Pizza every night, action movie inspiration, and the scientific side
of flavor. Just how did J. Kenji López-Alt become such a culinary jack of all trades?
The brainy, scientific cooking persona of J. Kenji López-Alt makes perfect sense,
considering he comes from a family of scientists. His dad, Frederick Alt,
was a geneticist, and his mom's father chaired the chemistry department at Columbia University.
He certainly had access to more interesting food than the average American child did
when he was growing up, as his father would take him to eat in New York's
Chinatown and his Japanese grandmother would cook him traditional dishes.
J. Kenji López-Alt was not destined to become a food writer. As you might be able to glean
from his science-focused approach to cooking, he originally dreamed of being a biologist. However,
once he started pursuing the field in college, he realized that he despised
lab work and wanted to pursue a different career. So instead, he eventually earned
a degree in architecture from MIT. While he didn't pursue this career long-term,
he did find it useful when he was renovating his house in the Bay Area, according to Grub Street.
Per GQ, López-Alt realized his true love was cooking,
and he dove into the field head-first by working in some of Boston's finest restaurants.
He was able to use his kitchen experience to get a writing job at Cook's Illustrated.
Next, he began writing for Serious Eats, which is where he became a food media star.
Per Seattle Met, Adriana López — now López-Alt — grew up in Bogotá,
Colombia. She took a much different professional path after graduating from MIT than her husband
did, eventually earning a Ph.D. from New York University. According to MIT Technology Review,
her Ph.D. is in cryptography. Kenji followed her to New York when she was attending NYU,
then moved with her again to the Bay Area, and then, finally, to Seattle.
She appears to excel in her field if her Linkedin page is anything to go by. She worked at Google,
which according to Inc. accepts a lower percentage of applicants than Harvard.
Now she's a principal security engineer at Square.
"Hey, everyone. It's Kenji. I'm gonna show you how to reverse sear a big steak."
Reverse-seared steak is such a commonly recommended method these days that it
might surprise you to find out how recently it was invented. This technique, which some argue
is the best way to cook a steak, was dreamed up by J. Kenji López-Alt in 2007 while he was
working for Cook's Illustrated, according to The New Yorker – although as he will readily admit,
it's hard to pin down the "first" person who started using the reverse sear.
Regardless, he was responsible for popularizing the method and the name.
A reverse sear turns the traditional method of cooking a steak on its head. Rather than starting
with a ripping-hot pan and then finishing with a trip to the oven if necessary to finish cooking,
reverse-searing starts by bringing the steak up to temperature in a low oven and then adding
the crust in a hot skillet right at the end. In addition to giving you a perfect, tender interior,
this method also enhances the level of browning you get on the outside,
according to The Washington Post.
Most of J. Kenji López-Alt's food writing skews wonky and science-based.
It's not exactly the kind of stuff that you would imagine being entertaining for a small child.
However, the chef decided to step out of his comfort zone and write a children's book,
"Every Night is Pizza Night," which was published in 2020.
The book interrogates the idea of what counts as the "best" food.
The main character thinks that pizza is the greatest food ever, but she meets other children
from different cultural backgrounds who tell her that their favorite foods are actually the best.
It's a simple premise, but López-Alt discovered that writing a children's book was much less
simple than he originally thought it would be. For one, he had to figure out how to modify
his trademark verbose style into something kids would like; the 1,000-word book started out 10
times longer. He also found collaborating with an illustrator to be both challenging and rewarding.
In the early phase of his career, J. Kenji López-Alt had an unbelievably
intense work schedule. He told GQ that when he worked at Serious Eats …
"I would go to the office at 10 a.m., leave at 8 p.m.,
write more at home until midnight, and then work on my book from midnight until 4 a.m."
This work ethic helped him create the following he has now, but he realizes in retrospect
that the all-consuming focus on work wasn't healthy for him, his family, or his coworkers.
These days, the chef's life is almost the polar opposite of his Serious Eats-era grind — he works
about two days a week. That's not to say that he isn't staying busy. He is a stay-at-home dad
with two small children and spends much of his time hanging out with his kids.
His relaxed work schedule also allows him to explore his hobbies,
of which he has many, including music, woodworking, and checking out the restaurants
in his new home base, Seattle. It sounds like a pretty enviable existence to us.
"There are a lot of those specific types of white guy cooking channels that are
clearly aimed at men whereas my content — I don't think I necessarily target it at men."
GQ reports that well over three-quarters of J. Kenji López-Alt's subscribers on YouTube are male.
The New Yorker also remarks on how many of his acolytes are men who relish the nerdy,
fact-based approach he takes to creating content.
This aspect of Kenji's fanbase is not something he's entirely comfortable with.
He told GQ that his first book "The Food Lab,"
quote, "got picked up by this sort of bro cook culture that tends to put people down."
He elaborated:
"People weaponize knowledge in negative ways — which wasn't my intention,
but probably a thing I also used to do."
In more recent times, the chef has decided that it's best to focus on treating other people kindly
and being less rigid about his opinions. In his interview with The New Yorker,
he says that he picked up an aggressive demeanor from his time working in fine-dining
restaurant kitchens that sometimes made him unkind to his coworkers, friends,
and family, especially during his Serious Eats tenure.
He regrets how he acted back then, and now focuses on being a positive role model for his children.
When J. Kenji López-Alt moved from the Bay Area to Seattle, he immediately started looking for
Seattle's best bagels. While he was initially disappointed with the options in his new home,
he eventually found some options that he claims can compete with the best that New
York has to offer, according to The Seattle Times.
When López-Alt finds food that he enjoys, he often shares his meal on Instagram. And when he does,
it often results in a dramatic increase in sales for the restaurants he visits.
When he posted that he enjoyed Rachel's Bagels & Burritos, the business started
running out of bagels by mid-morning every single day, according to Seattle Reports.
Although Kenji's power over the fortunes of the food businesses he likes makes him an
undeniably powerful food influencer, he's uncomfortable with that role. In fact, he
denies he's an influencer at all, telling Seattle Reports that he "wouldn't call [himself] that."
However, if he keeps on posting his meals on Instagram, he's going to continue generating
sales for grateful Seattle restaurant owners, no matter what label he uses to describe himself.
By any measure, J. Kenji López-Alt's Youtube show, which is simply titled "Kenji's Cooking Show,"
is incredibly successful. As GQ notes, the chef's YouTube channel has more subscribers than The New
York Times cooking channel even though he only started regularly uploading videos in April 2020.
He doesn't go out of his way to produce content on a schedule or carefully plan his videos;
in fact, he only shoots episodes when he's already cooking something for his family.
Although he still thinks of his YouTube career in casual terms, it rakes in serious money:
around $200,000 a year, despite the fact that he doesn't create any sponsored content.
He told The New Yorker that the channel is currently his main source of income.
The show's style is distinctive. It's almost entirely shot with a GoPro mounted on Kenji's
head, which means you almost never see the chef on camera. The inspiration for this format comes from
an unlikely source: "Hardcore Henry," the action movie that was shot entirely in first-person.
"Is your speech module installed."
"Well, at least we know you're not deaf."
J. Kenji López-Alt's original column at Serious Eats was called The Food Lab.
In it, he explored common home-cooking questions through a scientific lens,
often using elaborate experiments to answer seemingly simple culinary questions.
Eventually, he turned the column into a book of the same name. "The Food Lab'' was massive, coming
in at just under 1,000 pages. Wired praised how the book combined the scientific food techniques
of food writers like Harold McGee and books like "Modernist Cuisine" with simple advice that was
accessible to a home cook. The New Yorker review of the book noted that despite all the science
in the book, it had simple recipes and didn't require ingredients you'd have to order from
a chemical supply store. The mixture of science and solid technique made the book a huge success,
and it has sold over 500,000 copies since it was released, according to López-Alt's website.
J. Kenji López-Alt's most recent book, entitled "The Wok," is devoted to this
uniquely versatile cooking tool. He's been using the same wok for over two decades,
and he says it's the pan he turns to the most, via Vogue. His book is filled with recipes and
techniques that help even wok novices get the most out of this under-appreciated pan.
While most people think of woks as being stir-frying pans,
they can be used for myriad other applications. One of López-Alt's favorite ways to use his wok
is for deep-frying, which he says he doesn't do in any other vessel. As opposed to something more
traditional like a pot or a Dutch oven, woks are great for deep-frying because the wide,
flared sides catch oil splatters and guard against dangerous boil-overs.
Also, the wide opening of a wok makes it easier to manipulate food while it's frying.
López-Alt also busts the myth that you can only use a wok if you have an intensely-hot gas stove.
He tells WBUR that even on an electric burner, you can get great results when stir-frying with a wok.