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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

#21

Post by scotu »

prpl wrote: post #15

Kenji is very good but also highly opinionated, often bordering on food snob. That’s fine, he’s often right but not always. I think that feeds into this problem: People following him will seek out “the best/perfect XYZ” which he looks for based on his own obsession at the time (smashed burgers, XLB, detroit pizza, etc…). If you watch old episodes of Jacque and Julia you will see how they could easily and happily disa…

I sincerely think you missed the last 3+ years of anything he did (I don't know how he used to communicate before) because if there is one thing I cannot say of him is that he's a food snob.

He is opinionated, but explains why he does things (often offering a scientific reasoning/experiment), especially if he's not following the traditional way, he seems to give context on what would be more traditional, and is quick in communicating "but you do you"...

Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer

#22

Post by lacker »

Serious Eats is a great source. Their writing on how to cook a steak in a cast iron pan is excellent, a really useful and interesting read for anyone who likes cooking steaks in cast iron pans.

https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-p...

Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer

#24

Post by afcapel »

tptacek wrote: post #5

His 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…

I'm a Spanish person, living abroad and with a penchant for cooking, and I was too very gratefully surprised by Kenji's Spanish tortilla video. Also by his other Spanish recipes such as Gazpacho[1] or Paella[2].

It's not that they are very orthodox recipes, cut and paste from a traditional recipe cookbook, but instead very good adaptations of them, taking into account ingredients availability and different contexts.

I can't really tell about other cousines, but judging how he cooks Spanish food I'd say he knows what he's talking about.

Add to that that he seems like a very decent and empathetic person and I'd say he's someone you want to listen to if you are looking for cooking advice.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD3WyeqCDHw

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASP74I0B7zo

Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer

#25

Post by jorblumesea »

prpl wrote: post #15

Kenji is very good but also highly opinionated, often bordering on food snob. That’s fine, he’s often right but not always. I think that feeds into this problem: People following him will seek out “the best/perfect XYZ” which he looks for based on his own obsession at the time (smashed burgers, XLB, detroit pizza, etc…). If you watch old episodes of Jacque and Julia you will see how they could easily and happily disa…

I really get the opposite vibe. He's a huge fan of Jacque and tries to make his food accessible. He often mentions in his videos that "you can do it whatever way you want, this is the way I do it". He often makes almost junk food versions of popular dishes (potato chip tortillas).

Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer

#26

Post by criley2 »

tshaddox wrote: post #19
prpl wrote: post #15

Kenji is very good but also highly opinionated, often bordering on food snob. That’s fine, he’s often right but not always. I think that feeds into this problem: People following him will seek out “the best/perfect XYZ” which he looks for based on his own obsession at the time (smashed burgers, XLB, detroit pizza, etc…). If you watch old episodes of Jacque and Julia you will see how they could easily and happily disa…

That’s an interesting characterization, because I would have said precisely the opposite: I’ve seen that he consistently goes out of his way to denounce notions like “it’s not real X unless you make it with Y.” He’s pretty outspoken that it’s better to adapt recipes based on your own preferences, skills, and ingredient availability than to try to chase “authenticity.” It’s not uncommon to hear him say things like “it…

I think the characterization comes from a legion of homecooks online going through a cooking journey and treating Kenji's whimsical opinion as a law, especially when written down for one recipe.

Kenji's videos show how creative and open minded he is with cooking, but I've also had plenty of online encounters with folks preaching the food lab gospel.

Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer

#27

Post by prpl »

tshaddox wrote: post #19
prpl wrote: post #15

Kenji is very good but also highly opinionated, often bordering on food snob. That’s fine, he’s often right but not always. I think that feeds into this problem: People following him will seek out “the best/perfect XYZ” which he looks for based on his own obsession at the time (smashed burgers, XLB, detroit pizza, etc…). If you watch old episodes of Jacque and Julia you will see how they could easily and happily disa…

That’s an interesting characterization, because I would have said precisely the opposite: I’ve seen that he consistently goes out of his way to denounce notions like “it’s not real X unless you make it with Y.” He’s pretty outspoken that it’s better to adapt recipes based on your own preferences, skills, and ingredient availability than to try to chase “authenticity.” It’s not uncommon to hear him say things like “it…

That's different though "it's not real X unless you make it with Y" is about authenticity. I did not bring up authenticity in the criticism. You are right - Kenji rarely cares about authenticity or tradition. That's fine.

If you go through his old recipes though on SE, you'll see "The science of the best XYZ" or "Perfect XYZ" all over the place:

https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-5118015

I stopped following him a few years ago on Instagram because it was tiring. It looks like he's changed a bit.

Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer

#28

Post by prpl »

scotu wrote: post #21
prpl wrote: post #15

Kenji is very good but also highly opinionated, often bordering on food snob. That’s fine, he’s often right but not always. I think that feeds into this problem: People following him will seek out “the best/perfect XYZ” which he looks for based on his own obsession at the time (smashed burgers, XLB, detroit pizza, etc…). If you watch old episodes of Jacque and Julia you will see how they could easily and happily disa…

I sincerely think you missed the last 3+ years of anything he did (I don't know how he used to communicate before) because if there is one thing I cannot say of him is that he's a food snob. He is opinionated, but explains why he does things (often offering a scientific reasoning/experiment), especially if he's not following the traditional way, he seems to give context on what would be more traditional, and is quick…

You are right, I stopped caring around that time (~3 years ago). That said, the science explanations are occasionally wrong.

If you like science of cooking you might enjoy Cooking Issues/Dave Arnold quite a bit more. I generally prefer Dave's cut of the jib.

Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer

#29

Post by jghn »

jypepin wrote: post #3

Just 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. https://www.youtube.com/user/kenjialt

I've been following Kenji since his earliest days on SeriousEats. He's great, and I'm so glad he has had the opportunity to change all of our lives for the better.

I'm not a fan of watching video content, much prefer reading text. My Kenji consumption has dropped by quite a bit since he's moved to mostly Youtube. He's doing what he wants/loves though, and that's what matters.

Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer

#30

Post by jghn »

tptacek wrote: post #5

His 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…

Yes. He created the vodka pie crust recipe at CI. After Cooks he started showing up here and there on Serious Eats (iirc "A Burger Today"?) before going all in there.
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