Who I am
I'm Melissa. I'm a self-taught home cook in my late thirties, based in a small town in the Midwestern United States. I've never run a restaurant kitchen and I won't pretend I have. Most of what I know I picked up the slow way: from my grandmother's lentil soup pot, from cooking dinner for my family for the last twelve years or so, and from getting it wrong enough times that I started writing the wins down so I wouldn't have to relearn them.
I cook in a small kitchen in a regular apartment. Gas stove that runs hot on the back-left burner. One nonstick skillet I trust, one stainless skillet I trust more, a Dutch oven that was a wedding gift, and a sheet pan with a stain on the corner from a roasted-tomato accident in 2019. Nothing here was made with a $500 immersion blender. If a recipe needs equipment most people don't have, I find another recipe.
If you're wondering why there's no photo of me here, the simple answer is that I'd rather the food be the thing on the page. I'm a home cook, not a personality. The recipes are what I'd like to be judged on.
Why I started this site
The honest answer: my family kept asking me what we were having for dinner, and I kept making the same eight things on rotation, and my friends kept asking me how I made the lemon chicken, and I kept saying "it's so easy" and then realizing it was only easy because I'd done it eighty times. I started writing the recipes down for them in 2023. By early 2024 the notes had outgrown the email thread, so I put them on a small site so I could link to a recipe instead of pasting it.
The "Chef" in Chef Melissa is a wink. I'm not formally trained. I am, however, the person who feeds three people every single weeknight, which is its own credential.
How I test a recipe before it goes here
A recipe doesn't get a page on this site until I've made it three separate times. Once for myself, to see if I like it. Once on a regular weeknight to see if it survives a Tuesday with no prep. Once for someone else to see if it survives a person who doesn't already know what I meant. If the third pass needs me to explain something out loud, I rewrite that step until I don't have to.
I'm specific about what failed in my own kitchen. If the salmon stuck the first time, I tell you why and what to do instead. If the curry tasted flat the first round, I tell you what I added on round two. The "Melissa's kitchen note" box on every recipe is for that.
What I won't publish
- Recipes I haven't actually cooked. If it's on this site, I made it. If I haven't, it doesn't get a page yet.
- Health or nutrition claims. I'm a home cook. I'm not a dietitian, I'm not a doctor, and I won't tell you a recipe is "healthy" beyond what's obvious from the ingredients.
- Sponsored content disguised as a normal recipe. If a brand ever pays for placement, the page will say so at the top. As of today, none does.
- Stock photos pretending to be my dinner. Photos on this site are mine. If a recipe doesn't have a real photo yet, that page says so.
Editorial process and corrections
If something on the site is wrong, I want to know. Wrong oven temperature, missing step, ingredient quantity that's clearly off, broken link, dead photo. The fastest way is the contact page. Tell me which recipe and what went sideways. If I have to update a recipe because something was wrong, I add a small note at the bottom of the page with the date so you know it changed.
I update recipes when I learn something. The chickpea curry got rewritten in 2025 after I discovered that toasting the spices in the oil first was the difference between "fine" and "actually good." That kind of update is the whole point of running a site instead of a cookbook.
How the site makes money
The site shows ads through Google AdSense. Ads pay for the domain, the hosting, and the time I spend writing. Ads do not pay for which recipe I publish, what I say about it, or whether I recommend it. If I ever start affiliate relationships or accept sponsored posts, those will be clearly labeled at the top of the affected page, and the advertising policy will be updated first.
Get in touch
Reach me at hello@chefmelissa.shop. I read every email. I don't always reply quickly, but I do reply.