J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
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Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#2Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#3Just wanna say that I'm a huge fan of Kenji. His Youtube channel is simple, interesting and the opposite of snob. A true food passionate that is doing whatever he can to go against gate keeping. He's been inspiring me to cook more (and successful at it!) for a couple years.
Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#4It reminds me of the related story [0] titled " I Found the Best Burger Place in America. And Then I Killed It." The author tried hundreds of burgers around the US and deemed one the best and the business seemed to overwhelm him.
[0] https://www.thrillist.com/eat/portland/stanichs-closed-will-...
Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#5His Youtube is very, very good. Two Kenji videos that changed my life a little during the pandemic, in that I now make these things all the time:
Spanish tortilla: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPYk9W9v-bI
Oyakadon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcXzpCqKdUA
I feel like --- I might be wrong here --- Kenji's origin story is the Cook's Illustrated vodka pie crust, which replaces water in the dough with vodka to minimize gluten formation (the alcohol cooks off). I think that's where I first heard of him, and I've been following ever since. He's pretty great.
An irony of this article, BTW, is that it highlights Kenji's love of Windy City Pizza in Seattle, but Kenji made waves on Twitter a few years ago for taking down Chicago-style deep dish pizza on the grounds that no mainstream Chicago place properly seasons their crust. As I recall, he even went to Pequods and was unimpressed.
Extremely cool fun fact, by the way: Kenji's wife Adriana is a cryptographer at Google with a PhD from NYU; her thesis is dedicated to Kenji, "for loving a crypto nerd".
Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#6I love his food lab book, and overall he seems like such a nice person. The book is a bit dense, but it has such great info that really helps deepen your cooking skills.
Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#7Kenji is a fantastic author and now video maker. I've learned a ton from him.
My two favorite things about him are firstly, everything he talks about is backed by a scientific approach, and secondly he has a decidedly unfussy "but you can do it your way if you like" attitude as well. He's like Pepin meets molecular gastronomy.
Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#8Huge Kenji fan. Probably not the first to do it but his no commentary Go Pro first person cooking videos are quite addicting.
Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#9His Youtube is very, very good. Two Kenji videos that changed my life a little during the pandemic, in that I now make these things all the time: Spanish tortilla: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPYk9W9v-bI Oyakadon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcXzpCqKdUA I feel like --- I might be wrong here --- Kenji's origin story is the Cook's Illustrated vodka pie crust, which replaces water in the dough with vodka to mini…
Wait, he made the vodka pie dough recipe???
That is an awesome recipe I use all the time, it is brilliant.
Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#10For any food I have never attempted cooking, I always default to searching " recipe serious eats" (After working through Food Lab almost religiously). Every single time, the Serious Eats recipes (even the ones not by Kenji) are excellent.
Huge fan. We need more like him. :)