This week we are laughing and learning from the very talented and witty-as-heck Chef Melissa Walnock. She’s a fellow central NJ native, who studied at and now is an instructor and Associate Dean of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY.

We talk about:

• How being a type 1 diabetic since childhood has shaped her career and artistry
• How having an OCD brain serves her extremely precise creations 
• Being a woman in some of the most famous kitchens in the country 
• Her crazy practical exam to become faculty at the Culinary Institute 
• What it’s like teaching the next generation the art of pastry
• We even get a surprise cameo from her Sommelier husband, Anthony, as we taste a wine that reminds him of his roots. 

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Check out her baking classes here

Be sure to follow her gorgeous Instagram @chefwalnock

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It's such. A, a nuanced thing to be in a kitchen.

(THEME MUSIC)

Nikki: there. Have you downloaded my wine tips cheat sheet yet? It is full of concepts about wine, literally from my brain to the paper. To help make it simple and easy for you to make sense of wine, you can grab it on my website, sip with nikki.com/resource, and I'll send it right to your inbox. So this week I am talking to another Central New Jersey native, Chef Melissa Walnock.

And I have followed her journey through adulthood. I knew that she had gone to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, which is the sister campus of the Culinary Institute here in New York. So, um, yeah. St Helena, California, where I did my wine certification and along the way in becoming a pastry chef.

And then more recently, closer to home for her, uh, Tabla in New York City and then Nicholas, which is in Red Bank. New Jersey, so she has definitely trained with and worked with some of the finest. And now Melissa is an instructor and recently promoted to an associate dean of the pastry school at the Culinary Institute.

However, it's, um, it's a very interesting story of how it all came to be. And, uh, finally, we get her take on the bear. You know, the bear is hot in the news right now on Hulu, just swept all of the Emmy Awards. And I was curious as someone who has worked in many high profile kitchens, what she thinks. So Melissa will weigh in on the bear.

So hope you have fun listening to Chef Melissa Walnock. Here we go.

Chef Melissa: Oh my goodness, Chef Melissa

Nikki: Walnock, aka Missy from childhood. How are you?

Chef Melissa: I'm good. How you doing? I'm good. Thanks for being here today. Thank you for having me. First time podcaster, so this is

Nikki: fun. Your first time podcast. It's fun. It's easy.

We're just, we're just, you know, catching up. Don't be scared. It is a Saturday in January. What's going on in your life, in your house, in your world

So you

Nikki: got a full house. It's you and Anthony and then you have mom and dad and then you have two kiddos who are ages.

Chef Melissa: Taylor is 15 and Henley is going to be 8 tomorrow. 15 and 8.

Nikki: Mm hmm. You have a birthday, a birthday celebration going on

Chef Melissa: this weekend? Oh, we're doing Hello Kitty gymnastics. It's just going to be amazing.

It's a lot of pink decorations, a lot of balloons, a lot of Hello Kitties everywhere. I made a massive cake with all the characters on it. And, uh, there's going to be some trampolining and then eating and then probably throwing up. At some point or another, these kids are going to be a mess, but it's fine.

And then instead of like, I was going to put balloons like popping out of the cake, but they're macarons in the shape of balloons on stick. So they're all She needs her backgrounds, loves her French backgrounds, . So, Hey, bougie bitch. Can we say that on it sounds like, yeah. . . You can say bougie bitch. There you go.

She's, she's, she's, um, well, it sounds

Nikki: like she's been raised, exposed to some, um, I don't know, beautiful confections and pastry. Um, wherever could that have come from?

Chef Melissa: No idea. I have great friends, . So,

Nikki: in the intro for this, I have shared with our listeners your, your lineup and your credentials and where you worked and Tabla and John George and French laundry and, and all of that.

Like

Chef Melissa: literally right around the corner. Yep. So

Nikki: you grow up same place as me. You're a couple of years younger. You're in Amanda's class and. Tell me when the culinary slash pastry bug kind of first bit and we'll go from

Chef Melissa: there. Um, it was I wish I had I say this all the time when people ask me like how I got started in this and I wish I had a better story like oh, I grew up baking with my grandmother and I did used to cook my dad's mom was awesome.

We used to make pierogies by the hundreds like we did some things here and there. There's no like necessarily aha moment for this. But I had two older brothers and going through high school. I'm the only girl, but I was still like, Oh, you're Matt's sister. You're Mark's sister. And sometimes they would just call me that by accident.

I like being creative, but I'm not like an artist, you know, painting, drawing. That wasn't my thing, but I like being creative. Um, food has always been my, in my life. I, I type one diabetic when I was 10. So like food was always in my face of how much, what are you eating? What combination of things? So food was always big for me.

And I was like, Hey, let's give this a try. And I got a job, uh, at, I hope you remember this place in the Atlantic Highlands, The Clam Hut. It's a restaurant. Stop it! Yeah. Mr. Misolo from Attawan High School works at The Clam Hut. My best friend, Jen. Shout out to Misolo. Yeah, my best friend, Jen Black, growing up.

And that was my first intro to kitchens. And I just loved it. I love the energy. I love being in the chaos and you got to organize it and bring it all together and push through. I loved it. And no matter who you're with, you all have to work as a team, you know, we love that restaurant.

Nikki: So it was like a big family outing, like, let's go to the clam hut.

So when you started there, were you in the kitchen or were you on the floor, front of house, back of the house? How did

Chef Melissa: that work? Kitchen. I've never voluntarily done anything. Yes. I've never done anything voluntarily in the front of the house ever. Because you're so shy and don't like people. Yeah. I think there's no like filter is my problem that and like, I kudos to anyone who can walk up to a table, take an order and get it right.

I could never have everything would be a mess. But yeah, so I definitely stayed in the kitchen,

Chef Melissa: execute all of that. Not a problem. Interesting.

Nikki: Different, different part of the brain, I guess. All right.

So you're working at the clam hut in the kitchen. How long are you there for? And then what happens next?

Chef Melissa: I did two summers there. And in once I realized, like, wow, this is really fun. I started looking for culinary schools. I was like, okay, let's figure this out. And, and I'm not just saying this, because it's full circle.

And I work there now. But the culinary has been well known, world renowned. Top Dog for a very long time, so I just wanted to go there and, um, my initial plan was just to go get my associates and, and start working, but I, I kind of made a deal with my parents that if I was going to do this, cause at the time, this was really before food network and like a career and we're being a chef was like, Oh my God, so cool.

I'm a serious, whatever. And everybody's give me

Nikki: a, give me a year range. We're talking. So I

And I'm like, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. So. We were back and forth about it and I said, if I stay to get my bachelor's, can we just see what happens with this? So I ended up doing what's technically a four year degree, but the culinary, if anybody's aware of the schedule, it just never stops. We go year round.

For the most part, we get a couple weeks off in August and that's it. There's no stopping. So I was able to get a bachelor's degree in, uh, about three and a half years, just over three and a half years. And, um, that was that. But I went, I visited the campus and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. And it's just everyone's walking around in chef whites and toques and doing their thing.

So it was, it was. It held your interest. Short of accounting classes, I just, I loved everything. It was very, very educational. They send you out on an externship during your associate's program, so that's like your first year and a half you're there, um, is your associate's, and they send you out for about 18 weeks to just make sure that this is what you want to do.

And sometimes kids just stay out there and work and sometimes they come back. Yeah. I just chose to go down to the breakers. I've never worked at a hotel before. So I wanted to see what that was like. And my externship was over the summer. So I was like, all right, let's do a beach and beautiful, beautiful place to be.

And, um, that's in Palm Beach. Yeah. Like, like Palm, like the Island Palm Beach Island. So it was like, I'm the only one driving a Volkswagen Jetta around Palm Beach. And I remember like distinctly getting out of my car and like locking the door. I'm like, who cares? Like, no, one's going to take my car, you know, it doesn't matter.

But, um, yeah, I lived there. I used to,

Chef Melissa: see. still could not afford. Mercedes, BMW, anything, anything but what I had. And like, you know, so I used to just walk to work. It was a dream. I walked two blocks to the beach on my days off and I walked to work every other day and I got to see a lot of things we did.

Um, I don't know if anybody knows the breakers aware of the breakers, but it's massive. It has a lot of history to it. We used to do banquets, a lot of political banquets, things like that for 5, 000 people, 6, 000 people at a time. And there's three or four of those going on. within 24 hours. It was, it was a high production facility.

Would I want to work in that again? No, but it was a great, great experience and it really. got my mind organized for this business because if you missed one thing it's like a domino effect you know if you forget to do you know make these few cakes it's like you're set back hours and forget it like everything's knocked off course for the for the weekend so you it was it was an intense job Especially for somebody, like, I didn't know how to really do anything.

Nikki: What made you pick so early on you said you either go culinary or you go pastry, right? What made you choose what you did pastry?

Chef Melissa: I think it's my Personality piece like I I've definitely calmed down with my OCD since having kids it's just impossible, you know to like I'd be up 24 hours a day just trying to clean everything but um, I have an OCD brain but I also like to be very creative and this just brought those two things together and you know everything's scaled especially in pastry everything's down to the gram when you're making a recipe and things like that and um, at the same time putting something on a plate or experimenting with flavors you have such freedom.

And I just find that so fascinating that we created something brand new. By just putting the right things together, you know what I mean from the absence

Nikki: of anything from nothing. You can't grow a cake Oh, I love that. I love that. Yeah, I've never really thought about it in that way, but it's so true. Yeah Mm hmm.

There's chickens out there. There's cows out there.

Chef Melissa: What are you salt and pepper? I'm throwing Yeah, you got everything you need already You just know

Nikki: I love that. Mm hmm I want to go back to actually two different things that you said, um, just now. And the first one was you said type one diabetics since 10 years old.

Chef Melissa: that been, it's interesting, because I don't, I don't know where to start with this.

Um, as far as being 10 years old and having this kind of dropped in your lap, right. I ended up if anybody just a little background on type one diabetes, you're born with it. It's different than type two. It's different scenarios. So it was already in my system at birth and it's usually something either super stressful or another illness that are kind of just flick that switch and like your symptoms start setting in.

So when I was 10, um, I want to say it was one of, it was my grandfather I think who had passed away and then at the same time I got this awful bout of strep throat and strep throat for anyone with an autoimmune knows a lot of times it starts with that for some reason. Um, So I just got very sick very quickly.

And it was like a dentist appointment or something. And my mom was with me. And there's this, um, when you're in ketoacidosis, meaning that your blood sugar is super high, you get kind of this Transcribed by https: otter. ai Weird, fruity breath. And my mom just like leaned over to say something to me, I replied and I just remember her face and she just kind of looked at me and I was in the ER that night and my blood sugar was, I don't know, a little over 600, I think, and normal, I think at this point, normal is 80 to 100.

That's it. They're really kind of tightening the parameters on it. So. Yeah, I kind of found out I was diabetic and, um, it was very funny because I just wanted to get out of the hospital. So I was like, what do I need to do? And they're like, you need to give yourself shots. And I was like, show me and boom, we were out.

Um, but yeah, everything changed. We had scales everywhere. It was like skim milk and low fat this and that, which again, completely different mentality. Now my, my days and we're just very focused around food. And I know just looking back at it now and being a parent now, how stressful it was for my parents, regardless of my mom's medical background, it's still scary.

You don't know, You know, what's the school day gonna bring? Are you gonna get low and not feel it? and sometimes that happens and you know, so food was in my face for a very long time and To say that hasn't mentally impacted me would be a lie Like I definitely have some things surrounding food, which is very typical also with diabetics.

How could it not be? It's like you have to think about everything All the time. Every day. And no matter, Oh my God, I think

Chef Melissa: Exactly. As I'm eating breakfast, I'm like, Hmm, what's for lunch? You know, it's like, or it's that mentality, you know, what am I in the mood for?

Yeah. It's just like, I have to figure out, okay, what do I do in between that? And I, I kid you not, like if I'm going to go out for a tasting menu, which we do, I love, I love it. Give me 12 courses, give me wine, give me whatever, like I have to think about that all day. It's like, I don't want to eat, you know, a more carb loaded breakfast.

I want to save this all and I want to make sure that I go for like a big walk before I go out to dinner just so my body's moving, my metabolism's moving, it'll kind of help keep my blood sugar low. It's like that kind of thought that goes into it, which also at the same time is the thought that has to go into my daily life in a kitchen in all honesty.

That's never been my specialty. Never been my thing. I don't find them overly healthy. Um, not that they're, you know, they're sugar alcohols. They're not gonna kill you unless you like that's of it, you know, but it really causes digestive issues. Anybody who's had sorbitol, sugar free, whatever, those things will mess with your digestion and stuff like that.

I try to avoid it and it's more about Just balance of what you're, you're eating. So like I'll have guests come into a restaurant and say, Oh, I'm a diabetic. I'll just have sorbet. And I'm like, no, no, it's like sugar on sugar, you know, food has sugar, then you're adding sugar. So, you know, so it's more honestly be better with a small scoop of ice cream or a piece of cheesecake where you have that fat that kind of slows that sugar down to get into your system.

Or you know, this is gluten free, this is what everybody else is going to eat. And I had a great opportunity to speak at a conference this year and do a demo. And it was, it was really cool for me as a diabetic too, to realize that you don't necessarily need all these replacement sugars. And if you. Kind of like I made a chocolate mousse cake and the chocolate cake had used black beans in it And that's a great source of protein.

Yes carbs, but protein and I use a monk fruit sugar that has zero calories And it's not a sugar alcohol and it can sweeten very little added can sweeten something just enough that Every you couldn't tell I made for the guests I made an original recipe of everything and then I made a high protein lower sugar version of it and Side by side, you couldn't tell that there was even really a difference.

So here's what

I

Nikki: just take took away from what you just shared, knowing you since childhood and knowing you through family and my sister and kind of hearing what you were doing. I feel like it was always like, Oh my God, have you heard about Missy? She's going to culinary school. And, you know, remember she's diabetic.

It actually makes a ton of sense. It does. Why that is the direction.

Chef Melissa: Yes. Right? Yep. I just, there's um, I mean, anybody who does this for a living, you have to have a passion for what you do. It's low pay. It's hard work. It's, no one's patting you on the back and saying, great job. You know, unless you're, you're a Thomas Keller.

You know what I mean? So. There's not a, you have to have a passion for what you do, but on top of it, there's that opportunity to, you know, use my, my personal life and what I've gone through and whatever, and share that with other people and let other people out there who may not be in the profession or as aware of food that's out there that you can use or make that is it.

Just normal. Now. I

So, you know, you could have continued in, in kitchens. He worked in a lot of really fantastic places with really famous chefs. You mentioned TK, Thomas Keller a moment ago, and, you know, John George and Danny, Danny Meyers.

Chef Melissa: Yeah, it was a Union Square Cafe and Tabla were both Danny Meyers. Yeah. Mm hmm. Like,

Nikki: just as a foodie nerd like me, like someone who watches Chef's Table and Masterclass and lives, you know, on the other side of the mountain from Yauntville, like when, you know, some of these names, I'm just like, ah, it's so cool.

So why choose then to take the, um, the, uh, education, uh, option and start teaching?

So I said, Eventually, I will get back and back to the CIA. And I'll teach. It just seems a logical thing, a great place to retire. And at that point in time, I was living in the city and working at Tabla. Um, I switched over to work at Restaurant Nicholas and any, any Monmouth County, New Jersey person knows Nicholas.

It's, that place was amazing. And I was very fortunate. It was like 15 minutes from where I was living at the time. But again, same hours and you're working. And I think Taylor turned. Uh, three and he kind of looked at me and was like, I miss you, you know, and I'm like, no, you're right. Like I'm not home for anything as much as I love what I do.

I just, you know, I have a family now and at that point I met my now husband at Nicholas, which was pretty awesome. So a lot of, a lot of things are happening and you met

Nikki: Anthony at Nicholas. We

And we just, we ended up all, it was just everybody just kind of hanging out. And, you know, we were friends first for quite some time. And then, you know, something just clicked and like, Hey, you know, so all of this was going on. And then Taylor was young and like, I was barely seeing him. So I said, Alright, let me let me put my They were searching.

So I got the phone call I an interview. They had me back up for the practical, which was probably the most nerve wracking thing I've ever done in my life. And I ended up getting the job there. What was awesome is that they hired me to be a pastry chef in the restaurants and to teach students how How to do pastry in a restaurant environment.

So that's great. So Yeah, all those little bonuses So yeah, can you

Nikki: tell me about the practical as part of that interview? Do you remember

Chef Melissa: what you had to do? I remember, I will never forget. I will never forget. I, you know, like this whole job is pressure. Like you, you can plan as much as you want to, but you don't know what you're walking into.

And it could be in the middle of service. I love being weeded. I love the chaos, whatever. Going in for this practical, my hands were like literally shaking. So the way it's set up, and it's funny because I'm now on the search committee. to hire new faculty for pastry. So we kind of revise this and go through it, make sure the practical keeps making sense and whatever, whatever.

So, um, You get basically two and a half days to get this done. You come up to campus. So I had two laminated items. So I ended up doing a laminated brioche and croissant. We had two entremets, and if anybody's aware of an entremet, it's like a, like a French inspired, very delicate Cake, but it's like a mousse cake.

So that one thing alone. is big. So we have 24 croissant, 24 laminated brioche, two entremets, 12 petit gateaux.

Nikki: Laminated. Tell me laminated. Break that down for me. That's

Chef Melissa: like a puff pastry, things like that, where you have your dough and you just keep. So you lock in your butter, you roll it out, do your folds, roll it out, do your folds while, you know, taking breaks in between so you're not overworking that gluten.

There's a lot of science to that too. So laminate, laminating dough is, it's that delicious, buttery, flaky, fatty goodness. And you can make a variety of things out of it. That's a new

term

Nikki: for me. Thank you. I just learned that. Thank you. Lamination. I knew you were not putting in a plastic machine between pages.

Chef Melissa: That's a better way to describe. Yeah, I think depending on how you do your folds, you'll end up with like a thousand different layers. So it's, that's where like the term millefeuille comes through and things like that, but that's, you know, food, food.

So a mill being thousand. Yeah. Yep. Okay. Um, yeah. So, croissants, laminated brioche, two entremets, twelve petit gateaux, which are individual portions based off of your entremet, um, two petit four, so I did, um, twenty four bonbons, so molded chocolates. Do you

Nikki: know this ahead of

Chef Melissa: time, going in? They give you the categories, not what to do with it, they're just like, you have to make this many things, so you get a day and a half to prep all that out, um, like a seven to five, you know, come in the next day, and then seven to one o'clock, one o'clock you present, and then you get.

The afternoon to like, I don't know, go cry in a corner or whatever I ended up doing. And are

Nikki: they watching your work or you're just presenting the finished product? People are

And then the third day you teach a class basically. So you're in front of students and you do a 30 minute, uh, lecture and demo. And it was, did you love

Nikki: that part? I feel like that's just you. That was the scariest part for me. I know that. Really? Okay.

Chef Melissa: Yeah. You know what's weird is that like I can act a fool in a room any day of the week.

I don't care. But when everyone's silent and staring at me, like walking down the aisle for my wedding, terrifying. I'm like, why is everyone just like that focus? I don't like it. I don't like it, but it's not like I'm worried about embarrassing myself in in real life. I don't really care about much of anything but that like.

It's hard. Plus it's interesting being pulled right out of industry. And then teaching, you know, you don't think about all of the little nuances of like, okay, now I'm going to add my baking soda and a hand goes up. What's baking soda? And I'm like, son of a, I haven't had to break this down scientifically in God knows how long.

So, you know, by the time they get to the end, you have an idea, but the in between it's like, okay, have you tempered chocolate? Do you know what tempering chocolate even means? Do you know what baking powder is? And, you know, and it's, there's so much to really break down. Scientifically for everyone. So that's the part I had to think about as I was doing it and just being able to work and keep eye contact and engaging a crowd.

It's, it's an art all unto itself. So, Oh, absolutely. It's a

Nikki: totally different skill set that you're laying around, layering on top of what you're actually doing that you're laminating on top of what you're full circle. Can I not use those words interchangeably? Yeah, you got that right. You also have your own small business where you can create and do hands on, right?

So she was You know, I didn't want to, it was nice to kind of have an agenda at home and have a bit of a schedule rather than just whatever you want for five months, it could really get out of hand. So I started that online, which was great. So every week I would do like three different items, take orders, I would deliver and do all that stuff.

stuff since back to work and really amping up and kind of back to where we were at school pre COVID. Like our enrollment is back to what it was and it, we're in really great shape. I've tapered off doing the, the week to week, but I do special order cakes and I mean I can kind of make whatever. So chocolate sugar cookies are like a

Nikki: Hello Kitty cake with every possible Hello Kitty character on it.

Not got

Nikki: So you have a website, crumbconfections. com where people can order in the like local New York, New Jersey, like bake for kind of

Chef Melissa: my biggest range is like from here down to the city, which is about a 90 miles. So about an hour and a half, but I do about an hour and a half. radius of me in, in LaGrangeville.

So, you know, and that, like I said, could be anything. People, sugar cookies for, you know, baby showers, whatever. So I, I do all of that. And, um, I used to live over in Garner up until about four or five months ago and, um, there is this beautiful B& B right around the corner from where I used to live and through a third party connection I started, um, doing classes there.

So I do now we're up to anywhere between one to four classes a month at the, um, Watergrass Hill B& B. So you can look that up too if anybody's in the area and

Nikki: I want to come and be in your class. Can I

It's just stunning and you're totally in the country and it's just so it's beautiful So people yeah, we do um Every year we, you know, we do a pies and tarts for Thanksgiving, usually chocolates around Valentine's day. And we, are they just like a

Nikki: single standalone class where you can go to one? Or is it a

Chef Melissa: series of multiple weeks, just one and it's in about two and a half hours, we do everything.

So I'll demo everything. Um, some of it's hands on, but you know, two and a half hours, usually. Make three different things. I try to do that so everybody can see a wide range of a technique I'm trying to teach and you go home with everything.

Nikki: So if people want to look at the schedule and sign up to bake with you, um, where do they find that class

Chef Melissa: info?

On Watergrass Hill B& B, I believe it is, dot com. You can Google Watergrass Hill and it'll pull up the website and then, um, go on the website and look under workshops.

We need some wine. Do you think it's time for some wine? Yeah.

Chef Melissa: Sips by light. Okay.

Nikki: Um,

Chef Melissa: perfect. When,

Nikki: when you and I were prepping to do this recording today and I, you know, I told you, Oh, we, we pick a wine and I'll send it to you and we're going to sip the same wine. Do you have any preferences? Do you remember what you said?

Chef Melissa: Uh, I think I preferred white, uh, Crisp, not sweet, and a little acidic fruity.

Chef Melissa: about wine.

I do love to enjoy wine. And the funny thing about alcohol, and it's more like, you know, vodka and liquor more than wine. But it does end up and forgive me because I don't know the full science behind this. I've read it and it's in and out of my brain. But alcohol actually lowers your blood sugar. So you do have to be careful when you're drinking but not for the reason that you would normally think so.

Because it lowers it. Yes.

Nikki: Because of the alcohol. Yes. Right. Because a wine like this that we are going to taste today, there's no sugar in this glass. Mm hmm. There's alcohol. Mm hmm. There's calories from alcohol, right? But there is no glucose, fructose. That has all been converted into this beautiful alcohol.

Yes. That is in this bottle through the magic of fermentation, which is now my world. By the way, I don't know if you know this, but we have CIA Culinary Institute in common. Do you know that I did the wine program at the Culinary Institute here in St.

Chef Melissa: Helena? I did your, uh, Amanda told me that she told me you were going.

Nikki: Well, we call it Hogwarts. It looks like a big castle. Um, so you said a crisp, nice acidity white. So I started to think about what do we do? And I don't even know why my brain went to Greece. Maybe because Michael and I had just watched big fat Greek wedding three, like I'm streaming a couple of weeks ago.

One of my favorite movies, the original one three was okay, but the original one is my favorite. And we're also planning, this is so selfish, but we're also planning a, um, a cruise in June for my dad, Big Dom's 80th birthday. Oh my God. And we're going to, uh, out of Rome and we're going to Greece, which we've never been.

Chef Melissa: right?

Yes, he is. Yep. Half Greek, half Sicilian. He's got a very big personality. Uh, I love just I don't know. It's like one of those things that just was meant to be this today. He, um, he lost his dad like a year ago, or no, almost two actually at this point. And our goal at this point, they've been to Greece, his family's been to Greece, but I never have been.

So we all want to do like just a return trip at some point, because he literally, from Greece came over here when he was, I want to say, between 16 and 18 years old and never went back. He, he loved America. He stayed and, you know, it was very cool to just get to know him and the background and, you know, food in general, it's so universal and it brings people together.

Nikki: Say it again,

Chef Melissa: please. All the Greeks who may be listening to this are like, nope, but galactobotico, nice and slow.

I love it. Yeah, it's like a, um, uh, polenta ish kind of custard with, uh, citrus in it and, and phyllo. And I just remember he was also a diabetic, hilarious, and there was honey, everything in it. But he had the whole thing sitting in his lap and he and I were just sitting on the front porch of his house and he ended up devouring the whole thing.

And we were like, talk about getting in with the in laws. That was my, we were good after that. And we just always You closed him. That's it. That's it. You closed him with the jalapeno That's it. Nailed it. Yep.

Nikki: That's like the producer of this wine is domain Papa Gianna. Cause I think I said that. Okay. I did a little research.

Chef Melissa: I didn't want to hush the wines in my glass. I wanted to hush during that pour.

Nikki: Hush! I know it's hard for us to hush. Um, are you familiar with this grape? Have you had a

Chef Melissa: Syrteko before? I have not, and I have to be very honest with you. I know which wines I like and I don't like. I've never had, this is probably the second, maybe third Greek wine I've ever had.

I don't go fully in depth with wine. Like I said, I love drinking wine. I know what I like, and I know a little bit of what pairs with food. Totally my husband's thing. He went, he has his level one some, um, at this point and wants to continue. I know. And I laugh all the time because with food, I can taste like, I'm like, Oh, there's a little green cardamom on the back end of this and whatever it may be.

And he'll drink wine and he's like, Oh, it's like toast and almonds and this, that, and the other. I'm like, yep, it's white. Like,

Nikki: does he want to come in and taste

Nikki: here? I

Chef Melissa: didn't, I didn't know he was. Oh yes. But yeah, he, well, he worked at the CIA too, for a little while when we both moved up here and he was, um, a bar manager, American bounty, and he was able to get his level one there because they run the programs through for the students and things like that.

But he knows much more than I do. Like I said, I'm like, okay, that one's white, that one's red. I don't know why I can't taste what other people taste in wine. And it's so frustrating to me.

Nikki: Well, I can't taste green cardamom on the back of something, so, you know, anything it's training and it's training your nose and your palate, and then having the recall and the, um, the reference points, you know, when someone says hints of lemon zest in a wine, that's going to be a little different than what true lemon zest on a.

It's

Nikki: Or alcohol. We know there's no sugar in here. So the, the kind of runny legs, which doesn't sound great, but the fact that these teardrops and legs are not crawling down the side of the glass tells us most importantly that it's a lower alcohol wine.

It's a lighter body. It's going to feel less viscous in our mouth. And it's a lower alcohol wine because it's 13%, which

Chef Melissa: thinking

Nikki: about most of the wines that. We drink, especially if you're like me, you drink a lot of California wines. We're talking 14, 15, 16 percent alcohol. So 13 is pretty conservative, um, which is part of what's going to give you those, um, kind of quicker legs running down the side of the glass.

Chef Melissa: I think, uh, mentally it messes with me too when white wines have that deep yellow color. I'm like, Oh, I'm just, it's going to be too heavy for me and I'm not going to like it.

Nikki: Like, it looks like cat pee in the glass. Like, nothing. Too thick. Too thick. Yeah. So this grape, Assyrtiko, is originally from the island of Santorini.

These vines that this producer made the Assyrtiko from are 50 year old vines. But here's the cool thing about when they grow. In the Greek islands, because these are all volcanic islands and there's a lot of wind on these small islands, when you think of a vineyard, they developed, centuries ago, this process of how they train the vines really low to the ground, instead of like a big tall T, like traditional vines that we see.

Chef Melissa: That's pretty awesome. Yeah. Yeah. My Greek man is entering the building.

Nikki: Anthony, get in here, Anthony. You

Chef Melissa: Greek? You Greek? I was sharing with her, uh, your background. And that you got your level one and you're, you know, way more about wine than I ever will. We thought we'd share some with you and your Greekness. But I would just

Nikki: like to hear what he says. I'm going to swap

Chef Melissa: him out because you can explain what, what he's drinking.

I'm going to swap out for a minute. Come here. Come sit. Okay. But you're not off the hook. You're coming back. I'm totally coming back. I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to creepily stand next to him. What's happening? She's going to tell you about the wine real quick and then you're going to taste and talk about what you're, cause I told her that I'm like, yeah, it's white, it's red and that's all I know.

Hi friend.

Chef Melissa: yeah. Long, long time ago in a land far, far away called New Jersey. Um, yeah, actually, when we moved up here, um, I worked at the culinary for about a year.

And within that time, the, uh, the quartermasters, sommeliers came through and they were doing their level one, uh, exam, you know, and I got, I lucked out because they were like, Hey, do you want to do this? Actually. They didn't ask me if I wanted to do it. I, I, I budged my way in. Cause I was like, wait a minute, I'm, I can't pass up this opportunity,

Nikki: you know.

Well, congratulations. Have you enjoyed much Greek wine in your

Like it's very, you know, people's wine lists are becoming so expansive, you know, with the regions and whatnot now. Um, so it was kind of cute when she was, she, uh, the package came, she was open. She sent me a Greek one and I was like, Oh man. You

Nikki: know, like that's pretty cool. That was, that was like not strategic at all about like, I didn't know, I mean, I, I guess I could have looked at your last name and her last name, but I didn't even register.

Chef Melissa: Yeah, like some lemon, uh, lemon pith or lemon skin, lemon pith,

Nikki: you know? Mm

Chef Melissa: hmm. Little, uh, little green apple.

Definitely green apple flesh on the palate. I just like took a, a big sip of it too. This is delicious, like this is a This is like a

Nikki: 24 bottle. Really nice price point. Um, I shipped this to you guys on wine. com. When I look at the, um, producer's notes for this wine, they talk about sea spray as a note, which is so interesting.

Just obviously being from that volcanic island region. And then the producer also calls out hints of white tea. Are you getting any tea either on the nose or? Maybe like a little

Or like, that's a very commonly used like thing. Like how many fricking people have had starfruit in their life?

Nikki: Like probably nobody. Most people have not. So that is a bullshit reference. It means nothing to me.

Chef Melissa: So it becomes this, um You know, like what does it taste like to you kind of deal with it?

Nikki: That's a very specific note. Um, here's what I do know about this wine. The feeling of it in the mouth is very fresh. It's very bright. That nice acidity that we talk about. Um, uh, the term sharp.

Chef Melissa: Great. Right. For color too, as I'm looking at it right now, it is definitely clean. It's

Nikki: delicious, very clean on the finish, but there is a lingering bitterness on the back end, which almost presents to me like tannin.

Besides cheese, what else would you pair with this wine?

Chef Melissa: Food was, I mean, this would go really well with fish. Like it would cut, I think it would cut some of the fat of salmon, but definitely like white fish, you know, crab, oysters, shellfish, that sort of stuff.

Nikki: One of the things I'm excited about going to the Greek islands this summer, and I had a taste of this a couple times when I've been in Italy, but I just envisioned myself like sitting at a table by the seaside with a whole fish on my plate, which I love.

Oh,

Chef Melissa: absolutely. Absolutely. Um, yeah, it's got that, it's, it's got that crisp acidity that you kind of want, where it's not going to overpower, you know, what you're eating. Um, and it's just going to kind of cleanse your palate for the next bite. Um, I'm sorry. I'm like pouring right by the microphone. This is

Nikki: really good.

Nope. That's what we do here. Do it again. Like we do it on purpose. We

Chef Melissa: go like this. There we go. Very nice. This is delicious. It's audio

Nikki: porn. This might have to be a little ASMR there. Oh my gosh. What a fun unexpected treat to have you weigh in on our We call it on our wine today. Thank you. Not only were you her sound engineer, getting her set up with the mic and headphones today, but you're just like a roaming song.

Chef Melissa: Absolutely. It's nice to, and you know, somebody who's been so, especially a family who's been so important. In her life, too. And what's funny is, so like, I'm, you know, aside from being Greek, I'm also Sicilian, and, um, When she saw, like, my mom's side of the family, she would always be like, it kind of reminds me of Amanda's family.

You know, like, I'm like, what do you mean? She's like, well, you guys are talking, and it's very loud. And it's like, there's a lot of people, and it sounds like you're arguing, but you're not. Everyone's just having a conversation. It's joy at

Nikki: a very loud

Chef Melissa: volume. It's loud joy.

Nikki: When our family for breaking

Chef Melissa: her in early on so that this way it wasn't such a culture shock when she met my family

Nikki: You're welcome.

You're welcome That's

Nikki: even more now than I already did.

He's a wine

Chef Melissa: guy. And for no one can picture what he may look like, full on salt and pepper beard, long salt and pepper black hair. It's really nice. Very huggable. So do you like this wine? I love it. It's delicious. And I feel like it would go with a lot of things as well. But it is, it's exactly what I asked for, light, crisp, it finishes very quickly, like it doesn't coat your mouth and hang on there too long, so I think it would go well with food, light food, but it would go well with food because it won't overpower it, it would go with, you know?

She, she

Nikki: did you guys, she did this motion with her hands that I do when I'm explaining food and wine pairing where I take my two hands and I touch my fingers and I make them meet in the middle like equals. She did that. Yes, that's what we want is we want them to meet in the middle and be equals and elevate each other.

It's a lot of hard work and it's hard for a woman to make it in this business. So Prior to our conversation today, I was doing a little Googling and research, just like what percentage of chefs worldwide and are, are female? And then what percentage of pastry chefs are female? And again, I, I'm not going to throw out specific numbers because I haven't really, really fact checked this.

And then talk to me just a little bit about when your parents said that and then. How did it, how did it work being a woman in the culinary world?

Chef Melissa: Um, I feel like in industry, it's definitely changed since I started to where we are now. All but one of the patriarchs that I have worked under, all male. Um, and I, I see that evolving and I see, see that especially what's so funny is like, so I take the school as like a little bit of a pool because all of these kids are going out into the field.

So it's like a really nice way to look at it. Most of the culinary sample. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Nice experiments. Um, most of the culinary used to be men. Most of the pastry used to be women. And it's definitely so intermeshed at this point. And what makes me happy is that on our campus, there are now more females on our campus in general.

But yes, I've had mostly male pastry chefs. Um, I feel that it's switching, um, just because more people are getting involved. I think there's way more exposure to our industry, which I think is great. Do I feel that females, um, Um, I think for the past few years, top pastry chefs in the world have been females, which is great.

A few years ago was the first one. I think it's our natural personality and I think men look at things differently than women and men are like, right here, right now, let's do this. And that's. Essentially, again, your food's there, you cook it, I'm not diminishing what happens, trust me. The chicken is there, the cow is there.

Um, don't mind the measuring of the little things and all the intricacies that going into pastry entails. And I think there are far more women, Ooh, sorry, I kicked my table. Far more women who do this and are great at it, Versus the ones you actually hear about. And that's the difference there, too. You know, I think I think men just naturally got to get the attention for being in the field, which is funny, because what's the age old stereotype is women belong in the kitchen, but not unless it's a profession, I guess.

I don't know, which cracks me up. So no, we belong everywhere. Yes.

Nikki: Yeah, I was thinking about that. The irony of that. And I'd love to You're where you say that it's changing because I feel like it really mirrors the wine world and winemaking when we talk about the percentage of women that are either owner or winemaker or both and how it's still low but how it really has increased in the last, you know, 10 to 20 years.

Chef Melissa: hard?

Uh, a little bit of both. And it's so funny because that point never really entered my mind. It's just like, I want to do this, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do it to the best of my ability. Like I'm, I'm a competitive person. In things that I know that I can compete in, but I'm really competitive against myself.

You know? It's like I just, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it the best that I can be in. And then if you're gonna tell me I can't, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna work at it even harder to get to where I wanna be. You know? So if anything, it was motivational. That's why I love you. Yeah. .

Nikki: That's why I admire you from the far

Chef Melissa: tell me no 15 times, I'm just gonna be better at whatever I'm doing.

Um, I will to say there was no harassment is a lie. Like of course there's sexual harassment. I could tell tales of that, but you know, um, so that you have to overcome and it's hard. And, you know, you read. Even now, like, uh, the Me Too stories and why would you take it, why would you stay and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it's not so easy, it's not so cut and dry, like, oh, I was wrong, I'm leaving, I'm moving, I'm not doing this.

It's like, you almost want to prove that, like, you can put your foot down and you can make a difference in your little world of, I'm not gonna take this, but I am gonna stay and I'm just gonna make your life really annoying. I'm like a little gnat, I'm gonna be here every day, I don't care, you know? And I, um, You know, I stood up for myself the way I needed to stand up for myself.

I was the first one there, last one to go home. I always worked and I was the one that was asked to go do events with my chef and to be there. They trusted me, they know I worked and that's all that mattered is the work that I put into it and you know, of course there's things that can happen, but it could be in any job.

It could be in any, it could be walking down the street. You're gonna, you're gonna find this. You have to figure out how to handle it for yourself and what makes you comfortable to show up every day. And, and I figured that out. We do a lot at school too, to um, really enforce, you know, standing on your own two feet and standing up for yourself.

And we need to change the industry, like we're at a really great point where things are shifting. And I think COVID, oddly enough, played a role in that. And there's a lot of attention being paid to, you know, health insurance, mental health, uh, being a woman in a kitchen. And we hold panels all the time of faculty that work there that talk to the students, Q and A's.

You can't do what you used to do and get away with it and feel like we just need to tough it out. You know, it's, it's not that anymore. You can talk about it. You're going to find somebody else who can relate to it. And you can hash it out and really, really bring it to the surface. And I think that's the most important thing.

We're gonna

Nikki: finish up with some listener questions. Mm-Hmm, . Okay. So listener

Chef Melissa: question

Nikki: while I pull out my listener questions. You may wanna take a, take a sip. Yes. Someone named Amanda Mm-Hmm. would like to know. Mm-Hmm? . Mm-Hmm. . If you were not doing what you do.

Nikki: The same listener wants to know, um, did you watch

Chef Melissa: The Bear? Oh my God, I can't even tell you how much I love this show. And it's so fun. I ended up getting COVID. You know, this one

Nikki: like swept like every Emmy out

Chef Melissa: there, The Bear. And so deserved. First of all, and again, my memory is awful. It's like a piece of information goes in, one falls out.

But the guy, The Bear. How could you not just want to watch this guy be a chef, right? Oh my god. Jeremy? Calvin Klein? Yeah, thank you for that spread. Um, but the show is probably the closest thing I've seen to a real life kitchen and the pressures of it. And just, I don't know. Hands and knees scrubbing floor.

Get off my line. And it was like one of the best scenes ever because you're like, yes, yes. It's sometimes just shut up. Let's go. You know, and everybody from top to bottom is scrubbing the kitchen down and organizing and learning and there's always ego involved and everybody's got a great idea, but can it be implemented immediately?

No. And it's like, how do you tell somebody this isn't probably the best thing you've tasted? You have to enhance it without offending. It's such a nuanced thing to be in a kitchen, you know, and just seeing that and how Um, the guy who was doing pastries just got so into fermentation and like, I think you had the Noma cookbook and I'm like, Oh my God, this is brilliant.

And. And there is a hierarchy in the kitchen. There has to be, there has to be with anything. Someone has to be at the helm of this thing and lead it, but mutual respect and that kind of thing is changing. And I love that, you know, but just the pressures of it. And when they, they screw up like the online ordering or something, and all you hear is that ticket machine, the amount of times that I've like woken up with the sound of the ticket machine.

I'm like, Oh my God, I'm not aware. Like, it was just like, yes, I know that feeling and they're just lining up and now it's. So good. So good. Yes. Okay.

Nikki: Here's the final listener question. Very complex, intricate question. What is your favorite dessert?

Chef Melissa: I knew it. Everybody always asks, right? Um, Oh, you know, I have to say.

I just love, and I hate it that I love them, but I love them. They're just so good. I'm sorry. I'm very basic. Uh, crepes? I have to be careful at home though, because when I start, and I love, love, love this, my daughter is just like, it's like she has a radar. She's like, is that sugar that I hear happening in the kitchen?

And she'll come right down. So I usually try to do things that are like a little bit more low key. What I love doing at home is really cooking more. It's nice. I turn, no one, No one messes with dinner. My husband's usually still at work. My parents are chilling out. So I kind of have the kitchen to myself.

I turn on a little music. The chickens are already there. Chickens are already there. The cow is already there. We're ready to go. No problem. I really like, uh, I would say five out of the seven days of the week, I'm the one in the kitchen doing dinner and I love it. And like sauces are my thing. You know, cause everybody, you know, it's, it's a mixed bunch here.

Nikki: multi generational that you're cooking for now. Yes. Yeah. When, when you say that your daughter like hears like, Oh sugar. And she comes down cause she wants to eat it. Or does she want

Chef Melissa: to cook or bake with you?

She wants to be in it. And I love it. She's a misfit. And like, I say that all the time. Like kitchen people, we're just misfits. It's like, we want to do everything that no one else is like wanting to do, you know, it's like pick a holiday. We're going to be working, but we're fine with it. You know, it's. It's crazy.

But yeah, she she gets her little she comes running down grabs her step stool immediately puts it right next to me kind of elbows me a little bit out of her way. And she's like, What are we doing? And even with dinner, she'll make her own little sauces or she'll want to make a side dish or do whatever.

So no, she's right in it with me. I love it. And she decorates and she makes sauces for dinner and things like I'm like, God, I Pull out of the cabinet and we taste everything. It's the only way you learn, you know, so she'll taste something and she's dead on and it kills me. She's like, this is a little too spicy or this is, there's a little too much oil in this.

Nikki: very proud of them. Oh, that's amazing. Well, I think that's a perfect note to end on.

This was such a special treat. This has been

Chef Melissa: lovely. Thank you. Thank you for having me. This has been lovely. Thank you. Yay. Cheers with

Nikki: our Papagenicus Assyrtiko. And I love Anthony.

Chef Melissa: Dear sister. Cheers.

Nikki: So my suspicion that Chef Melissa was going to be a great podcast guest was indeed confirmed, wouldn't you say? Um, I mean, not only her amazing story and her inspirational determination to just keep going and push through, um, but also just a wonderful, joyful, big personality with a lot in common of many of us of loving food and loving wine.

Please make sure that you are liking, following, rating, and reviewing this podcast. If you're enjoying it, sounds like a, um, a song. Like, follow, rate, and review. Like, follow, rate, and review. Uh, it's nice to get some feedback and more importantly, those ratings help us to be seen and help more people to listen.

And that will allow Catherine and I to continue creating the super fun content for you and doing what we do. If you'd like to support the podcast, buy me a glass of wine. You can do that. The link in the show notes. It's basically like leaving a tip and we would be so grateful. That's a fun feedback that you can provide for us.

I will, again, put the link in the show notes. And if you want to grab this beautiful Greek Assyrtiko that we tasted together, uh, you'll find a link for wine. com, one of my affiliate partners. You can have it shipped right to your door, just like I shipped it to Melissa and Anthony. How fun was that, by the way, to get a cameo from him?

Credits:

Sip with Nikki is hosted by Nikki Lamberti.

Production and sound mixing by Catherine Bryan. You can always send your listener questions to Nikki at SipWithNikki. com, or find us on the Sip with Nikki Facebook

Chef Melissa: page,

or visit us on Instagram at Nikki Lamberti. Thanks for listening. We can't wait to sip with you.

Credits:This is Sip with Nikki, a production of Take Ten Studios.