did.
Kerry Diamond:
At Rock Center.
Melissa King:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh, I totally forgot. We had so much fun running around.
Melissa King:
That was a great day.
Kerry Diamond:
You bumped into Bowen Yang.
Melissa King:
Oh yeah, in the middle of the street. Where are we? Yeah, in the middle of Rockefeller.
Kerry Diamond:
As one does. Oh, that was such a fun day. And you've been at Jubilee before.
Melissa King:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
You spoke with Gail and Nilou right on stage a few years ago.
Melissa King:
The humans.
Kerry Diamond:
You've been on the podcast before.
Melissa King:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
And I kind of made the mistake of listening to that episode this morning. It was June, 2020.
Melissa King:
Oh, that's wild.
Kerry Diamond:
That was a rough-
Melissa King:
Wait, was that pandemic day?
Kerry Diamond:
It was full on, it was the pandemic.
Melissa King:
What were we talking about?
Kerry Diamond:
Well, you just won "Top Chef," so-
Melissa King:
There was a lot going on.
Kerry Diamond:
It was a happy conversation. I can't imagine how that must have messed with your head to be in the middle of the pandemic. Asian-Americans were under attack. I hate to say it but you really were. There were all the protests because of George Floyd and then June comes and you have the most amazing moment, I don't want to say of your life up to that point, but of your career, certainly.
Melissa King:
Sure, and I'm on a Zoom call and all my friends were on Zoom and I'm in a living room by myself, crying. So every week, it was a very intense time but also special, because I feel like "Top Chef" really brought a lot of people together and kind of in a way, gave us something to look forward to each week.
Kerry Diamond:
That's true.
Melissa King:
So it was a really emotional journey.
Kerry Diamond:
And you knew you had won and you couldn't tell anybody.
Melissa King:
I couldn't tell anyone.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh.
Melissa King:
That's the hardest part.
Kerry Diamond:
So not only are you all by yourself, but you're keeping the secret.
Melissa King:
It's several months of just holding the secret.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh, is it a blur now?
Melissa King:
When I watched the episode, it all comes back. And I think that's the beauty of "Top Chef." It kind of exists as this little video diary of these experiences that I've had with my mom coming on the show and cooking with all these amazing chefs. But yeah, it's quite surreal when I think back about it all. You're feeling everything all at once. You're glad it's over, it's like you have this sigh of relief because you're going through such a stressful competition and you're just depleted and exhausted. But at the same time, you're extremely proud of yourself so you're feeling everything from all angles.
Kerry Diamond:
Not only did you win the main prize, which was a quarter of a million dollars, I mean, that's so freaking cool.
Melissa King:
Plus tax.
Kerry Diamond:
Plus tax and all the agent fees, because we deal with all your people. I know you have a whole team of people. You also won the fan favorite.
Melissa King:
Yeah, that was really special.
Kerry Diamond:
And that meant you could donate to some of your favorite charities.
Melissa King:
I decided to at that time, to donate all the winnings. It just felt right. There was, again, so much going on with George Floyd and the AAPI community. It just felt right to-
Kerry Diamond:
Your queer community.
Melissa King:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, I know it meant a lot, so-
Melissa King:
I kind of divvied it up to different organizations, like the Trevor Project and Stop AAPI Hate.
Kerry Diamond:
That's amazing, Melissa.
Melissa King:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
We talked a lot about representation and how the first time you competed on "Top Chef," you weren't out and the second time you were. And how much that meant to your community and just all the DMs you got from people, just so grateful.
Melissa King:
Yeah, I was out to mom and dad and my sister's immediate family, and then I go on my first "Top Chef" and all of a sudden, aunts, uncles, the whole Chinese community, and the world knows. So that was a really incredible time period because I also wasn't sure how that would be received and it ended up being so beautiful with messages that I would get from people saying that they came out to their parents because they saw me do it. That really resonated with me to hear other people's stories and how it impacted them.
Kerry Diamond:
I have goosebumps just thinking about how many lives you changed. People might think of "Top Chef" as just a culinary reality show, but it's so much more.
Melissa King:
Yeah. Well, I'm writing a whole memoir.
Kerry Diamond:
I heard.
Melissa King:
That's like a little sneak peek right now, is there's a memoir coming out next fall, 2026.
Kerry Diamond:
Can I book you for next year's radio?
Melissa King:
Oh yeah, let's do it. There's a lot to talk about with that one with that book.
Kerry Diamond:
I can imagine. It's a good transition into the cookbook because there is a lot of personal content in that book. I mean, it's kind of relentlessly personal. You start with your childhood and I just loved reading that you were a kid growing up in California. Your parents were engineers who worked all day and your mom wasn't somebody who shooed you out of the kitchen. Tell us your earliest kitchen memories.
Melissa King:
Yeah, I would say I got started with cooking out of necessity. Both my parents worked a lot. Mother was a working mom, aerospace engineer. She'd come home at 6:00 PM at night and we had to put dinner on the table, and so it kind of became my role or my way of spending time with her in the kitchen and just time at home together. So I would stand on a little stool. I was maybe five or six years old and I would stir fry vegetables in a wok. And simple things like really humble Cantonese dishes, pork patties with salted fish and fried eggs with a little soy sauce, a little bit of bok choy.
And so I became mommy's little sous chef. And then over the years, I think by age 11 or 12, I was putting dinner on the table for the whole family, and that just kind of became my role because I enjoyed it and I really found a lot of happiness in cooking and realized that that was something that I loved doing, was bringing people together and bringing them to the dinner table, and in a way, putting my love into my food to nurture my family.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's take a quick break, and we'll be right back. Some fun news: Cherry Bombe is on Substack. If you're a Substack lover, I know I am, Substack is one of my favorite media platforms these days, be sure to check it out and subscribe. You can subscribe for free or become a monthly or annual paid subscriber. We have recipes, recaps of our baking pod, She’s My Cherry Pie, our Missy Robbins cover story from the brand new issue, and we'll be adding more content each week, including Radio Cherry Bombe recaps and insider stuff. If you're new to Substack, think about it as the home of modern blogs. If you love reading and writing, it's the place for you. Visit cherrybombe.substack.com. I'll put the link in our show notes.
I read that use of the stove wasn't quite encouraged in the beginning, so you did a lot of microwaving.
Melissa King:
In the beginning. Yeah, I lived off of a lot of, I would say '80s, '90s convenience boots. Every frozen dinner I've had it, all those brands. And I would say that my mom was not the best cook in the world. She didn't know how to really cook until she got married and realized, "Oh, I have to feed my family." But I think at a certain point I surpassed the teacher and took on that role.
Kerry Diamond:
I read that your mom would microwave a whole fish.
Melissa King:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
It never even crossed my mind you could do that.
Melissa King:
We would go to the Asian market and I would watch the butchers just whack the fish on the head and would bring the whole thing home. I got to pick which fish we would take home from 99 Ranch. She would put it in a dish, drizzle a little soy sauce, sesame oil, and then just pop in ginger and scallions and pop it in the microwave. It works. Yeah, just naturally steams it when you cover it with some plastic wrap.
Kerry Diamond:
I feel like I need to be a little bit more adventurous with my microwave and not just-
Melissa King:
There's a lot of fun things you can do in there.
Kerry Diamond:
I bet there is. Your dad didn't really cook, but he had one dish that he was known for and the recipe is in the cookbook. Tell us about it.
Melissa King:
Yeah, dad did not cook it all, but the one dish I would say that I learned from him was the Shanghai Nice Lion Head Meatballs, and that was something he learned from his mom and always reminds him of home and where he came from. And they're just these giant pork meatballs made of ginger, scallions, and it's simmered in chicken broth with some glass noodles and Napa cabbage, but that was my stinky lunchbox story as a kid. I would take the leftovers to school and it was my favorite dish, but then I would get made fun of for having that.
But then I look back and I'm like, "I had the best lunchbox there." I would've totally taken that over anything else, but there was a bit of shame around it at a certain point. Even through my career, I had never really transitioned to incorporate Asian cuisine into my cooking. Most of my training was French fine dining in Michelin kitchens, and it wasn't until around "Top Chef" where Padma, Tom, Gail are telling me to cook my food and think about the story that I want to tell through these dishes, and I started to really lean into things that I ate growing up.
Kerry Diamond:
Was that something that happened the first time you were on "Top Chef?" Because you were on twice.
Melissa King:
Yeah, I would say the first time, I mean, anytime anyone competes on that show, I would say all the chefs would say that we grow a lot as a chef. It really puts you in scenarios that don't exist in the real world and it gets you to think outside the box and create in a way you never thought you would. So every dish I made on that show was the first time I was making it in real life and presenting it to these judges, but they would question you. Those judges tables are five minutes on TV, but in real life it's hours of just picking apart your dish because they want to make sure they pick the right person to win and to exit the show.
But they really get you to think deeper about what you're creating and why you're doing it and the intentions behind every garnish and ingredient that's on that plate. And so a lot of the themes that we would walk away with was cook your food and cook from your heart and bring soul to your dish. And so I started leaning into congee and dumplings and noodles and Szechuan flavors and all these beautiful flavors that I grew up with that for some reason, was very compartmentalized in my brain as a chef.
Kerry Diamond:
That came through when I was reading the intro to your book, because as well as I know you and I mean, I think I wrote the cover story about you and I've interviewed you so many times, I didn't put the pieces together that you hadn't cooked in a Chinese restaurant.
Melissa King:
Never, yeah. I had only really cooked home-style Cantonese food that you really don't even find at a local restaurant. It's stuff that grandma's making. But the majority of my career was Eurocentric, French, Italian.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, you worked for Dominique Crenn, San Francisco. Did you work at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel?
Melissa King:
Ritz-Carlton Dining Room with Ron Siegel.
Kerry Diamond:
That's a nice hotel.
Melissa King:
I camped in place. Yeah, it is.
Kerry Diamond:
And Luce, is that how you say it?
Melissa King:
Luce.
Kerry Diamond:
Is that Italian?
Melissa King:
That was with Dominique.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that was-
Melissa King:
It was sort of like Italian-French, but at that time it was more molecular French, was sort of the style that we were hitting.
Kerry Diamond:
I know we're jumping around a little. I also had absolutely no idea you opened a restaurant in Tokyo.
Melissa King:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
When did you sneak that in?
Melissa King:
After my first "Top Chef," I had this incredible opportunity to consult and build basically a Californian Japanese fine dining restaurant with Elle Magazine, the fashion magazine, because fashion and food is-
Kerry Diamond:
You are a bit of a fashion girl and we'll talk about that later.
Melissa King:
I'm a fashion girl, and it was incredible, I couldn't say no. It was an opportunity to live in Japan for a year and just create and find inspiration through Japanese culture and the ingredients there, so it was a really incredible experience.
Kerry Diamond:
That must have been so cool. All right, let's go back to little you in the kitchen. I just-
Melissa King:
Yeah, we're jumping around.
Kerry Diamond:
I just have this image of you on the stool, you've got a meat cleaver at age eight, right?
Melissa King:
Yep.
Kerry Diamond:
So, so cute.
Melissa King:
Yeah, I only knew how to use a Chinese meat cleaver, I didn't know how to use a French knife. We just didn't have those in the kitchen at home growing up. So yeah, my mom on my eighth birthday, bought me this little mini Chinese meat cleaver. I still have it somewhere, it's at her house.
Kerry Diamond:
That's amazing. When did you know you wanted to be a chef?
Melissa King:
Since I was five, probably those early days, I just knew this is what I want to do with my life, but nobody believed me. It took a lot of just convincing and I think my parents came here as immigrants and they were the first college graduates of their family. And so I think for them they were like, "You need to go to college." But I had wanted to go to the CIA after high school.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you express that to them?
Melissa King:
Oh yeah, and there was a lot of resistance and I was a teenager and kind of angsty and I was like, "Why don't you believe me? This is what I want to do. You're stopping me from my dream." But looking at it today as an adult, it's like of course your parents want the best for you and they want you to have a good, easy life, better than what they had. And I had learned a little later that my father used to be a busboy when he came to the States and he worked in restaurants, but I didn't know that until a little later in my life, but I couldn't understand the resistance. But after I got my degree, I went to UC Santa Barbara, then I transferred, finished my degree at UC Irvine and got a cognitive science degree. And then I went straight to the CIA, I was like, "I'm not turning back."
Kerry Diamond:
Were they a little more accepting of it at that point?
Melissa King:
A little bit. It was a little tough, I would say.
Kerry Diamond:
Bit of a hard sell?
Melissa King:
Yeah, those years where you're line cooking, you're working every holiday, every weekend. Every evening, you're sacrificing so much of your personal life. And I have missed every wedding, every holiday during those, a decade or two of my life. And my family couldn't understand that, "Why are you doing this to yourself?" I did miss a lot of precious moments that I wish I could get back, but at the same time, it built me into the chef I am today.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, that's what I found the hardest about having restaurants, you're attached to them.
Melissa King:
You have to be very just focused and dedicated to the craft.
Kerry Diamond:
I know this isn't your favorite topic, but the fact that you don't have a restaurant, I know a lot of people ask you, "Oh, you're a chef, what's your restaurant? Why don't you have a restaurant?" You don't. You are part of this new kind of chef that doesn't have one. And I think it still surprises some people who really can only connect chef plus restaurant equals being a chef, but you're showing a different way.
Melissa King:
I used to be that way. I used to think as a kid, "I want a restaurant. Maybe I'll get a Michelin star and I'll be happy and that'll be the moment I feel successful." I have been fortunate to be able to carve a path without needing to rely on that because as we've discussed, you sacrifice so much of your personal life and also just the margins. It's a tough industry to survive as the pandemic revealed. And I admire anyone that jumps into it, it really is a very bold move. But there are other paths and that was something I realized post "Top Chef" was there are so many other ways to still provide food and inspire people through food and continue to do what I love and create through events and pop ups.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us, for the young chefs or just anybody who's curious, who's listening, how do you make a living today?
Melissa King:
A lot of it is event curation, which I love. I love throwing a party, love throwing a good party.
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, I love that because you're a little shy.
Melissa King:
I am very shy. It's funny, I am very shy and introverted, but then there's this other, it must be my double Sagittarius in me. I'm a Libra double Sag and the Sag in me is like, "Let's have a party, let's have fun and everyone's just going to have a good time." But I'm also, as a chef, you're hosting. That is really the primary role of what we do. We love hosting dinner parties. And so now I get to do that on a larger scale for corporate companies and different events throughout the nation.
But nowadays, there's also social media and so many people are moving onto that platform and their whole food styling category. And I think there's just so much out there as long as you let yourself think outside the box of how you can bring food to other categories, whether it's fashion or music or dance. Yeah, we're all kind of doing the same thing, so why not do it together?
Kerry Diamond:
How different were the two Melissas, the first "Top Chef" contestant and the second "Top Chef" contestant?
Melissa King:
Oh, night and day. And I think you can see that when you watch season 12, which was my first season in Boston. I'm very much in a shell and I'm shy. I had never done public speaking. The thought of it made me just clammy and nervous and I didn't even give a speech at my own sister's wedding. I was just painfully shy. And that experience, I think really opened me up. It gave me a lot of confidence in myself as a chef, but also myself in the world.
And a couple years go by, I think it was five or six until “All-Stars” and you really see a completely different person. I feel competing on that series, I'm very unapologetic about what I'm presenting. My first season, I was always in my head. I was always overthinking and anxious and letting those inner thoughts kind of take over.
Kerry Diamond:
How did you even wind up on that season?
Melissa King:
The first season?
Kerry Diamond:
You sound like an unlikely contestant.
Melissa King:
I had applied, I had some friends that were pressuring me to apply. Again, the whole time was like, "I don't want to do it, please don't pick me." And I think there's still that curiosity in me that was like, "Well, let's just give it a try and see what happens." The more I leaned into that fear, the more I started realizing the evolution of how I was feeling and the growth that was kind of occurring in real time. I just kept leaning into that over the years and I think that's why you see such a different person that's more confident and stronger and not second-guessing what I wanted to present.
My first season, I was cooking a lot of things that I had just sort of learned from other chefs, but I couldn't really find my food yet. And then you see this evolution of me and my style of cooking really developed a lot more. So I think I just grew into myself as a chef by “All-Stars” and I was like, "I'm going to make congee and dumplings, and you either like it or you don't and you can kick me off." It was a very different attitude.
Kerry Diamond:
What's so interesting, and this is a good lesson for everybody, thank goodness you didn't win that first season.
Melissa King:
I think about that a lot. Yeah, I think about that a lot. Because my first season I felt, again, pressured from everyone else to go on the show and to win. And I was in a way, doing it for everyone else. But then because I didn't win, when they called me back a few years later, I was like, "You know what, I want to go back for me and I want to win this. I'm going to give it a go." Everyone was actually telling me, "Don't do it. This is crazy, it's stressful. Why do you want to do it again?" And initially, I did think that. I remember the producers called and I was about to open a restaurant. I almost signed a lease on a space, and I get a call from the producer.
Kerry Diamond:
Where, which city?
Melissa King:
San Francisco.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, wow.
Melissa King:
And I get a call from the producer saying, "Hey, we want you to apply for "Top Chef" and do “All-Stars.”" And I was like, "No, thank you. Bye." And I hung up and just laughed.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you have the whole concept and everything?
Melissa King:
Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, I had a whole vision for it, but I think I dodged a bullet with that because I called the producer back in five or 10 minutes and was like, "You know what? Fine, let's go do it. Let's have fun and see what happens." But then the pandemic hit, so I would've been opening a restaurant peak pandemic if I did not do “All-Stars,” so it was a really big fork in my road. I feel very blessed to have chosen the right path, but things happen for a reason.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh, they really do.
Melissa King:
Yeah, they really do.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's go back to the cookbook, your dad's meatballs. Any tip for making those? Because I flagged that as one of the first things I want to make.
Melissa King:
My dad swears, he's like, "Yeah, you got to really mix the meat where it almost emulsifies." You want to almost whip the ground pork with the egg whites.
Kerry Diamond:
So when they say, "Don't overwork," that does not apply to this?
Melissa King:
It's the opposite, exactly. I feel maybe Italian meatballs, you're not supposed to overwork it too much. But with the Chinese pork meatballs, you really want to get your hands in there, work it.
Kerry Diamond:
Elbow grease, as they say.
Melissa King:
Elbow grease with the egg whites, and that's going to give it that bouncy texture and soft, pillowy texture. Other tips, you have to refrigerate it. My dad will swear you need to refrigerate the meatballs and just chill them after you shape them. And then from that point on, you just kind of get them in a shallow fry and golden brown them all around, and then you put them in the braising liquid, which is just chicken stock and ginger, and just let it do its thing in a little pot and you'll have dinner in, I don't know, 15 minutes or so.
Kerry Diamond:
Sounds so good.
Melissa King:
It's really yummy.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, the cover, we have to talk about the cover dish. Because that's one of the dishes you've become kind of known for, your yellowtail crudo in ginger citrus broth.
Melissa King:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about that and why you put it on the cover.
Melissa King:
It's funny, when you're thinking of which one is your signature, which one is the identifiable like, "Oh, that's a Melissa King dish," I just felt like that one was the one. I actually had made, the first version of that dish was from the Met Gala.
Kerry Diamond:
I remember.
Melissa King:
And I think from that point on, it started to evolve and I did a show called Tasting Wild with Nat Geo, and that one had passion fruit, it was like a passion fruit ginger broth. So there's a lot of fun variations throughout the book. This one is made with citrus, a little more home-friendly, but it'll be equally as delicious. But I wanted something that was vibrant, that popped. And that dish originally, I mean with the Met Gala, there were so many requirements, it felt like a "Top Chef" challenge on its own. It was like, "You need to make a dish that beats 400 people, that's chilled and is the first course, but also has plant-based options." And you also want it to be you and be identifiable as something that tells your story, but it also needs to fit the Met Gala theme, which at the time was America.
So I created this dish and it was an Italian crudo with sort of this Chinese Szechuan chili oil, but also had Latin flavors, almost like a Leche de Tigre Peruvian crudo or ceviche. And the Met Gala one had a yuzu kosho olive tapenade, so it kind of had a little bit of this Japanese influence to it. And so I was really trying hard to put all of those visions into one bowl. And then Anna Wintour wanted it in a bowl, and I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is impossible." But it proves that when you really take time to sit and develop a dish, I mean, it took a month or two to figure that one out, but I am very proud of it and I think it's visually stunning. And I was like, "This has to be the cover."
Kerry Diamond:
It's so beautiful. And you were not in the kitchen because you walked the red carpet in your fabulous Tom Brown outfit and all your accessories. I used to get to go to the Met Gala, it was called the Met Ball back then when I worked at Lancôme. And that red carpet is the most terrifying red carpet because it's all stairs.
Melissa King:
I've done so much, I would say I've done a lot of scary things in my career, in my life. I've done "Top Chef" twice, I've climbed mountains and kayaked a glacier with Nat Geo. I've done a lot of scary things but the Met Gala Red Carpet was by far the scariest thing I've ever done. Yeah, it's nerve-wracking. First of all, very long. It's a very long walk to the top.
Kerry Diamond:
No railing.
Melissa King:
No railing, and there's just cameras everywhere. And again, I'm very shy, so I'm just like, "I don't even want one camera on me and now there's a couple hundred."
Kerry Diamond:
You looked perfect.
Melissa King:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't know who your stylist was that night, but you had your Thom Browne shorts on. Did you commission the nail guards? Could you tell us about those? Because they're really one of the coolest things I've seen on a red carpet.
Melissa King:
The whole idea, I have a difficult time finding clothes. I'm Goldilocks, nothing fits me quite right and this is too masculine or this is too feminine. I definitely did not want to wear a dress, but I'm like, "This is a formal event, so how am I possibly going to find something that feels like me?" But luckily, Thom Browne exists in the world and he's an incredible designer that makes gender fluid wears. And I saw this short suit and I was like, "I have to wear that." Then the nail guards were this whole vision that I had of wanting to bring Chinese culture to the Met Gala, and I had thought a lot about Chinese Empresses and these nail guards that they wear. And in a way it was a juxtaposition of I'm a chef, I work in the service industry, I work with my hands.
There's no place for me to be wearing nail guards because the whole purpose of nail guards is someone of royalty that doesn't use their hands. So I commissioned a designer in New York Chinatown. He's a queer Asian designer named CHRISHABANA, and he does a lot of costume jewelry for many different rap artists and Beyonce and SZA, all these incredible people. And he was willing to do that, and he designed it and constructed it in four days. They just measured my hand. We had a whole sketch, the whole vision board around it. I showed him a lot of pictures and I was very proud of what he created.
Kerry Diamond:
So beautiful.
Melissa King:
And it just added to the whole vibe.
Kerry Diamond:
It never crossed my mind, the whole connection to being a chef. And I mean-
Melissa King:
It was so intentional.
Kerry Diamond:
Anytime I meet a chef who does not have short, unpainted nails, I have to confess, I'm a little suspect.
Melissa King:
Oh yeah, same. Yeah, or if you're wearing too much jewelry. I never wear jewelry because I'm always working with my hands, and this was the first time where I really had a lot of attention on my hands. It was all a very intentional move because again, I'm a story creator and through my food, but I wanted to also show up that way in fashion in this one moment where you know that this photo is going to kind of be everywhere, but I wanted to really tell a little bit of who I am through that picture.
Kerry Diamond:
And it was everywhere, you were one of the best dressed. Not everybody can pull off Thom Browne, but you wore that outfit, that outfit did not wear you.
Melissa King:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
I can definitely say that. That intentionality definitely comes through in the book. And I know you don't use the word fusion. You had an interesting word for describing all these cultural sort of mashups.
Melissa King:
Yeah, I was having a hard... I mean, I come from the '90s, in that time era, and I felt like fusion had a really bad rap, but nowadays I feel like we're reclaiming that word. So yeah, I would say this book has a lot of mashups, remixes, fusions, elements of Asian twists on some classics, and also just your home-style childhood dishes that I grew up with that were either Shanghainese or Cantonese, which is both my backgrounds. But also there's some Taiwanese, it's like a Taiwanese beef noodle soup in there and Taiwanese popcorn chicken. These were all dishes that I had in high school when I would go to a boba shop and pick up my little milk tea boba and I'd get a little bag of this popcorn chicken that was really yummy and dusted in five spice.
Kerry Diamond:
There are so many beautiful recipes and it's really, I guess you can say this about every cookbook in a sense, but one thing that I really loved about yours is it is such a map to your life and your career.
Melissa King:
Really?
Kerry Diamond:
And you can kind of trace, like we mentioned, the Met Gala dish. Right after that, you have a Sicilian-style crudo, you've got King's focaccia, you've got al pastor bao in there. I mean, listeners, are you not salivating right now? Everything sounds so delicious. And then you've got Chinese sticky rice in there.
Melissa King:
It's really a journey. It took four years to write this book, and I would say that's like a lot of writers. People would say, "Oh, it takes forever to write a book." And I never believed them. I'm like, "Oh, I could do this. It'll be fine." And then once I got into it, I was like, "Oh, this is a humbling experience. It really does take three to four years to write a cookbook." But I like to say that it took my whole life to write this book because it is a journey. It's a food journey of my life. It's like a food memoir and each recipe has a story of its conception and the inspiration behind it. And yeah, the Chinese sticky rice is a dish that I grew up for Thanksgiving, eating Chinese sticky rice and a roast duck as our Turkey and stuffing. And I didn't even know what turkey was until I was 13.
Kerry Diamond:
Lucky you.
Melissa King:
And was old enough to make it myself. And then I ruined Thanksgiving for the whole family because they're like, "This bird is so dry, what's going on? Why are we eating this? Roast duck would've been so much better." But nowadays we do a turkey and the Chinese sticky rice for the holidays, so it was important to put some of these cultural holiday dishes into the book, but also the more inventive ones, like the al pastor bao. I grew up in Los Angeles, so I ate at a lot of taco trucks, and al pastor was my favorite type of taco. And so I found a way to kind of bring in a little bit of that Chinese flair.
Kerry Diamond:
Speaking of turkey, you have a funny turkey story in your book. You had a Turkey leg at Disney and you brought it back home and made stock out of it.
Melissa King:
Oh, yeah, yeah. Grew up in Southern California, Disneyland was always the place to be. We went there for prom, we had season passes. And turkey legs became one of my favorite things to bring home from Disneyland because I would just take these giant smoked legs and put them into some chicken stock or turkey stock, or even just water and cook that down, infuse that flavor, and then strain the broth and make Turkey congee with that or Turkey soup. And that became this thing that my family just loved. And I would shred up the meat and it's the best. So every time I go to Disneyland, I'm coming home with three Turkey legs in my backpack.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, for any of maybe our international listeners or folks who have not been to Disney, I went to Disney a bunch of times when I was a kid, and I was there recently for a family trip. I did not know about the turkey leg situation until I went to Epcot.
Melissa King:
Oh, they're the best.
Kerry Diamond:
And I was like, "What the heck? People literally walk around eating giant turkey legs."
Melissa King:
Yeah, with your Goofy hat on, which I've totally done before. But it's very primal, but it's fun.
Kerry Diamond:
It's sort of the last food you expect to see at Disney. You just don't expect to see people walking around, chomping down on giant turkey legs.
Melissa King:
I love it, I love it.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's go through a few dishes and just more of the cultural mashups. I forgot to mention miso baba ganoush, so many interesting things in there. You've even got focaccia.
Melissa King:
Yeah, miso baba ganoush just kind of made sense to me because I was thinking about Japanese, have you had the broiled eggplants?
Kerry Diamond:
Love.
Melissa King:
And they're just miso slathered on top and you throw it on the broiler.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, duh. That makes all the sense in the world.
Melissa King:
I love baba ganoush and Middle Eastern cuisine. And I was like, "This just seems like it would work." Because there's already tahini in there. And so for me, it was a very inspiring book to write because I got to be playful with the food, but also keep it approachable. That dip is something you can make quite easily in your broiler at home or on the grill, make it the night before and serve it for your friends at a party. And then there's the focaccia, which, I got really into bread making obviously, with the pandemic. But even before that, I was a big sourdough bread maker.
Kerry Diamond:
You and Taylor Swift.
Melissa King:
Focaccia became one of my favorite things to make over time, and it just gave me a lot of peace to make that through the pandemic. And I was like, "Hey, we got to put a simple bread in there for people that the kids can enjoy." And so there's things that I make with even my twin nieces, the kimchi beef dumplings, and we make a sheet tray pizza in there, and that'll be just sort of like a simple dinner.
Kerry Diamond:
You've got some yummy scallion pancakes in there.
Melissa King:
Cheesy scallion pancakes, that was a little remix, too. I started thinking about a grilled cheese and those little crispy bits, caramelized, what is it called? The lacy caramelization that happens when you griddle a grilled cheese. And I was like, "Why can't we do that with scallion pancake?" I was like, "This sounds pretty good." So yeah, I do think a lot of the dishes kind of explore, again, parts of me. And I have a French fine dining background, but I also cooked in a rustic Italian restaurant.
Kerry Diamond:
You were a butcher, which I didn't even know.
Melissa King:
I was a butcher for two years and butchered whole pigs, whole animals, and did a lot of pasta making. But I also love Japanese flavors and trained in Japan for a bit. And then there's my home-style cooking so I think the book is a bit of everything. There's something for everyone in this book and a lot of variations as well. If you don't have access to certain ingredients, I kept that in mind for the reader, that you can swap with. If you don't have yuzu juice, you can use lemon.
But I encourage you to try to find yuzu juice on the internet, because that would really elevate the dish and kind of impress your guests. So it's like taking these basic, for instance, there's a flounder or just any kind of flatfish with yuzu brown butter, and it's just teaching a basic culinary technique, which is just a brown butter sauce with capers and parsley. But I swap the lemon for yuzu. But if you don't have that, you can certainly use lemon.
Kerry Diamond:
All the turkey talk has me thinking of Thanksgiving.
Melissa King:
Thanksgiving, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And I did not grow up having the tastiest turkeys for Thanksgiving. Your dad's meatballs, could you swap out the pork for turkey? Is that crazy?
Melissa King:
I mean, I have never done that, but no, it's not. And I think that's what I want to empower the reader to feel, that they can swap. If you don't like pork, it's not going to offend me. You can try ground chicken, you can do ground turkey. Same with my mom's lettuce wraps in the book. That's traditionally made with ground pork, but you can use any type of ground meat.
Kerry Diamond:
Thinking of you walking around Disney with your giant turkey leg has inspired to maybe push Thanksgiving a little bit or have some kind of alternative.
Melissa King:
Well, I love taking the turkey carcass. You take the Turkey carcass at the end of Thanksgiving and throw it in a pot with some water.
Kerry Diamond:
If you are the one making the turkey, you have to make stock from your turkey bones. I think of all those years when I just didn't know anything culinarily, nobody in my family did, and we just threw the whole turkey carcass, yeah.
Melissa King:
There's so much flavor, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
So sad.
Melissa King:
We make congee. In Cantonese, we call it juk, so in the book I call it juk. I'm actually not sure where the word congee came from. I'm like, "Is that Chinese, is that American? I'm not sure, but I'm going to call it juk in the book." But there's so much flavor in that, so save your carcasses, make some turkey stock.
Kerry Diamond:
Start planning now because you do need a big pot.
Melissa King:
True.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. I mean, if I've just got little rotisserie chickens at home and don't need a giant stock pot.
Melissa King:
You can save some of it, you don't have to use the whole carcass. You can save the legs or whichever parts you can fit in the pot or your slow cooker at home, or your pressure cooker and just pop it in there.
Kerry Diamond:
I like the idea of some congee next day. I also love a Turkey stuffing cranberry sandwich, the best, oh my gosh.
Melissa King:
Now I'm so excited for Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday.
Kerry Diamond:
But I've upped it a little. I was in Nantucket a few weeks ago and they do, I forget the name of the turkey stuffing cranberry sandwich on white Portuguese bread. I'm going to argue it might be the best sandwich, one of the best sandwiches in America.
Melissa King:
Wow.
Kerry Diamond:
But you got to put arugula on it.
Melissa King:
Okay, I need to try this. This is a bold statement, because my favorite sandwich is a BLT, just a classic perfect bacon, kind of chewy, kind of crispy, nice thick heirloom tomato with some sea salt, olive oil, good slather of mayonnaise and some nice crispy lettuce.
Kerry Diamond:
But you make it yourself.
Melissa King:
On sourdough, yes. I make it myself on sourdough.
Kerry Diamond:
Any advice for chefs out there? Any young chefs who are thinking about going to culinary school, what's your message to them?
Melissa King:
My advice for young chefs, just stay humble, stay humble. The industry can knock you down at times, but stay humble. Find a mentor that you really admire, keep learning. I think a lot of younger cooks, they want to go fast and they want to just get to the top as fast as they can. But I'm like, "Take your time. Learn the basics, start from there. Learn how to sear a steak from raw state to medium rare in a cast iron pan without needing sous vide and all these fancy techniques," which the cookbook will teach you. But learn basic techniques and then evolve from there, but stay curious.
Culinary school, I would say if you have money to go, certainly go. You're going to learn the basics and the foundational techniques and you'll meet amazing people. That will become people in the industry that you'll admire. But yeah, if you don't have the money for that, it's certainly fine, you can absolutely learn in a kitchen. I think that's the best way, is you have to get your hands in the food. It's all muscle memory and just doing things over and over and over until you perfect it.
Kerry Diamond:
There's also YouTube University.
Melissa King:
And also, don't be afraid, this is for everybody. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. I think we are very hard on ourselves as people. I know I am in a professional kitchen, but I have made thousands of mistakes in my career and lifetime to get me to where I am today. And cooking, you have to over-salt something in order to know to do less salt next time. And so those mistakes, be gracious with yourself. Be kind to yourself through the process. And I hope my cookbook, “Cook Like a King,” helps people feel that I'm walking you through the journey. Because the details can be a bit long, but I want the recipes to feel like I'm in the kitchen there with you and empowering you to cook like a king.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, having read through the whole book, I think you accomplished that.
Melissa King:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
So thank you for those beautiful words. I'm so proud of you and-
Melissa King:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
You've been on such an interesting journey and this book is so beautiful.
Melissa King:
Thank you so much, Kerry.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Please give Radio Cherry Bombe a follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Special thanks to Joseph Hazan at Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu. Our talent guru is Londyn Crenshaw, and our head of partnerships is Rachel Close. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.