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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

#131

Post by samatman »

tptacek wrote: post #52
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.…

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…

Just as a point of order (and because I don't like giving Gordon Ramsay credit for things either), Jaques Pépin popularized that technique for scrambled eggs when Ramsay was ten years old.

He remains a delight to watch!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqKq0bQHnZU

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

#132

Post by dbt00 »

ska wrote: post #42
criley2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Eh if you've been following him for long enough you've seen him get onto kicks and off again. He did a vegan month for a while, but that's gone. Once upon a time he was convinced that using baking soda (something you'll see him use a lot more than most) was the way to perfect, fast caramelized onions. It took a while but Daniel Gritzker and others eventually convinced him he was wrong.

None of this is bad -- the food lab is the cook book most often open in my kitchen and I love his videos -- but develop your own taste and understand the palates of those you're cooking for, don't just assume that whatever Kenji does is right.

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

#133

Post by kenjilopezalt »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #117
rootusrootus wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love the PoV videos! I would much prefer a stable camera video. The PoV videos are unwatchable for me unless I take dramamine.

Do you think using one of the newer action style cameras that does horizon leveling would help?

I use a gopro 9 with the strongest stabilization setting. I haven’t tried horizon leveling yet but that’s a good idea to test.

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

#134

Post by kenjilopezalt »

dbt00 wrote: post #132
ska wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> treating Kenji's whimsical opinion as a law, Whatever his stuff is, 'whimsical opinion' is pretty rare.

Eh if you've been following him for long enough you've seen him get onto kicks and off again. He did a vegan month for a while, but that's gone. Once upon a time he was convinced that using baking soda (something you'll see him use a lot more than most) was the way to perfect, fast caramelized onions. It took a while but Daniel Gritzker and others eventually convinced him he was wrong. None of this is bad -- the food…

I don’t even assume that what I do is right.

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

#135

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

kenjilopezalt wrote: post #133
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think using one of the newer action style cameras that does horizon leveling would help?

I use a gopro 9 with the strongest stabilization setting. I haven’t tried horizon leveling yet but that’s a good idea to test.

You continue to impress me with how you take what you do and your values so seriously. I honestly made the comment above with the intent to ping you with the suggestion after your current social media storm faded a touch. Thanks for teaching me how to feed myself better over the last few years.

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

#136

Post by dkarp »

professoretc wrote: post #108
tptacek wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've made his Spanish tortilla once a month or so since that video came out... However, I once dropped the whole thing in the sink while doing the "flip". (Maneuvering a hot cast iron pan isn't easy.) I've never felt more disappointed in myself than I did at that moment; I was making it for breakfast and I basically just turned the stove off and went back to bed. So now I'm always a bit wary when I start on it, knowi…

This has happened to me a few times, and I imagine many others!

I bought a “tortilla pan” in Spain which prevents this. It’s basically two pans with an interlock on one side. You cook the tortilla on one side, grab the other pan and lock it on, then flip it over and put the other pan on the heat to cook the other side. Foolproof and worth it when you cook as many as I do!

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

#137

Post by agurk »

user982 wrote: post #31
lacker wrote: 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.

They also changed the URLs of all the recipes, which previously had dates in them (luckily the old ones still redirect for now).

This was useful as recently they've been republishing a lot of old content, and it was easy to see if that was the case by hovering over the URL. They've even changed the date on the recipe page to "last edited" - a couple of old ones I was looking up yesterday from 2016 now have 2020 at the top.

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

#139

Post by glogla »

ethbr0 wrote: post #74
sondr3 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Watched for the first time just now. I love the PoV videos! It's really helpful to see just what the hands are doing, and no cuts. The biggest gaps in written IMHO tend to be (a) things people do but don't realize they do, (b) things people do but assume everyone else already knows, (c) things people do more efficiently but don't think to mention (obvious example: use a cook time break to clean prep-ware).

I have learned SO MUCH about effective kitchen workflow and organization from those PoV videos. It's a completely different kettle of fish than the fancy videos where you just see conveniently pre-cut stuff falling into a pot.

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

#140

Post by bobf »

sondr3 wrote: post #36
jghn wrote: 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…

If you're interested in baking, I imagine you already know of Claire Saffitz - but if not, she was previously at Bon Appétit and now has a great YouTube channel on desserts/baking that your description of things like "tacky" vs "sticky" etc being more directly/usefully explained in a video context.

And yes, I 100% agree that Kenji has been an amazing culinary content creator, researcher, and resource for years. Look at his recipes and insights on turkey/prime rib/etc for holiday meals, noodles, cookies, and more as a few outstanding examples. He reminds me a lot of many of the best things about Alton Brown and Jacques Pépin - a scientifically/analytically fussy approach to cooking and baking, but in the right ways - not in the "fussiness without usefulness" (or without useful explanation, at least) route that many chefs take.

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