Milo Fleming. Universal Kids/Chris Haston
Milo Fleming calls himself the “Picasso of Food” because he loves being creative in the kitchen. The 13-year-old has been cooking for nearly eight years, he says, which would put him at age 5 when he started tinkering in the kitchen.
That love of cooking landed him on the Universal Kids network reality show “Top Chef Jr.,” where his friends and family watched him compete for the Top Chef title and a $50,000 prize since October. Fleming didn’t take the title. It went to Owen Pereira of Baltimore, Md., but Fleming says it was all worth it.
The son of Stephanie Colgan and Eric Fleming of Como Park, Fleming auditioned for the show last summer in Chicago. “Then I got a callback to go to L.A.,” and he was off to California to tape all 14 episodes.
Over the course of the shows, he created more than two dozen dishes. One of the more interesting meals was “Sweet and Sticky Roasted Quail with Miso Sea Beans, Blue Crab Salad and Ossetra Caviar,” he said. Would he do it again? “Yes, 100 percent,” he said. “It was so fun.” Fleming is an eighthgrader at Upper Mississippi Academy and a St. Anthony Park Elementary School alum.
