I think the key to Kenji's success was bring Cook's Illustrated's scientific approach to a younger generation.
J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
41–50 of 157 posts
Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> treating Kenji's whimsical opinion as a law,
Whatever his stuff is, 'whimsical opinion' is pretty rare.
Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#43His 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 like his recipes and style but his videos make me nauseous bec of the POV. I wish he would just use stable cameras.
Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#44I lost a lot of respect for Kenji after this incident:
López-Alt wrote that “it hasn’t happened yet, but if you come to my restaurant wearing a MAGA cap, you aren’t getting served, same as if you come in wearing a swastika, white hood, or any other symbol of intolerance and hate.” He added, “MAGA hats are like white hoods except stupider because you can see exactly who is wearing them.” Both tweets have since been deleted. [1]
[1] https://www.grubstreet.com/2019/02/j-kenji-lopez-alt-maga-ha...
Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#45Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#46Kenji 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…
Years ago I had an exchange with him on twitter where he argued that some pre-made taco sauce kit (possibly from Frontera?) made a kind of taco (possibly al-pastor or something like that) that was superior and more authentic tasting than any corresponding kind of taco he could get at taquerias in NYC. It was an absolutely insane and inane twitter argument to engage in but also there was no way that it made any sense to take that stand. He just kind of dug in on things and had hot takes back in the day -- he's mellowed since those days but I will always remember that weird interaction.
Now that he's more into videos and his presence is about instruction and eduction through example as opposed to making a splash with authoritative longform pieces and deriving the perfect recipes and guides through Serious Eats he comes across as more welcoming to all approaches but there were times in the past when he pounded the foodie gavel.
Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yes she is
Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#48Just 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've gotten more educational value out of his cooking videos, where he straps on a GoPro and cooks a dish, than from most recipe posts. There are nuances about the cooking process that textual recipes simply lack the bandwidth to capture.
Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#49Kenji 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.
He's also said that those were intended to be examples of all out recipes. The accompanying article will then describe what each component makes. At that point the reader/cook is expected to determine what subset of the often over engineered recipe fits their tastes/desired level of effort.
"The best" and "Perfect" sounds a heckuva lot better than "way over the top" :)
Re: J. Kenji López-Alt is Seattle’s reluctant powerful food influencer
#50My favorite tip from Kenji is for the grilled cheese sandwich. I don't follow his recipe for 99% of it, but slicing a garlic clove and rubbing it on lightly toasted bread before making the grilled cheese completely enhances the sandwich without really adding an ingredient. Thats why its my favorite tip.