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King Ming
From producing television shows to writing books, running a restaurant to hawking cooking products, celebrity chef Ming Tsai has plenty on his plate
BY TAMARA WIEDER

MING TSAI HAS mastered the art of multitasking. In the course of an hourlong telephone interview, he’s taste-testing the creation of his cook one minute, driving to meet Howie Carr the next.

Of course, if you’re Ming Tsai, the ability to multitask is more than an art; it’s a necessity. The chef/owner of the wildly popular — not to mention award-winning — Wellesley restaurant Blue Ginger is currently producing and starring in his second television cooking program, Simply Ming, on PBS. A book of the same name was published by Clarkson Potter last month — Tsai’s second cookbook in four years. He has a Web site. He has a product line at Target. He has a wife and two young sons.

Ming Tsai has a full plate.

Q: This is your second cookbook. What made you decide it was time to write another one?

A: Why did I think it was time to write another one? Because my publisher wouldn’t leave me alone! Which is actually the God’s honest truth. But having said that, one of the most common comments that I got from both my book Blue Ginger and my show East Meets West was, "God, that food looks great, Chef, [but] one, I wish I could get the ingredients, and two, I wish it was more simple. I work for a living, I have two kids," or "I’m a divorced person," or "I don’t have two hours during the week to cook, or an hour even." And then commonly they would say, "I have more weekend time to cook, but during the week I don’t." So that got me thinking a little bit. I thought, okay, well, the next book, the next show even, we should do it a little bit more simply for the home cook.

Q: What’s the process of writing a cookbook like? How much time is spent cooking and how much is spent writing?

A: First of all, there’s two people that I absolutely have to thank, who made this book possible. Arthur Boehm, who’s the co-writer, and Alan Richardson, the photographer. I know I’ve been blessed since I was born; I’ve just had a very lucky life, and I’ve always met the right people. These two guys in particular are just the best in the industry for what they do. Arthur, I’m the only one besides his mom, who’s in heaven now, who gets to call him Artie, so we have a very great relationship. Artie’s written both books with me, Blue Ginger and this. [He had] the right sense on how to really translate what I’m thinking and get it on paper. He would ask me the questions, like, "Why did you do that?" Or, "What inspired you to use pork shoulder, not duck?" Things that will just get me thinking. "When’s the first time you ate that?" God, I was four years old, when I was in Taipei. That’s the type of stuff that’s just not going to flow off my tongue unless the question’s asked. So without Artie, I think I still could’ve done both books by myself, but they would’ve taken 10 years each.

Q: And maybe they wouldn’t have had the detail.

A: And they wouldn’t have had the detail, exactly. And Artie’s a much better writer. I’m not embarrassed at all to admit that he’s a much better writer than me. My English is pretty good, and I write complete sentences for the most part —

Q: Well, you have some other talents that you’ve been cultivating.

A: Exactly! And I have spell-check. But the best part about Artie is that he kept my humor in there. He kept it my voice. Which is not an easy task, I’m sure, for anyone. And just as important was Alan Richardson, because he was just the best photographer. The use of his light, and his simplicity of how he sees a shot, is unparalleled. And we did not use a food stylist — it was just him and me. Because I really wanted the food to look just-cooked, on a simple plate — we’re not trying to sell plates and glassware and china, we’re just trying to show the food off.

Q: And you probably want it to look real, because you don’t want people to get discouraged if it looks all fancy in the photo and then their version doesn’t turn out that way.

A: Oh yeah, I want it to look just like they’ll make it. Exactly. That’s a great point, because sometimes you see these cookbooks, and although beautiful, once you make it, you’re like, "Oh Jesus, I didn’t do a very good job, did I? My meat loaf doesn’t look like that meat loaf." So those two guys get a lot of credit.

A lot of my life is, of course, creating recipes. That’s probably my number-one job at Blue Ginger, besides managing people, because when you own a business, it’s all about people management, it’s all about getting the potential and inspiring people and motivating people and getting them to work at 120 percent at all times. That’s of course the job of anyone who owns any type of operation. But recipe creation is really my focus, both at Blue Ginger and then of course when you do a book and show, because content is king. But it has to be good; you can’t just write a recipe and not test it, for example. Because it’s your reputation. Now having said that, a lot of my recipes I’ve written on airplanes on my laptop, I’ve written in libraries. Having written, I don’t know, over 1000 recipes, I know that a tablespoon of minced ginger with a tablespoon of minced garlic with a half a cup of scallions sautéed in a tablespoon of oil — I know what that’s going to taste like, having done it 1000 times. I know when you put peppercorn and salt on a steak, what that’s going to taste like. And I know it takes four minutes a side for a one-and-a-half-inch steak. So all this technical stuff I pretty much know. The hardest part is making the outline. Because you can only make a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich 50 ways. The 51st way is probably going to be disgusting. You can’t force it. So even though I do create on a laptop, [I use] visualization, [with] a cup measure down to a teaspoon. So I’m on my plane and people are looking at me like I’m a little bit strange, because I have an empty cup, a half cup, a quarter cup, a tablespoon, a teaspoon. And to visualize it, I literally hold the cup up and I’m like, "Oh yeah, it’s about two cups cabbage, shredded, that makes sense to make a slaw for two."

I then kind of do phase one, as I call it, of the recipe. I would say 80 percent of those recipes are good to go; the problem is, you don’t know which 80 percent. So usually those recipes will go to Artie first and I bring them to Blue Ginger. What happens is, Artie and I then start talking about the recipes. While that’s happening, I arrange my photo shoot, and that is really where the recipe gets tested twice, because my sous-chefs, even my line cooks, and myself, we then put the recipe together, and then we’ll make adjustments there. And then however the picture is then taken, that becomes gospel, because you can’t change the picture. So if we garnish with scallions by mistake, guess what? Scallions are going in the recipe. We’ve never put peanuts in a dish that shouldn’t have peanuts; obviously if it’s wrong, we redo the picture, of course. But it takes so long.

Thank God it’s not 52 weeks a year like that. It is absolutely brutal. So of course when Pam, my editor, as soon as the book came out, she goes, "Okay, I’ve got a great idea for the next book!" I said, "I’ve got a great idea, period. You just simmer down."

But at the end of the day, once I have the book in my hands, I’m always just giddy as anything, and this one we’re all very proud of, because we just like the way it looks and reads, and we actually think people will cook with it, which is my end goal. And then as I always say, no cookbook is gospel. This is just a foundation, a beginning, to get any person to start thinking about mango salsa, for example. And once you read about the mango salsa, and I say do it with seared cod, I would really hope that if you don’t like cod, you’re going to do it with salmon. Don’t do the recipe; bring in your own likes and dislikes. Please bring in your own culture. I really encourage people to take this base and make it their own. And then make it their gospel, you know, bring their own identity into it, because that’s what cooking’s all about, anyway. And I think by the style of this book and the system of the book, it might promote more free thinking like that, because there are these master sauces, and it’s like, you know what, "I really like shrimp. I bet that three-chili dipping sauce would go great with fried shrimp." Then they make it and they’re like, "Wow, that’s really good." And at the end of the day, they feel even better than just cooking a Simply Ming recipe. It really becomes their own. Same for chefs; there really is no such thing as "plagiarism" in the chef world. You add another pinch of cayenne, that’s a new recipe. My inspiration certainly comes from other people’s food. I’m not creating things from out of the blue; I mean, I’m a huge believer that every dish in the world has probably been done before. I would never say, "Oh, no one’s ever done this." Because someone in Ethiopia or Hong Kong or France already did this. They just didn’t print a book about it. No one can create a new cuisine. It’s all been done before.

Q: Tell me about the new TV show. How does cooking on TV differ from cooking in a restaurant?

A: This show, Simply Ming, which of course uses all the book recipes, is very close to my heart because I got to go to public television. I was actually minus-one year old in 1963 when Julia [Child] did her first show, produced with WGBH, funny enough. And I watched her growing up ... and I watched Graham Kerr [on The Galloping Gourmet], and I never thought as a kid, I want to be on public television cooking. But I did think, wow, isn’t that cool? And to be perfectly honest, the Food Network sort of just fell into my lap seven years ago.

This jump to Simply Ming, it’s a feel-good move for me; I mean, I like the fact that I’m doing public television and giving back, because I’ve always watched public television, I always listen to NPR. Those things mean a lot. The other thing that’s just as important as the whole feel-good thing is, I get control of the show, I’m one of the producers of the show. The Food Network I have to thank, for sure; I mean, they put me on the map. They definitely got me into the households of America and did a lot for my career. But I wanted full control. Just like I own my own restaurant, I really wanted to have full control of my show. The only way to really do that is to have ownership of the show and be a producer for the show, so public television allowed me to do that. And then of course being able to partner with WGBH was just like a gift from heaven, I mean, they’re the largest producer of public television shows, period. And it’s a good story: I’m a local Boston guy, they’re local Boston, and the fact that we could team up together, it just was lucky and just made sense.

Q: I did a Google search this morning for "Ming Tsai," and it came up with 13,800 hits. Does that surprise you? Do you ever worry that you’re getting overexposed?

A: Only 13,000?

Q: Well, that was with your name in quotes.

A: So it’s not confusing me with Yao Ming and all those other Ming imposters. I am a little miffed; I was the tallest Ming in the land, up until Yao Ming showed up, and now I’m just six feet tall.

Q: Do you worry about overexposure?

A: Oh, you do. I mean, you would be a fool if you didn’t worry about that, absolutely. The majority of that quantity of hits is because I’m on TV. And I’ve always said this: there’s what I call the irrational power of TV. I would put myself in a group of about 500 or so chefs in this country that I think, all of us combined, we’re pretty good chefs. Am I better than 499 of those 500 chefs? Absolutely not. Most of them could cook me into a bag, no problem. But because I’m in a little black box, at least in this country, because we are TV crazy — which is of course good in this instance for me — it elevates me to the expert in whatever I do.

It certainly sets you up for failure, though, in the sense that — and I hear it every night; I’ll probably hear it tonight, too — people come here and they’ll tell me to my face, they’re like, "Oh, I’ve been watching you, I love your show; this better be the best meal I’ve ever had in my life." Because I’m in the box, and I’m the expert, so of course it’s going to be their best meal, otherwise why did they just travel all the way from Worcester or Texas or Florida or California or the Philippines? It’s crazy, the power.

Fortunately I learned something a long time ago from my father, which is just surround yourself with great people, whenever you can possibly do that, because they’re the ones who’re going to take you to the top, and they’re the ones, if you don’t take care of [them], who’ll laugh when you’re on your way down. And I need these people. We’re a team, we’re friends, and we all have one goal: we have to serve perfect food. We have to give perfect service. No one’s perfect, but perfect is if you put 120 percent into making the dish or opening that bottle of wine or washing that dish. If you put 120 in, that’s perfect to me. I can’t ask anyone to do more than that.

Overexposure, I think it happens to anyone who stays on TV for a long time. It’s just part of the equation. It’s what you pick and choose to do with it. Because you can’t say yes to everything. Even though I’m sure you probably know I have some stuff at Target, I sell Asian-barbecue potato chips. Now, that’s not exactly foie-gras-shiitake shumai in a Sauternes-shallot broth. It’s a far cry from that. But is it a good potato chip? Yes, it’s an excellent potato chip, I think. So as long as the quality is still good, and value is still there, and it still fits my whole mantra, which is East-West, and an Asian-barbecue potato chip is certainly an East-West potato chip. That sits well with me and my camp, because it is still the same message: high quality at a good value. You cannot get more mundane than a potato chip, actually, right? I mean, I don’t think there is anything [more mundane] in this country except the French fry, I guess. That’s the lowest on the food chain, so to speak.

Q: So why do it?

A: Because it’s a great potato chip. Because it’s better than any other potato chip I’ve ever had, that’s why. It’s a great potato chip. And I have to admit, Target is a very alluring company. They’re marketing geniuses. And they’re like, "You know what? Your show is getting popular, people are curious about this style of food," and my end goal, again, is to get people to cook this style of food, so now the fact that they can go and get what’s a really good wasabi powder and a traditionally brewed soy sauce and the mango salsa, for example, that’s really good — if that gets East-West cuisine into their homes, well, that’s good by me.

And I’m not embarrassed to say that we are coming out with some frozen rice bowls, noodle bowls, and stir-fry kits at Target, for next Chinese New Year. I never thought I’d do frozen foods; I remember probably making a statement once in another interview, "I’m never doing frozen foods." But then, I’ve spoken to Wolfgang [Puck] and I’ve spoken to other people who do frozen stuff, and cryogenics is so much more advanced than it was 10 years ago. You can get some really great-tasting food that’s even more simple to prepare than [in] my book, because it’s four minutes in a microwave. This sweet-and-sour pork, which has mango in it, it still has the East-West — it’s really good, for a frozen product. Am I going to put five microwaves in my restaurant and serve it? No, of course not. But for a home cook in Iowa or someone in Boston, it’s 12 at night and you just got home — it’s better than your peanut butter on saltines.

Q: So you used to say you’d never do frozen foods. Is there anything that you still say you’d never do?

A: I’ll never retire. No, actually, I think I’ve learned from that statement "never say never," because you never know what might come down the pike. And I’m a businessman as much as a chef, and I have two kids and a wife, so there’s reasons that I have to be successful, which is primarily putting kids through college, et cetera, et cetera. I think everyone — and I think if you don’t admit it, you’re either a trillionaire or you just don’t admit it — has their price.

I keep saying I’m never going to open another restaurant. And I’m really sticking to that. It’s not a money issue for me, it’s a quality-of-life issue. I want to see my kids grow up. All my friends are doing it; they grab their best chef from their current restaurant, they give them a partner and blah blah blah, they’d run it. Something gives, though. Something has to give. The last thing I’d ever want to hear is, "Ming Tsai used to be a good chef." That would just crush me. Then I’m a failure. Then everything else I just did was just a complete waste of time. So it is possible; I know logistically how you do it. But my quality of life would be compromised. Just from the stress alone. But, if someone said, "Ming, I’m going to give you a billion dollars if you open a restaurant," I’ll be like, "Okay."

Q: I’ll open a restaurant for a billion dollars.

A: No one’s even going to give me a million, so it doesn’t matter. But my plate, no pun intended, is pretty full. But it’s a good full. We’re a small company, and my goal is to keep it that way. At the end of the day, it’s still all about quality for me. As long as the quality’s still high, whatever that is, from a potato chip to a shrimp stir-fry, as long as the quality’s good, then I’m happy.

Q: Do dieting trends — like the Atkins diet and things like that — do they affect your menu or the way you cook?

A: The way that I cook, no. I don’t even think about stuff like that. The only way it affects us is people have special orders when they come in. "Oh, I’d like to have the steak no-carb." So it’s a piece of steak on a plate. As a chef I would like to say, "By the way, I’d much prefer if it was this way or that way."

Q: Are your kids too young for Blue Ginger?

A: I took David, who’s three and a half, to Uni. And we sat there and he had tuna sashimi. Although he has horrible food allergies, so I can only take him to select restaurants if I really do know the chef. It’s very ironic and a very unfunny joke that my first son has severe food allergies to soy, wheat, dairy, nuts, everything you can possibly imagine. Now the good news for him, he’s never had processed food, he eats organic New Zealand lamb rack with foie gras and Alaskan line-caught halibut. He does just fine. He’s not going to do very well in prep school; I can already see [him asking], "Is this fish line-caught?"

Q: What’s been your worst night in the kitchen?

A: This is what should have been one of the worst nights in the kitchen, that turned out to be a success. This happened in France. I was the sous-chef at a restaurant called Natacha. It was a spring menu, and Jean Marc was the chef, and we got along famously. I was 21, he was like, 23. Natacha Patrone, who’s a Russian-born, French-bred lady, very elegant, really nice lady, one of her favorite things was gazpacho. And I was very excited, because I’d never really learned how to make Western gazpacho before, so Jean Marc was showing me, and we put whole tomatoes and onions, cucumbers, olive oil, Worcestershire, Tabasco, everything, and he takes this Bermixer. Now, this Bermixer unfortunately had a loose wire. He said, "Hey, by the way, when you use this, make sure you only use one hand, because if you use the second hand, you complete the circuit, and you get 220 volts in your body." I was like, okay, this is not quite OSHA standards, but that’s okay, we’re in France. So I made it using one hand. We threw it into the walk-in, and it got all cold and everything. We had another cook, this prep cook, so he went to grab it, and Jean Marc said, "Hey, give it one more buzz before we strain it." He unfortunately was not in the loop about the potential electrocution, so he grabs it with both hands, shocks himself, spills the entire five-gallon bucket on the kitchen floor. Now, for the record, the kitchen floor was just cleaned, it was a clean kitchen floor. But it was still a kitchen floor. This was like five of eight, and I looked at Jean Marc. Natacha was one of these people who’s nice as anything until you don’t do something she says, and he’d worked with Natacha for two or three years, so he knew. So he looked at me, and he started scraping it back into the bucket. I was like, "No, Jean Marc." He was like, "Oh, ça va. It was just cleaned." So he put it back into the bucket. Just then, Natacha peeked her head into the kitchen and said, "Chef, chef, I really want to try the gazpacho." Jean Marc’s like, "No, no, no, not today." She said, "No, no, I insist." So sure enough, Jean Marc serves her a bowl of gazpacho, she takes one spoonful, and she looks at Jean Marc and me, and I thought, this is it, I’m gone, fired. She goes, "Magnifique!" And she said, "Whatever you did, make sure you do the exact same thing every single time!" So I’m envisioning us throwing gazpacho on the floor every night before service. I couldn’t believe it.

Tamara Wieder can be reached at twieder[a]phx.com


Issue Date: December 5 - 11, 2003
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