{"id":7538,"date":"2026-05-21T09:48:38","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T23:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=7538"},"modified":"2026-05-21T09:48:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T23:48:38","slug":"guts-by-melissa-leong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=7538","title":{"rendered":"GUTS by Melissa Leong"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>If I had to do a three-word review of Guts<\/em>, I’d write ‘engaging, illuminating, unsatisfying’.<\/p>\n

Engaging, because reading it is like listening to Melissa Leong talk. After no interest whatever in Masterchef, last year we watched the whole thing and developed quite a little addiction. So while we were waiting the for new season, we started to delve into the past and discovered the Melissa Leong, Andy Allen and Jock Zonfrillo triumvirate. They’re such fun to watch. Melissa is expert, expressive, super stylish and seems to genuinely bond with the participants. She seems visibly moved by the meaning and emotion wrapped up in food, especially for the Chinese and South East Asian cooks.<\/p>\n

Illuminating, because what you see – of course – is only the accomplished, vivacious host. You don’t see the child of Singaporean Chinese immigrants in Sydney who endured racism and ethnic slurs from the white kids at school, and harsh punishments from her father at home. Or the talented pianist, at who at 16 ended her ambition for a concert career due to RSI pain. Or the chronic anxiety and depression that have dogged her for most of her life. At the time she was starting in her career as a food writer, the industry was (and still is, perhaps) male-dominated. Rock-star chefs, columnists and reviewers – all white men, and so she had a doubly tough time being female and Asian. Sexism was pervasive, and an incident which took years for her to identify as rape had a huge impact on her mental health.<\/p>\n

And ultimately unsatisfying because Melissa writes with such reserve about her life on the small screen. It’s what we know her for, after all. It is probably a combination of respect for others and professional good sense, but it does leave gaps and holes in the narrative. Did I just want more gossip, some anecdotes about the Masterchef boys or even some dirt? To my shame, that’s quite possibly the case!<\/p>\n

This is my second Masterchef memoir – I read Julie Goodwin’s book a little while ago. As with Julie, I have genuine admiration for how thoughtfully Melissa uses her mental health struggles to help other women. As an Asian woman in that white, male-dominated industry, she’s had an extra load and it’s taken guts to achieve what she has.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I had to do a three-word review of Guts, I’d write ‘engaging, illuminating, unsatisfying’. Engaging, because reading it is like listening to Melissa Leong talk. After no interest whatever in Masterchef, last year we watched the whole thing and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7538"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7544,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7538\/revisions\/7544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}