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

seattletimes.com

31–40 of 157 posts

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

#31
post #22

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...

I haven't visited ever since their redesign a few weeks ago removed their RSS feeds.

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

#32
I remember hearing lynne rossetto kasper interviewing the host of america's test kitchen one time, and him just being extremely aggressive about the idea that he was here to come and Objectively Improve on the way your grandmother used to do things. what I love about j kenji lopez alt's stuff is that he does.... very much not that, even while he's experimenting to get into the nuts and bolts of a recipe. he's respectful of traditions and individual taste and shortcuts that may be worth it to home cooks even if they're not The Right Way.

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

#33
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 get where you're coming from but don't think it's snobbery per se. There are things he prefers that I don't prefer. Over the years I've come to just understand that he & I have different tastes.

A great example would be his obsession with crispy potatoes in all things potatoes. Sure, sometimes I love a shatteringly crisp fry. Other times I want something mushy. Same with roasted potatoes. But I don't ever feel put down by him for wanting mushy potatoes.

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

#34
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…

Snob? Have you watched the man make a pizza on a store-bought tortilla with pineapple? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v7nhyjCx5Q

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

#35
post #30
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.

I've used that recipe for years! I only just recently learned he was behind it this whole time.

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

#36
post #29
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.

I agree with you in that I prefer written material most of the time, but for food I actually prefer video over text. Mostly because it allows me to see and get a feel for the workflow, the timings and such that are impossible to get across from just a recipe. Especially for baking videos have been great because when it says “should be tacky to the touch but not sticky” it’s always “how sticky is sticky, what is tacky, how do I know what it feels like etc” and seeing a baker doing it helps immensely. Once I’ve gotten a good grasp for the process though I far prefer using a recipe.

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

#37
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 think he has leaned into the "best/perfect" as an SEO trick, and his audience tends to treat him as gospel - but his recipes are amazingly flexible and there is not a lick of pretense. I still use his trick for how to fake a smoke ring when making sous-vide brisket.

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

#38
post #24
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.…

His wife is Columbian, IIRC.

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

#39
post #36
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree with you in that I prefer written material most of the time, but for food I actually prefer video over text. Mostly because it allows me to see and get a feel for the workflow, the timings and such that are impossible to get across from just a recipe. Especially for baking videos have been great because when it says “should be tacky to the touch but not sticky” it’s always “how sticky is sticky, what is tacky…

Fair point. If there's a new-to-me technique or something else tricky I 100% agree. As in sometimes I have the opposite complaint where even reading a recipe it's still unclear what I should be doing. For instance there are times when I finally see a recipe made on Americas Test Kitchen/Milk Street/etc I realize I've been doing it wrong.

I suppose what I'm saying is I want the text recipe first, and perhaps the video. From what I've seen on the Youtube channel the video is provided and sometimes the written recipe.

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

#40
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…

Yeah I usually prefer Chef John. I feel like his recipes are creative and practical, and he's also just a hilarious super down to earth person. He comes up with methods that pretty much get you 95% of the way there at a fraction of the time and cost. His Chicken Tikka Masala recipe is the best I've had (homemade or at a restaurant) and among the simplest. He also has a famous method for Demi-glace

IMO, a lot of the material from Kenji, Babish for example tilt more on the food snobbery side that demand several hour long recipes[1] and vast number of expensive ingredients.

[1] Compare https://www.seriouseats.com/the-best-chili-recipe with https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/244558/beef-bean-and-beer-...

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