Monday’s race at Talladega was an emotional one, as it came less than 24 hours after NASCAR launched an investigation into a noose found in the garage stall of Bubba Wallace, the lone Black driver on the circuit.

Wallace has been outspoken in recent weeks about the Black Lives Matter movement and pushing NASCAR to become more inclusive and welcoming, leading a successful charge for the sport to ban the confederate flag at races. There was pushback from fans, but with only 5,000 fans allowed inside the race this weekend and none of those being in the infield, whoever placed the noose in his garage as a threat was someone from within the sport.

Prior to the race, NASCAR’s drivers and teams all helped push Wallace’s car to the front of the grid on pit road, offering a show of solidarity in the face of the racist threat he received. The incident showed how much work NASCAR still has to do with regards to racism in the sport, but the public support of Wallace by NASCAR leadership and the drivers is a step in the right direction.

The race itself was a wild one, with Wallace taking the outright lead briefly in the final stage of the race and spending much of it in the top 5.

Unfortunately for Wallace he, like many other drivers, was short on fuel to reach the end of the race under green and a caution didn’t arrive until he’d already begun to lose position when Jimmie Johnson spun. That led to a green-white-checker overtime finish, which is always wild, especially at Talladega, and the finish lived up to the billing.

After getting through the first lap of the overtime clean — a minor miracle — the back half of the pack wrecked, but NASCAR kept things green for the leaders to fight it out. That resulted in a crazy finish, with a few cars wrecking as Ryan Blaney edged out a win by a nose and Aric Almirola finished third going backwards.

Wallace would finish 14th, a strong performance that wasn’t quite indicative of how competitive he and his 43 Chevrolet were on the day. Afterwards, the spotlight was on Wallace still, as he went to greet some of the fans that had come on a Monday afternoon to support him, many of whom were wearing Black Lives Matter t-shirts and were first time visitors to a track. Wallace noted that in his post-race interview in front of those fans, saying the sport is changing no matter what folks try, and sent a message to the person that put the noose in his garage that they can’t take away his smile.

That moment was arguably more important than the show of solidarity earlier because it shows how quickly Wallace has been able to bring more people into the sport. The pressure on Wallace to perform well on Monday was tremendous, and that he was as close as he was to a top-10 despite the fuel issues and that he led some laps and was in the mix was a spectacular showing.

Perhaps the best thing about the changing of the seasons is the seasonal cocktails. Sure, you can enjoy a gin and tonic any time of the year, but there’s no better time for them than the summer. This perfect combination of gin, tonic, and lime offers refreshing, clean, and crisp relief on a hot, sunny, summer day. But as simple and fresh as this drink is, it’s also easy to ruin with the wrong ingredients.

“If you’re going to enjoy a gin and tonic you’re probably looking to enjoy those distinct herbal and botanical characteristics gins are known for,” says Piero Procida, bartender at The London West Hollywood in Los Angeles. “You’re looking for a gin with character. You probably want to stick with an English gin, because let’s face it, the English have the gin recipe down.”

While we agree that the English know how to make a great gin, we aren’t going to forget about the expressions made elsewhere around the globe. There are amazing, herbaceous, floral gins from distilleries from Scotland to Japan and all points in between. To find the best ones to mix into your seasonal G&Ts, we asked a handful of bartenders to tell us their favorite bottles.

Bluecoat American Dry Gin

Jared Ridgeway, bartender at R&D in Philadelphia

Bluecoat American Dry is my favorite. Deliciously refreshing and bright with beautiful floral notes. We’re lucky to have such a great gin representing Philly. FYI, during these difficult times, they make it easy to purchase at the distillery and even deliver to your door.

St. George Terroir Gin

Hay Culham, beverage manager at Bonsai at Hilton Pensacola Beach in Pensacola, Florida

My go-to for gin cocktail is a gin & tonic made with St. George gin. It has enough flavor and citrus to help you wind down after a long day or just sit on the beach and take in the view.

Hendrick’s Gin

Vance Henderson, ambassador at Hendrick’s Gin

For me, a gin & tonic is light, crisp, flavorful, and rounded. Hendrick’s is my favorite because its combination of botanicals and peculiar inclusion of rose & cucumber essence yields a smooth balanced gin with a unique flavor profile that I dare say makes a Gin & Tonic more unusually-delicious and oddly-interesting.

Right Gin

Natasha Bahrami, owner of The Gin Room in St. Louis

There is something about Right Gin that spices up a gin tonic just right. Cardamom, lemon, and Bergamont, these warm spice notes work in every season. Try an upgraded tonic pairing such as Fentimans Tonic or East Imperial Burma Tonic with a slice of orange or clementine wheel for garnish.

Gray Whale Gin

Jessie Smyth, bar director at Genever in Los Angeles

I love the versatility that Gray Whale offers to a gin and tonic. Depending on the tonic and garnish that you use, you can draw out the different botanicals and go from floral and citrusy (try using Q Elderflower tonic and a twist of lime) to more piney and bitter (using Q Indian Tonic and rosemary sprigs) to even tasting the notes of salt and ocean (Q Tonic and olives).

Silent Pool Gin

Piero Procida, bartender at The London West Hollywood in Los Angeles

As an English themed hotel, we have experimented with plenty of gins, so this time I was looking for something beyond the “same old’s” you see everywhere. I was looking for something modern, yet still traditional, flavorful yet not overly botanical and then, Silent Pool Gin showed up. I found that Silent Pool was not just incredibly delicious but very versatile for a variety of cocktails. It is very smooth yet strong enough not to let its array of flavors be drowned out by the tonic in a gin & tonic. In fact, the tonic complements these flavors even more. The balance of the botanicals is what makes this gin so special, there is not a pronounced flavor of just one botanical, like Juniper which is so typical in gins, rather it is more subdued here to allow for other flavors to come through. It has the highest reviews and it is not all that expensive. To add, the bottle is just gorgeous.

Fords Gin

Hayden Miller, head bartender at Bodega Taqueria y Tequila in Miami

Fords is a versatile gin, especially for a gin and tonic. It has a great botanical blend on its own but not so much to overpower your smaller batch tonics that can really play well with a crisp spirit.

Writer’s Pick:

Tanqueray No. 10 Gin

If you’re making a classic gin & tonic, you have to use a high-quality gin. Even though the drink is made with tonic and a twist of lime, gin is the star of the show. That’s why I love Tanqueray No. 10 with its flavors of fresh citrus zest and it’s juniper-forward botanicals.

We’re living through a potentially historic moment, when a lot of issues that have never led to much actual change appear like they may actually change. The Black Lives Matter protests that have taken over the country, and elsewhere around the globe, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd have already inspired numerous advances, from the (temporary) removal of Gone with the Wind from HBO Max to management shifts at places like Bon Appetit. And now it looks like depictions of blackface in TV and movie are next on the docket.

This comes from Vulture, who learned that at four episodes from 30 Rock have been pulled from streaming services and reruns. Why? Because they feature blackface. Four episodes seems like a lot for a beloved show known for its progressive laurels.

Two of the pulled episodes involve Jane Krakowski’s Jenna Maroney, one from Season Three, in which she swaps identities with Tracy Morgan’s Tracy Jordan, and the other in Season Five, when she attends a party dressed up as Pittsburgh Steelers star Lynn Swann. The other two are the East Coast version of Season 5’s live episode (the West Coast one did not feature the offending bit) and Season 6’s live episode, with Jon Hamm in crude blackface.

The decision was made by 30 Rock creators Tina Fey (who, of course, also starred) and Robert Carlock. “As we strive to do the work and do better in regards to race in America, we believe that these episodes featuring actors in race-changing makeup are best taken out of circulation,” Fey wrote in a letter to platforms that stream her show. “I understand now that ‘intent’ is not a free pass for white people to use these images. I apologize for pain they have caused. Going forward, no comedy-loving kid needs to stumble on these tropes and be stung by their ugliness. I thank NBCUniversal for honoring this request.”

30 Rock currently streams on Hulu and Amazon Prime and is also available for rent or purchase on iTunes and Google Play, and those streamers will now no longer carry those episodes. Meanwhile, Amazon is still weighing whether to edit or pull episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard, which prominently feature the Confederate flag.

(Via Vulture)

Imagine the gall it takes to sit in a meeting where community members are sharing their personal stories of racism and scroll through an online store on your computer. Now imagine the gall it takes to not just be in that meeting, but to be one of the people running it and decide your new clothing needs are more important that the concerns of Black community members.

Gary Chambers, Jr. caught East Baton Rouge Parish School Board member Connie Bernard on camera shopping online during a hearing on changing the name of Lee High School—as in Robert E. Lee— on June 18. As community members shared their feelings about having a school named for the general of the confederate army—the one who fought for the South’s “right” to enslave Black people—Bernard appeared to be pondering what color dress she was going to buy.

When Chambers’ turn came up to speak, he said he had intended to get up and talk about how racist Robert E. Lee was, but instead was going to talk about Connie Bernard, “sitting over there shopping while we’re talking about Robert E. Lee.” Holding up his phone, he said, “This is a picture of you shopping, while we’re talking about racism and history in this country.”

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Chambers pointed out that it was only white members of the board got up from their tables while people in the community—which Chambers says is 81% Black—were talking. “Because you don’t give a damn, it’s clear,” he said.

He did explain how racist Robert E. Lee was: “Not only did he whoop the slaves, he said, ‘Lay it on ’em hard.’ And after he said, ‘Lay it on ’em hard,’ he said ‘Put brine on ’em so it’ll burn ’em.'”

“And you sit you arrogant self in here,” he said, addressing Bernard again, “and sit on there shopping, while the pain and the hurt of the people of this community is on display. Because you don’t give a damn, and you should resign.”

The entire video is gold, with Chambers explaining how Bernard should have resigned two years ago when she was caught on video choking a student, and how she should now walk out and resign, “because you are the example of racism in this community.”

The mic drop moment at the end brought the point home: “We built this joint for free,” Chambers said. “And we’re done begging you to do what’s right.”

When Chambers mentioned Bernard “talking foolishness” on TV the week before, he was presumably referring to a June 10th interview with WVLA-33 in which Bernard said that people who didn’t like the name of the school needed to brush up on their history.

“I would hope that they would learn a little bit more about General Lee,” she said, “because General Lee inherited a large plantation and he was tasked with the job of doing something with those people who lived in bondage to that plantation, the slaves, and he freed them.”

After understandable backlash, Bernard issued an apology in a written statement:

“My comments last week about the naming of Lee High School were insensitive, have caused pain for others, and have led people to believe I am an enemy of people of color, and I am deeply sorry. I condemn racial injustice in any form. I promise to be part of the solution and to listen to the concerns of all members of our community. I stand with you, in love and respect.”

However, she also told The Advocate that what looked like her shopping was just a popup ad that she hadn’t closed out. “I wasn’t shopping,” she said. “I was actually taking notes, paying attention, reading online comments.”

But Chambers wasn’t having that nonsense either—he had receipts in the form of a 20-second video of her scrolling through a full screen of clothing while one of her fellow board members—a Black woman—was speaking.

Another attendee at the meeting, Arthur Pania of Baton Rouge, corroborated Chambers’ account on Facebook, “I personally watched her for about eight minutes, attempting to decide between a beige and red dress,” he wrote. “The only thing I had issue determining from my sight was if it was a short dress or nightware.”

People with this much blatant racism in their bones and a willingness to blatantly lie in an attempt to cover up that racism has no business making decisions for anyone, much less school children in a community of mostly Black families. As Chambers wrote on Instagram, “Our children deserve better, our community deserves better. If she remains it gives permission for others to do the same.”

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The 2020 WNBA season is set to begin in late July and run into October with all teams being housed at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Floriday, but as the deadline for players to opt in or out of playing, there is a growing number of players choosing the latter option.

Renee Montgomery of the Atlanta Dream was among the first to opt out, citing her desire to continue working for social justice reform, and on Monday, Connecticut Sun star Jonquel Jones announced she would be sitting out the season due to health concerns and the unknowns regarding the long-term impacts of contracting COVID-19 on the body. Later Monday evening, the Washington Mystics announced two starters from last year’s championship team, Natasha Cloud and LaToya Sanders, have both chosen to opt out of this upcoming season.

Cloud averaged 9 points and 5.6 assists per game a year ago for the WNBA champion Mystics, including a playoff run where she averaged 13.1 points and 6.2 assists. Sanders averaged 6.1 points and 5.5 rebounds per game.

For Cloud, the decision was based on a number of reasons, but chiefly her desire to continue working towards social justice.

“This has been one of the toughest decisions of my career but I will be foregoing the 2020 WNBA season,” stated Cloud. “There are a lot of factors that led to this decision, but the biggest one is that I am more than an athlete. I have a responsibility to myself, to my community and to my future children to fight for something that is much bigger than myself and the game of basketball. I will instead continue the fight for social reform, because until Black lives matter, all lives can’t matter.”

Sanders cited health concerns as her reason for foregoing on the 2020 season.

“This was not an easy choice to make, but after much thought and conversation I do believe it is what’s best for my health and family,” said Sanders. “I wish my teammates and the entire Mystics family the best this season and I will continue to watch and support them.”

As the deadline to announce intention of playing or not approaches, it will be interesting to see how many more top level players decide to sit out, both on the WNBA side and the NBA side, where Davis Bertans and Trevor Ariza are the first two to make their decision to opt out known. Whatever the reason — family, health, or activism — any player that chooses to pass on this season is more than justified in their decision.

Allegedly we’ll be able to see Tenet in theaters in late July, though who really knows? Despite movie theater chains like AMC crowing about reopening next month, Covid-19 cases have been spiking all over the nation and the curve is not exactly flattening. No matter what happens, at least we’ve gotten some incredibly entertaining interviews from one of its stars, Robert Pattinson.

In profile after profile, the erstwhile Edward Cullen has been delightfully strange and self-deprecating, whether it’s talking about his disastrous attempts to microwave pasta while quarantining in London to a new chat with Entertainment Weekly, in which he says he was pretty sure he screwed up his first interview with director Christopher Nolan.

“I was in London at the beginning of last year and had kind of absolutely nothing going,” Pattinson told EW. He continued:

“So, I was panicking about that when out of nowhere there was a call to say, ‘Do you want to come back to LA?’ [I] went to meet him, and we kind of talked for three hours, and I have no idea what I’m meeting for, what the subject is. I was actually going back through his filmography to kind of try and predict what sort of genre he would go into next. And then, after hours of talking, he finally kind said in the last two minutes, ‘So, I’ve been writing this thing and would you like to come back and read it?’”

It was then that Pattinson thought he’d made a fatal move.

“There was this pack of chocolates on the table,” the actor said. “I had a massive blood sugar drop by the end of this conversation. I thought I was going to pass out because we’d been talking so much. I was trying to concentrate so much. Finally, I asked for one of the chocolates and he immediately ended the meeting. I was like, oh my god, I f—ed it up.”

Of course, we all know that Pattinson didn’t screw it up, and that Nolan forgave his cryptic chocolate faux pas, if it even was one, and gave him a co-starring role in a movie so big Nolan is insisting it has to be seen in a giant movie theater. Will Tenet wind up being as fun as Pattinson one-on-ones? We’ll see. Someday.

(Via EW)

Last Updated: June 22nd

As CGI found its footing in the ’90s, the masses flocked to big-budget spectacles like Titanic and Jurassic Park. But another revolution was unfolding on a smaller scale. We also saw the first films from some of the best indie directors, from Wes Anderson to Quentin Tarantino. Below are 10 of the best ’90s movies on Netflix right now, ranked. They range from the ’90s-est ’90s movies that every millennial grew up watching to the influential award winners that are worth discovering or revisiting.

Related: The Best ’90s Movies On Hulu Right Now

1. The Matrix (1999)

Run Time: 136 min | IMDb: 8.7/10

The Wachowski sisters created one of the greatest sci-fi films in cinematic history with their mind-bending Matrix trilogy, but the original is hard to top. Keanu Reeves plays Neo, a young man unplugged from the matrix — a kind of alternate reality that keeps humans docile, so machines can harvest their life energy. He teams up with a band of rebels fighting the machines (Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus and Carrie-Ann Moss as Trinity) and faces off against a henchman named Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving). The real draw of this trilogy, besides its inventive storyline, is the CGI effects. The movie also sports some of the most imaginative fight sequences you’ll ever see on the big screen.

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2. Groundhog Day (1993)

Run Time: 101 min | IMDb: 8/10

Bill Murray has some great comedies living on his resumé, but none are as iconic, or at least, well-loved as Groundhog Day. That’s because watching Murray play a surly weather-man forced to relive the same day over and over again is basically a comedy goldmine of a plot. At first, Phil (Murray) enjoys the time loop, binge-drinking, filming some half-hearted news segments in a hick town in Pennsylvania, having one-night stands, etc, but eventually, he realizes that in order to escape his never-ending bed-and-breakfast hell, he’s got to better himself, not an easy task.

3. The Silence of The Lambs (1991)

Run Time: 118 min | IMDb: 8.6/10

Hannibal Lecter is one of horror’s most iconic characters, but it’s a testament to the creepiness of Anthony Hopkins in a leather muzzle that, no matter how many times the film gets quoted, hearing him tell Clarice Starling he’s having an old friend for dinner still sends chills up our spines. Jodie Foster plays the FBI agent tasked with catching another serial killer with Lecter’s same M.O. and she does it by striking up unnerving conversations with the guy, but Hopkins is the real star here, playing Lecter with a restrained insanity that makes his small talk of enjoying human liver with fava beans so much more nightmarish.

4. Chasing Amy (1997)

Run Time: 113 min | IMDb: 7.3/10

Ben Affleck stars in this quintessential ’90s rom-com from Kevin Smith about a comic book nerd who falls for a girl who will never be interested in him. She’ll never be interested in him not because of his terrible fashion choices, his chosen profession, or his frat-bro lifestyle but because she’s a lesbian. Of course, that doesn’t deter Affleck’s character, who makes some hilarious missteps in his quest for true love.

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5. Bad Boys (1995)

Run Time: 119 min | IMDb: 6.9/10

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence star in this foul-mouthed buddy comedy film as two detectives tasked with protecting a witness while investigating a case of stolen heroin from their own precinct’s evidence storage facility. Marcus (Lawrence) and Mike (Smith) have been friends since childhood and are now working the beat together in Miami. When $100 million of heroin goes missing from their unit’s storage facility, they’re sent to track down who might have taken it before Internal Affairs intercedes. Smith and Lawrence have an easy, lived-in chemistry that really sells this thing, and the action’s not too bad either.

6. Tremors (1990)

Run Time: 96 min | IMDb: 7.1/10

Kevin Bacon stars in this 90s horror-comedy that’s full of camp and runs on monster fuel. Bacon plays Val, a handyman living in a small Nevada town, who stumbles upon a group of underground snake-like creatures called “graboids” who have begun killing residents. Along with his best friend and a scientist, Val takes on the creatures and most of the fun here is in watching Bacon find increasingly inventive ways to kill these overgrown worms.

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7. Jerry Maguire (1996)

Run Time: 139 min | IMDb: 7.3/10

Is Jerry Maguire more than just a catchphrase machine disguised as a sports drama? You be the judge of that. There’s no denying this film has spawned plenty of GIFs and memes over the years, but Cameron Crowe was also able to craft a deeply philosophical look as what is a very superficial trade: being a sports agent. Tom Cruise plays the titular anti-hero, who wises up to the meaningless of his life after working with Cuba Gooding Jr. and falling for Renee Zellweger. There’s something there for those in search of meaning but even if you’re not, you’ve got to enjoy that “Show Me The Money” scene.

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8. Clueless (1995)

Run Time: 97 min | IMDb: 6.8/10

Few teen comedies have found a permanent place in the cultural lexicon like this 90s flick from director Amy Heckerling. Inspired by a Jane Austen plot and modernized with a Beverly Hills setting, the story follows a shallow, rich Queen-bee named Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) who begins matchmaking fellow students and teachers at her school only to be confronted with her own shortcomings in the romance department. The fashion, the catchphrases, and Silverstone’s magnetic performance — they’re all standouts here.

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9. Can’t Hardly Wait (1998)

Run Time: 100 min | IMDb: 6.5/10

Anyone who grew up in the 90s already knows this movie’s deal. The teen comedy follows a group of high school grads all with different plans for their final night together. Some want to get laid, others want to get wasted at a fellow student’s blowout, but they’re all forced to reckon with growing up and moving on — one way or another.

10. Deep Impact (1998)

Run Time: 120 mins | IMDb: 6.2/10

Hollywood’s obsession with the end of the world goes back a long way, enough to reach this late 90s disaster flick starring Robert Duvall, Tea Leoni, Elijah Wood, and Morgan Freeman. The plot, like pretty much every apocalyptic movie that follows it, imagines a comet on a collision course with Earth and a group of people determined to stop it – or at the very least, survive it.

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Recent Changes Through June 2020:
Removed: My Girl, First Wives Club
Added: Clueless, The Silence of the Lambs

On Monday, news broke that filmmaker Joel Schumacher had passed away at the age of 80. He had a long career, going back to the early ’70s, when he was a costume designer on films like Woody Allen’s Sleeper, before becoming a screenwriter (his credits include Car Wash and The Wiz) and eventually a director. As such, he amassed many friends, collaborators, and fans, many of whom took to social media to mourn his passing.

Let’s start with Kiefer Sutherland, who appeared in both Schumacher’s ’80s sexy young adult vampire movie The Lost Boys as well as his medical horror Flatliners.

Speaking of The Lost Boys, another of its stars, Corey Feldman, mourned him while making it clear that Schumacher, who was openly gay and quite prolific with his partners, was not one of the people in the industry he’s alleged abused him and others.

Schumacher had a diverse CV, ranging from Brat Pack movies (St. Elmo’s Fire) to vigilante movies (Falling Down) to John Grisham movies (The Client) to two separate comic book movies, Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, which took a more camp approach to the crime fighter than Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan. Jim Carrey played the Riddler in Forever, as well as starred in 2007’s The Number 27.

Emmy Rossum, meanwhile, broke into movies by co-starring in Schumacher’s 2004 adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical The Phantom of the Opera.

Schumacher wasn’t only mourned by collaborators. He inspired other filmmakers as well, such as Rian Johnson, who took time to salute his costume designs on a favorite of his: the star-studded 1973 murder mystery The Last of Sheila, written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins.

Kevin Smith never worked with him but, as a-number one comic book fan, he did get to meet him.

Michael McKean also never worked with him, but he had kind words as well.

Elsewhere, people pointed to Schumacher’s colorful commentary track on Batman and Robin, in which he confesses to have wanted to make a darker movie but was blocked by Warner Bros., who wanted to sell toys.

Schumacher’s lighting style, especially on his neon-heavy Batman movies, got some love.

Others praised him for essentially smuggling what was essentially queer cinema into the summer movie season.

And others pointed to what appears to have effectively been Schumacher’s exit interview, aka the delightfully frank one he gave to Vulture in August of 2019. What a life, indeed.

Rarely has a Top Chef competitor looked like such a lock to make the finale from the very beginning as Melissa King did this season. She debuted at number two in my weekly power rankings and never fell out of the top five, all while seeming insanely chill and utterly unflappable. She strolled through this competition like she was at a Sunday Farmers’ Market. In the final episode, she made a dessert so good it brought an Italian butcher to literal tears.

You could make a case that hers was the greatest Top Chef performance of all time. All the more impressive considering that this was an all-star season, in which all of her competitors were chefs who had been runners up or high finishers in their own seasons.

I nicknamed King “Valedictorian” for the air of effortless achievement she has about her. As it turns out, she was something of a prodigy — assisting in her mother’s kitchen from the age of five or six and handling whole dinners alone by 11 or 12. This in a family that had homemade stock on the stove every night and where they ate whole roasted fish multiple times a week. On the show, King managed to assert her unique perspective, growing up as an Asian kid in Southern California, even while cooking Italian food for Italian chefs in Italy — successfully combining Szechuan chilis and XO sauce with Italian ingredients for a brain trust that has long considered “fusion” a dirty word.

King also put the lie to the idea that a reality show needs big drama or divisiveness to be interesting. She was happy, healthy, confident, competent, openly queer, and content to let her food speak for itself most of the time. And it did. She’s so seemingly put together and well-adjusted that you wonder if she’s found life’s cheat code.

In an industry that’s notoriously tough on its culinary professionals, with grueling schedules, late nights, low pay, substance abuse temptations, and needle-thin profit margins, Melissa King has managed to be a name brand chef without the responsibility of running a restaurant. Instead, she owns a company focused on culinary events and experiences. Which is to say, she sets her schedule, rather than being at the mercy of the market.

Do I wish I could go to a Chef Melissa King restaurant right now? Absolutely, but if you were her, would you rather have a varied calendar of special events or a 60-hour weekly grind of making many of the same things over and over again? No contest. Of course, both business models are in jeopardy these days — as the industry rethinks what being a chef means and how they go about it. But maybe that discussion was overdue.

I spoke to Melissa by phone this week. Just like the experience of watching her on the show, it felt like a vacation from my worries. There aren’t many people with that kind of contagious chill.

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How did you celebrate?

I watched the East Coast feed at my mom’s house, and my mom made a huge Chinese feast to celebrate, and we had just some small family members come over. It was like a handful of us, but we did that, and then at 10:00, I did a Zoom party with all my personal friends. A lot of tears and stuff.

Is that a bummer not being able to invite a bunch of people over and celebrate with friends?

I mean, a little bit, for sure. I know the first time I did Top Chef, we were in the real world, so I could have parties and cook a lot of food, and that was sort of the way I would celebrate each episode, but this time it’s been very small, intimate, just a lot of Zoom parties. But yeah, it’s really a different experience. I remember last night on the 10:00 showing with my friends, I said … because I started crying at the end, and then they are all congratulating me. So the first thing I said was, “I wish you guys were all here so I could hug you and we could do this in real life.” But we’re all looking forward to that in the future.

What did your mom make for your big winner’s feast?

So you know the Chengdu episode, where we drove around East L.A. And I went to Chengdu, and there’s that Szechuan fish dish that we ate. My mom basically made that. It’s a whole fish with Szechuan chilies, a lot of chili oil on top, and then she made the Shanghainese… they’re these pork meatballs, they’re called lion’s head meatballs, that’s what it translates to in Chinese. We had Cantonese-style braised abalone with bok choy, which is a very celebratory dish. You usually eat it at weddings or graduations.

Where’d you get the abalone? It’s kind of hard to get abalone these days, isn’t it?

Yeah. I mean, she finds them at all these Chinese places. I don’t know, and, usually, they come imported in dried form, and you have to rehydrate them.

So does winning change your career plans at all?

I mean, it certainly helped my career plan. But I think just even going on the show was something I was really proud of myself for, and I’m excited for the future. I know I have a lot of goals and ambitions and things that I still haven’t achieved that I want to do. So hopefully, winning really helps get me to that place.

And what are some of those (goals)?

Let’s see here, so many things. So I launched a small batch sauce line, that I actually just created. It was inspired by sitting in quarantine all day long, and I was like, “How can I continue to get my food out there to people even though I can’t connect with them?” And so I batched up three or four skews of sauces that I’ve actually made on the show, like a Szechuan chili sauce, an XO sauce, and the fish sauce caramel, and launched that, and literally sold out several hundred units in 25 minutes. So I started thinking, I would love this to be a bigger thing and invest some money into really building a product line. And then cookbook opportunities. I think I’ve always wanted to have a cookbook and be an author and go and have something that’s a little more concrete — something that I could hold of my work. I’m never going to say no to a restaurant. I think it’s more of I’m being cautious of the where and the when, and just trying to be smart about it and make sure that where I build it and when I do it, it’s sustainable and it’s in the financial perspective of things. I know restaurants are having a pretty difficult time, especially right now. And then I started doing a lot of these virtual cooking classes that also kind of came from COVID, like virtual cooking webinars, and I would actually really love to continue doing that. I’ve been enjoying it. It makes me feel connected to people and able to kind of bring something to your home.

I think we see owning a restaurant as the goal of this show in some way, but when I look at it from a chef’s perspective, if you can still be a chef without having to have that stress level every day, that seems maybe a preferable lifestyle in some ways?

Certainly. I think owning a restaurant, there is so much… it is a very high risk and overhead and things you got to consider for your lifestyle. And so, certainly, yeah, I’ve managed to build my career since my first Top Chef, where I’m a chef without a restaurant, and I am able to continue to connect with people with my food. So I’m proud of that. And I actually feel … I mean, I would be happy continuing as is, but of course, I know a lot of people out there would love to try my food somewhere. Part of my goal since I was a child is like, you need to own a restaurant and like have a place for people. And that’s still part of the dream package, but there are so many things.

So what job were you doing before you got on the show?

So I own a company and it’s really focused on culinary experiences and partnerships. I love collaborating. I think that’s my strength and something I just truly enjoy doing, whether it’s collaborating with a dinner party or collaborating on a larger scale with a company and really trying to provide a way to bridge together food and whatever it is that brand represents. But I think I’ve always been so interested in connecting with, like music and food. I love going to food festivals and cooking there because I think artists, we all have a similarity of wanting to create an experience for people, so why not do it together and find a cool way to do that and put that together? So it was all very in-person facing. And then with COVID, it’s sort of, I’ve managed to adapt things to a virtual experience and bring that experience to your home.

Was there anything that you did or that happened on the show that your friends roasted you for?

Let’s see here… I mean, that salad was horrible. That sad salad from the Pali mountain challenge, I like never want to think about again. It’s the most embarrassing salad I’ve ever made in my career or my life. But really, it was just so half-assed and thrown together. So yeah, just time was ticking and all the ingredients were gone. But yeah, that salad … I think if anything, I was roasting myself about the salad more than anybody else.

How guilty do you feel about giving Bryan Voltaggio his third finale loss?

Now you’re making me feel guilty. I mean, I try not to think too much about it. In that moment, I was just like, “You know what? Whoever wins here, I’m just so proud of all of us, because we’ve worked so hard.” And everyone was making perfect food, and it was just kind of so hard for the judges to really like narrow down the finest details of why they didn’t like your dish. So I know Bryan has really worked so hard in his career. And I actually am amazed at how he was able to do this three times because it is something none of us, I don’t think, will ever want to do again. It’s so stressful. So I really commend him and respect him for having such ambition and willpower to do it again and strength.

Were there any specific points, either being there or just watching, where you disagreed strongly with something the judges said or a decision that they made?

No. I guess, keep in mind when you watch, you kind of see like a glimpse of the judges’ table, but in reality, it’s a much longer experience. So they really get through the very fine details of everything, and they see everything, they see every detail of what we did wrong and what we did right. And it’s all information that we, as professional chefs, agree with and we also know we messed up on. So everything they said to me, I always took it more as feedback rather than criticism, and I tried to really apply that to the next challenge.

Do you have a first food memory?

Let’s see here… I mean, I’ve been cooking since I was five or six, or at least like helping in the kitchen. Some early food memories are … it was always like helping my mom wash rice and then steam it. I think that’s every Asian kid’s first job in a kitchen, you’re the rice cooker. And then making Chinese bone broth was something that my mom would do nightly. She would make a big pot of bone broth with chicken bones, goji berries, jujubes, and ginseng. She would boil that for four to six hours. And then we would drink that, usually after dinner.

I would be the one responsible to grab the bones from the freezer and put them in the water and get it all sort of set up for her, so that’s always a very like fond memory. And then congee is another one that is very much ingrained in my emotions. And because every time I was sick, my mother would make congee. And I would say a lot of Asian kids, that’s usually the dish. It’s like the chicken noodle of Chinese culture is like you’re sick, this is what mom’s making you. So there are some early food memories.

Wow, and you guys would drink the broth every night?

Yeah. My mom would make the soup and then we would drink that every night. We’d also have a whole steamed fish on the table, usually a couple of times a week. A whole fish with the head and the tail. That was very normal for me to see. What else? The dumplings… anytime we had a family gathering of some sort, there would always be a table of aunties and cousins, wrapping dumplings.

I have a theory that whenever I eat a new cuisine or food I’m unfamiliar with, I always go dumplings. It seems like dumplings always have the most, I don’t know, knowledge that goes into them.

It’s a good one. I mean, I think it’s got the most love, if I were to pick one adjective because it takes so much work and effort to wrap one singular dumpling. And so, to make a whole table of them, it really takes a lot of love, and you feel that when you eat it.

What was the moment when you decided that you wanted to be a chef, as a lifestyle?

It was such it was just a hobby, as I mentioned, from like age five or six, and I was putting dinner on the table by 11 or 12 and kind of doing that by myself. I mean, I wanted to be a chef since I could remember, honestly. It wasn’t until maybe high school where I started recognizing that this could actually be a career. I tried to push to go to culinary school right after high school, but my family and my parents were basically discouraging me and saying you need to get a quote-unquote real degree and go to college and get your undergrad degree. I think secretly they were hoping that going to college would switch my direction of life, because there was some resistance on being a chef professionally. And there were a lot of talks of like, “Why don’t we just keep this as a hobby?”

But I think once I stepped foot in my first kitchen, which was at the Getty Museum, that was my first job when I was 17. I was like, “You know what? I want to just pick up a job in a real kitchen, just to see what it feels like, to see if this is something I really want to do with my life.”

And of course, family resisted, but I did it anyways and fell in love with it, with the environment and the camaraderie that you find in a kitchen. You get to play with food all day long. So yeah, I was like 17, thinking, “This is the best job in the world! Why are people telling me not to do this?”

In retrospect, are you happy that you didn’t go to culinary school right out of high school? Or do you wish you had?

In retrospect, I’m very grateful that I listened to my family and then I went to a traditional college. I think there’s so much value to that and life experience that I gained from going to college. So I did my undergrad at UC Irvine. I did two years at UC Santa Barbara, transferred to UC Irvine, and finished my degree in cognitive science. But of course, I didn’t pursue cognitive science and literally never use it in my normal life, but I am very grateful that I made that decision, and then I went to CIA.

I don’t know, you do seem very mentally, even keel and stable…

So you guys have to live with each other on this show. Was there anybody who had strange personal habits that stand out in your mind?

Let’s see here. Well, Malarkey, he wakes up… say we have a 5:00 AM call time or something. He’ll wake up at 3:00 AM. And I’m like, “what are you doing? Get as much sleep as you can.” But the guy is just like the Energizer bunny. He doesn’t stop, and he has so much energy. So he would wake up two hours before everybody else, jump on a treadmill for an hour. And then he would jump on the elliptical for another hour. And I’m like, “This guy’s a beast.” So that was funny to see. Who else? I mean, I stayed in the room. My roommate was Gregory as you guys know. And we roomed together in the Boston seasons and we just got along so well. And our personalities are very similar in the way that we like kind of like a zen, quiet space. And we like to wake up and stretch and do yoga in the mornings. And so I’d wake up in the morning, and he’d be on the floor, like a little frog, laying there doing frog poses and yoga poses, so that was kind of his routine.

Do you still live in San Francisco? What keeps you there?

Oh, so many things. The people, I think is one thing. There’s such a sense of community there and the people are so … I don’t know. People are just very unpretentious. And Northern California is a beautiful place, and I always joke that the produce keeps me there because it kind of does. I’m obsessed with beautiful produce and having access to the local farmers. And it’s just different than… I live in Los Angeles too, parts of the time, and it’s just different. I don’t know. Like it sounds beautiful and fresh.

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Vince Mancini is on Twitter. Read more of his cooking commentary in UPROXX’s Cooking Battles and Viral Cooking. For past Top Chef Power Rankings, go here.