Arnold Myint Gives Perception Into His Mom’s Legacy | Options

Arnold Myint has been a star chef (Season 7 of Prime Chef and Season 11 of Meals Community Star), knowledgeable ice skater, an web influencer, a restaurant proprietor, a drag queen (Suzy Wong) and a James Beard Award semifinalist (2024 Finest Chef: Southeast). Surprisingly, he hasn’t been an writer. Till now.

His first ebook, Household Thai: Bringing the Flavors of Thailand Residence, publishes Oct. 7 and is stuffed with the thoughtfulness, the eye to element and the complexity that Nashvillians have come to count on from Myint and household.

Along with his sister Anna, Myint owns and runs Worldwide Market, a Thai restaurant throughout the road from the place their mother and father, Patti and Win Myint, opened a restaurant by the identical title 50 years in the past. (Because it occurs, they’ll host a fiftieth anniversary dinner at Worldwide Market on Nov. 9.) On the new Worldwide Market, the lunch menu is harking back to dishes old-time Nashvillians could bear in mind from Patti Myint; at night time, there are extra fashionable interpretations of Thai delicacies.

Household Thai walks an analogous line, together with household recipes and lore, in addition to new takes on conventional flavors. Within the ebook, Myint — with co-author Kat Thompson — explores what it means to be “genuine,” providing an finish product that’s half riotously colourful espresso desk ebook (because of pictures by Linda Xiao), half memoir (each his personal and that of his late mom) and half cookbook. Whereas the ebook might be additional particular for Nashvillians who’ve a smooth spot for Worldwide Market and Patti’s recipes, with Thompson, Myint has written a ebook that reaches additional than Belmont Boulevard; it’s each private and common in its attraction.

“My mom is the true star of this ebook,” Myint tells the Scene. “She simply couldn’t do [a book like this] due to the language barrier. She simply didn’t have the language and the chance that I’ve been given to specific it and to have fun it.”

Many movie star cooks use ghostwriters, protecting the writing help below wraps. However Myint considered working with a co-author the identical manner he thinks of his performances: “You’re solely as sturdy as your forged; the refrain is barely as sturdy because the headliner.” When Myint was launched to Thompson, he was thrilled along with her culinary writing abilities, and likewise thrilled that she spoke Thai and that that they had related cultural experiences rising up in the US with Thai mother and father.

Thompson, who lives in Los Angeles, will attend a few of the ebook tour occasions with Myint, together with in Nashville. That is an uncommon transfer for a star chef, demonstrating how Myint views Thompson as a co-author somewhat than a ghostwriter. 

Thompson notes that Myint, like many cooks, is a high-energy particular person. “[Chefs are] so inventive,” she says. “Kitchens are such fast-paced locations, and dealing on a ebook, we have been speaking about many issues without delay.” Whereas the ebook is all Myint’s tales and his mom’s tales, Thompson says she helped him “channel the whole lot he was pondering and get the phrases on the web page.”

Each Myint and Thompson went by means of massive life modifications whereas engaged on the ebook. Myint grew to become a first-time father. Thompson’s father handed away, and she or he evacuated from her residence in Altadena, Calif., in the course of the Eaton Hearth in early 2025.

“We fell into this relationship of cheering one another and holding one another up,” Myint says. “What actually bonded us was the connection by means of meals and with the ability to write one thing that was so near our heritage and our coronary heart in the identical breath.”

Collectively they created a ebook with an in depth Thai pantry part, which incorporates solutions on what to maintain in your own home, what to substitute when you’ll be able to’t discover what you want, and what model of instantaneous ramen to purchase. (Spoiler alert: it’s Mama.) They supply recipes for fundamentals, with straightforward pointers (e.g., by no means refrigerate sticky rice, and minimize limes lengthwise somewhat than horizontally), and even train you the right way to make your personal sriracha. There’s a Pad Brussels Sprouts Fai Dang recipe that exhibits you the right way to substitute Brussels for harder-to-find morning glory greens.

“The dishes that I really feel actually embody the ebook are the dishes which might be like the right mixture of Nashville and Thai meals, just like the Bacon Pad Krapao, for instance,” says Thompson. “Pad Krapao is a Thai dish that’s the dish that you simply order while you don’t know what you wish to eat. It’s an undisputed Thai favourite as a result of it’s all the time going to be good. It’s spicy, garlicky, and there’s basil. Arnold’s simply actually intelligent in utilizing native elements however making one thing nonetheless really feel very genuine.”

The memoir and private essays are interspersed all through the recipes, from Myint remembering his mom calculating the price of something he requested for as a toddler within the variety of egg rolls she must promote, to tales of Nashvillians being supported by Patti in myriad methods. She is woven into the ebook, even in methods that aren’t apparent to the bare eye: The duvet contains a Thai picnic — Myint thought a picnic with fried rooster and watermelon chili crumble with cucumber salad was a approach to display that Thai-Nashville connection — and the dishes sit atop a quilt that was made out of lots of Patti’s silk garments after she died.

“I all the time felt fairly particular in Nashville, each good and unhealthy,” Myint says of being a homosexual Asian man rising up within the South.  “My visibility was distinctive within the panorama of Nashville. What I need from this ebook is for folks to see my upbringing in Tennessee and my household as [evidence of] folks like us in small cities too, not simply New York or San Francisco. I hope that this can be a good little beacon for individuals who are nonetheless looking for their manner.”

Realizing what it’s prefer to run a small enterprise, Myint is encouraging readers to buy native once they purchase the ebook, with a hyperlink to unbiased bookstores on his web site. In Nashville, signed copies can be found from Parnassus Books. “I actually needed to make this a community-supported celebration of my mom,” he says. “After I do a chef collaboration in sure cities, the viewers can even get a ebook with their reservation from that native bookstore.”

In Nashville on Oct. 12, Myint will host an enormous ebook launch potluck at Curry Boys BBQ in Inglewood, with Thai music and meals from Sarabha’s Creamery, S.S. Gai and others.

“I by no means had a bar mitzvah — I by no means had a quinceañera,” Myint laughs. “So let’s make this one my celebration. That is it. That is my coming-out.”

The potluck, he says, will have fun Nashville’s diverse and rising Asian neighborhood.

“Lastly, I’ve some mates to play with Asian meals in Nashville, and I wish to have fun all of that. It’ll even be good to point out what Nashville is exterior of scorching rooster and white boots on Broadway.”