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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

#51

Post by notagoodidea »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #38
afcapel wrote: post #24

Earlier 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.

Not sure to understand the point made between European Spanish cuisine and the Colombian one ?

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

#52

Post by tptacek »

afcapel wrote: post #24
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 believe I didn't know about Spanish tortilla before. Easily the best egg dish and also maybe the best way I currently know to prepare potatoes at home now. And they get better when they're cold! I've wasted my life!

I've made dozens since last summer, and Kenji's technique in the video has been pretty much bulletproof for me.

His extra-creamy scrambled egg is also a mainstay now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX-Y513ohbc --- I love how little patience he has with macho restaurant culture, and that he won't even link to Gordon Ramsay, who popularized the dish.

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

#53

Post by deadite »

annexrichmond wrote: post #44

I 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 de…

Your comment reads like what he did is in such bad taste that you have to let it be known, on a site that is pretty well established to be anti-MAGA, how you disapprove of this person's choice to also be anti-MAGA, and you're still trying to maintain your elitism and stature by saying "I lost respect" to continue to fit in on the site. You're playing edge lord on easy mode.

Why even bother posting this?

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

#54

Post by tptacek »

vxNsr wrote: post #43
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 like his recipes and style but his videos make me nauseous bec of the POV. I wish he would just use stable cameras.

Same, but I gut it out, because the dishes are pretty much always worth it.

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

#55

Post by scotu »

prpl wrote: post #28
scotu wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> the science explanations are occasionally wrong

what science isn't :)

I'll take a look at your recommendation, thanks

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

#56

Post by annexrichmond »

deadite wrote: post #53
annexrichmond wrote: post #44

I 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 de…

Your comment reads like what he did is in such bad taste that you have to let it be known, on a site that is pretty well established to be anti-MAGA, how you disapprove of this person's choice to also be anti-MAGA, and you're still trying to maintain your elitism and stature by saying "I lost respect" to continue to fit in on the site. You're playing edge lord on easy mode. Why even bother posting this?

It's not about anyone's stance on "MAGA". It's about about his divisiveness, and comparing roughly 40% of a country to Nazis and the KKK

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

#57

Post by simondotau »

annexrichmond wrote: post #44

I 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 de…

While I agree it was inartful and ultimately counter-productive, it was nonetheless understandable (and quite frankly unremarkable) in the context of the broader zeitgeist. Thankfully we know not to judge people's character on the basis of two tweets.

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

#58

Post by dragonwriter »

annexrichmond wrote: post #56
deadite wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reads like what he did is in such bad taste that you have to let it be known, on a site that is pretty well established to be anti-MAGA, how you disapprove of this person's choice to also be anti-MAGA, and you're still trying to maintain your elitism and stature by saying "I lost respect" to continue to fit in on the site. You're playing edge lord on easy mode. Why even bother posting this?

It's not about anyone's stance on "MAGA". It's about about his divisiveness, and comparing roughly 40% of a country to Nazis and the KKK

40% of the country doesn’t wear MAGA hats, and didn’t at the peak of that cult, either.

And even if they did, popularity doesn't make you different from the Nazis or the KKK, both of which had fairly high peaks of popularity in their respective geography.

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

#59

Post by simondotau »

annexrichmond wrote: post #56
deadite wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment reads like what he did is in such bad taste that you have to let it be known, on a site that is pretty well established to be anti-MAGA, how you disapprove of this person's choice to also be anti-MAGA, and you're still trying to maintain your elitism and stature by saying "I lost respect" to continue to fit in on the site. You're playing edge lord on easy mode. Why even bother posting this?

It's not about anyone's stance on "MAGA". It's about about his divisiveness, and comparing roughly 40% of a country to Nazis and the KKK

The prior four years were an exercise in the extreme amplification of divisiveness by all sides. I wouldn't blame anyone—on either side—for being momentarily swept up in it.

(To be clear, I'm not claiming equivalence and don't dispute that most of the blame rests with Trump's divisiveness.)

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

#60

Post by ahepp »

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'd like to see an as-blind-as-possible test of water vs vodka in the pie crust.

Kenji has other pie crust recipes where he talks about encouraging gluten formation.

Of course it's possible that there are some recipes where you want to encourage gluten formation and some where you want to discourage it. But I'm starting to get skeptical about this stuff, considering I've never once seen actual data tables about gluten levels, or even a clear indication that the final results were compared with an unbiased methodology.

That said, serious eats is the only website I get recipes from, and I love all Kenji's recipes. This is just something that bugs me about every popular "food science" source that I can recall.

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