Consider this: two elegantly, impeccably constructed human beings, one with princess hair and the other with a cheeky, Tom-Browne-shortsuit-ready pageboy (floppy bangs and all) meet on a reality television cooking competition in 2014. One is the judge, the other is a finalist. The judge — her career is already on a reliable path towards success. But the finalist is still making a name for herself. And over the years, she does. She returns, six years later, to an all-star edition of the show and, this time, she wins. The judge puts her arm around the contestant and kisses her on the cheek, posting the video to Facebook with a glowing endorsement, recalling that it was “such a pleasure to watch you blossom into a confident, on point and innovative chef.”

The judge is Padma Lakshmi. Her television hosting career began in 1997 with an Italian talk show, before her first Food Network gig in 2001, Padma’s Passport.She published her first cookbook in 1999. She appeared in Italian pirate movies, an ill-fated Mariah Carey movie, an episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, ABC’s take on The Ten Commandments.She played a supermodel accused of stealing diamonds in a Bollywood black comedy.

But the job that made her famous — really really really famous — was hosting Bravo’s nascent cooking reality show Top Chef, which debuted in 2006. By that point, she had been married to novelist Salman Rushdie for two years, and living with him for seven. In 2007, they divorced. She’d go on to date billionaire Theodore J. Forstmann and have a daughter with businessman Adam Dell.

The finalist — eventual winner — is Melissa King, born in the early 1980s in Los Angeles, a sommelier and chef who’s been working in kitchens since her first job as a pastry assistant at the Getty, age 17. She’d trained under numerous Michelin-star chefs and been declared one of San Francisco’s Best Female Chefs before appearing on Top Chef in 2014. She was a fan favorite, and in an interview with Autostraddle, Heather told Melissa, “every recapper on the internet agrees you’re the nicest reality show competitor in history.”

“I feel like I learned just how far I can push myself,” King told Heather. “I feel like after going through the very tough situations they put you through on Top Chef, I can really do anything. After you make it out alive, you’re like, “Huh. It really wasn’t that bad!”

She just barely lost that season but clinched the series’ largest prize ever in 2020, winning Top Chef All-Starsshortly after soft-launching her line of sauces. King had a girlfriend when she first appeared on Top Chef and remained an LGBTQ rights activist and icon — for her talents and for being just wildly, almost inconceivably physically attractive. (A situation faithfully tracked by intrepid journalists here at Autostraddle.) In 2022, she designed the menu for an event we did with HBO, celebrating the release of the second season of Gentleman Jack, a show about a lesbian landlord ladykiller who wrote her own fanfic in a faithfully maintained journal. It was excellent, by the way.

Both Lakshmi and King have released major cookbooks this year. Melissa’s first cookbook, Cook Like a King: Recipes from My California Chinese Kitchen came out on September 23 (my birthday, probably not a coincidence), andPadma’s All American debuted on October 15. So they have that in common, by the way.

Although rumors have persisted over the years, Lakshmi is not out as queer, or anything on that general spectrum. This is a reason, but perhaps not thereason, that one might hesitate reporting upon or even publicly speculating upon the possibility that she and Melissa King are dating and have been dating for several months and possibly longer. It is also admittedly difficult to imagine how they are able to exist together without combusting, for so much hotness to be gathered in one couple?

In June, Padma and Melissa palled around at Atsuko Okatsuka’s comedy show, and mere days later, King posted a red carpet carousel with the suggestive caption “we clean up. Sometimes.”

The people immediately clamored for the possibility of this being a soft launch. Could it be, amid an era of unspeakable, consistent horrors, that these two human beings had found love with each other?

Padma and Melissa remained in each other’s orbit at the subsequent Food & Wine festival. Things were quiet for a bit as Melissa prepared for the launch of her cookbook. Then, earlier this month, Padma delivered a birthday cake to Melissa amid her Diwali party, although she did confess “sorry for forgetting your birthday,” which feels unlikely for an actual couple.

On October 28, she posted a “date night” carousel starring Padma — but changed the caption from “date night” to “drip drip” shortly after making her initial post. Once again, the people clamored for confirmation and/or clarity:

Then Padma told People Magazine in an interview that she is close to many Top Chef alumni, for example, Melissa King: “Melissa [King] is somebody whose cooking I always loved. She’s fun and we enjoy each other’s company. She tends to be my plus one sometimes so people will see us on the red carpet together.”

These words feel carefully chosen — nothing to see here, we are simply one another’s Plus Ones!

Which brings me — which brings us all — to Halloween. Our culture’s most revered holiday, a time to express yourself as who you truly are, whether that be a passenger seat, Cynthia Erivo’s nail, etc. Would King and Lakshmi debut an impressive couples costume?

Oh, would they ever.

“Cara Mia!” means “my dear” in Italian. One would think perhaps that by “my dear” she means “my dear girlfriend.” One would hope, honestly. The costume also involved Padma’s daughter as Wednesday and, once again, the people demanded answers:

And if they are, what does that mean for the universe? What happens when that much physical beauty is consolidated so tightly into one, singular, entire couple.

Regardless, it seems at this point that if Padma Lakshmi and Melissa King are notdating, they should definitely consider dating. It would make everybody really happy I think!

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