Live: Kenji López-Alt No Longer Calls His Recipes “The Best” (Reheat)

Chef, YouTuber, and cookbook author J. Kenji López-Alt joins Dan on stage at Swedish American Hall in San Francisco to celebrate the release of Kenji's new book, The Wok: Recipes and Techniques. It wouldn't be a Kenji interview without some science, so we delve into what's happening, thermodynamically, when you cook with a wok. But we also go deep on how Kenji became the internet cooking science guru that he is today – and how his feelings about that role have changed in recent years.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

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• 0:44Dan Pashman?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  Sirius XM Podcasts.

• 1:13Dan Pashman?

  Hey, everyone, it's Dan here. Now, earlier this week, we brought you our recent live show taped in Brooklyn with guests Kenji Lopez Alt and Judy Gold. I thought it was a great show. We had such a blast making it. I hope you've listened to it by now. If not, please check it out. We talked about the state of the bagel. We talked about this trend of parents feeding their kids straight up butter, just like a stick of butter. We covered a lot of ground. For today's reheat, we thought it'd be fun to revisit the first live show I ever did with Kenji back in 2022. Kenji had been a longtime guest on the show, going back to probably 2014, 2015, but this was the first time we had him live on stage. We recorded this one in San Francisco. In it, we cover everything from the thermodynamics of cooking with a wok to why Kenji decided that owning a restaurant is not for him. We also go deep on how Kenji's feelings about his career have changed in recent years.

• 1:58Dan Pashman?

  Now, remember, there's an episode of The Sporkful you want us to pull out of the deep freezer and share? Let us know. Drop me an email at [email protected]. Don't forget to include your first name, location, what episode you want us to reheat, and why. Thanks so much. Enjoy my conversation with Kenji Lopez Alt.

• 2:16Dan Pashman?

  This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. And for the first time in two and a half years, we are coming to you live tonight from Swedish-American Hall in San Francisco.

• 2:52Dan Pashman?

  My guest tonight has been on our show many times. In fact, if The Sporkful was a sitcom, he'd probably be our wacky neighbor, always barging in the front door, peeking his head over the fence to answer nerdy questions about food science. Like the time he came out to demonstrate what sound scallions are supposed to make if you slice them correctly.

• 3:11Dan Pashman?

  But he's never been the featured guest of a whole episode. We've never had an extended conversation to hear the story of how he came to be the internet's leading food science guru. He's best known as the writer behind the popular Food Lab column, which led to a bestselling cookbook of the same name. He's also the author of the children's book, Every Night Is Pizza Night, and a New York Times columnist. Tonight, we're celebrating the release of his new cookbook, The Wok: Recipes and Techniques. Please welcome Kenji Lopez-Alt.

• 3:54Dan Pashman?

  Cheers.

• 4:01Dan Pashman?

  It is good to see you, Kenji.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  It's good to see you.

• 4:04Dan Pashman?

  How's it going, first off? How are you feeling? I mean, so your first cookbook was a big hit. We'll talk more later about the new cookbook. But just like, big picture, is it like more pressure following up a really successful cookbook with a second one? Or less pressure, because you already nailed one?

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Less mainly because my, you know, when the first book came out, um, you know, I was a freelance writer and my wife was a grad student. And a lot of our like immediate future comforts relied on having a successful cookbook. And now, you know, now my wife has a good career. My first book was successful, so this one is like, it's okay if it doesn't do well, you know, as long as I-

• 4:42Dan Pashman?

  There you go. So you guys don't need to buy it, okay?

• 4:48Dan Pashman?

  All right. So we'll, we'll talk more about the book, uh, later. We're gonna work our way there, but let's, let's begin at the beginning. And I gather from your website that people are always asking you about your name. If you want, I can just field this one to save you the trouble.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Sure. Go for it. I'll tell you if you're right.

• 5:03Dan Pashman?

  So, uh, your mom's Japanese-American. She came to the US when she was 16.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:07Dan Pashman?

  Your father's American of German descent.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:09Dan Pashman?

  They named you James Kenji Alt.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:12Dan Pashman?

  You always went by Kenji.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 5:14Dan Pashman?

  Then you married your wife, Adriana Lopez.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:17Dan Pashman?

  And you guys both hyphenated your last name, Lopez Alt.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 5:21Dan Pashman?

  And so, um, you were not Latino.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  I'm not Latino.

• 5:24Dan Pashman?

  But you spent a lot of time in Colombia where your wife's family is from.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:28Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  You've read Wikipedia.

• 5:32Dan Pashman?

  Only the finest research here on this board full.

• 5:37Dan Pashman?

  So I, I know, so your parents split up when you were pretty young. And I gather that most of the food you grew up with was made by your mom. What was the role of food in your house growing up?

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Functional mainly. I mean, you know, dinnertime is always like, all the kids have to be there. My mom or my daughter, both of them, often my grandparents were there. And the food wasn't really the important thing. My grandparents, you know, they lived the floor below us. And so my grandmother would cook a lot of Japanese food. My mom came to, from Japan when she was a teenager. And, uh, growing up, she cooked some degree of Japanese food, but she was also kind of trying to, uh, get us to assimilate a little bit more, you know? So she did a lot of sort of like Betty Crocker and like New York Times recipe, American type stuff. She wasn't the greatest cook, but, but we had dinner every night.

• 6:20Dan Pashman?

  Right, right. Am I right? Do I remember correctly? Did you tell me once that you were a picky eater as a kid?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was, I was a picky, I mean, up until I started cooking, you know, like even in college, I was a picky eater. My girlfriend, sophomore year, um, her parents took us out to dinner and we went to this restaurant in Boston, Radius. Uh, and they all ordered tasting menus. And I remember reading, like, looking at the tasting menu, being like- Uh, that's got seafood. Oh, no, this one has squash. Nah, I'm not gonna. And so I, I got a steak while they got tasting menus. Yeah, you know, I got into food after I got into cooking. Like, I first fell in love with the process of cooking and sort of working in kitchens. And it was through that that I learned about food.

• 7:00Dan Pashman?

  I do think it's, it's worth noting, though, it's like, you know, for parents of picky eaters who think that like, if your kid is eight or 10 and isn't eating the, every world cuisine, that like, there's something wrong with you and your parenting or your child. And like, I could not bite into a raw tomato until I was 35.

• 7:22Dan Pashman?

  Okay, so, you know, just like, just chill out, parents out there. Your kids will be fine, okay? Me and Kenji made it, okay? I eat tomatoes, he eats squash.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  On, on the other hand, so my, my daughter, she's just turned five, and for her fifth birthday, she, um, we said, what do you want to do for dinner? Um, and she goes, I want to go to one of those restaurants where you just sit down and, and they don't tell you what they're gonna bring, and they just bring it. And she's talking about a tasting menu, and I'm like, I feel like I failed at parenting, raising a five-year-old who wants a tasting menu.

• 7:54Dan Pashman?

  You, you were telling me backstage that, uh, your sister shared a story recently of her earliest memory of you cooking.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:00Dan Pashman?

  What did you make?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  I was making pasta with tomato sauce. Um, but we ran out of tomato sauce, so I made pa- I found like, the most tomato sauce adjacent thing I could find in my mom's fridge, which was a jar of Newman's Own salsa. And so it was, um, yeah, it was like Newman's Own salsa cooked in olive oil with pasta. It was.

• 8:17Dan Pashman?

  I mean, that works.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it worked.

• 8:19Dan Pashman?

  I'm sure it was fine. Do you remember how it tasted?

• 8:22Speaker 01

  I, I remember thinking it tasted fine, or, or arguing to my sister that it tasted fine, and that she should stop complaining.

• 8:29Dan Pashman?

  So food wasn't a huge deal in your family, cooking was not a big deal in your family growing up, but science was?

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, my maternal grandfather, um, was a scientist, uh, and my dad is a scientist. And so, yeah, there's a lot of science kind of talk at home all the time.

• 8:48Dan Pashman?

  What, what kinds of things were you talking about around the dinner table with your?

• 8:51Speaker 01

  I was mainly complaining about having to do grant applications and... And then sometimes like the why is there, why is there like a block of mice in the freezer? That kind of.

• 9:07Dan Pashman?

  So in 1998, you go to MIT, planning to study biology. You get there and find that you love biology and science, but you hate working in biology labs.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:18Dan Pashman?

  Why?

• 9:19Speaker 01

  They're boring. I enjoyed learning biology. I learned, I enjoyed lecture. I learned, I enjoyed all that. It was just the actual physical process of lab work that I found boring. There's like mind-numbing elements of it, right? Where you're, you're just like pipetting, you know, like this. And then maybe, maybe they have robots that do that now. I don't know. But, uh, no, but I'm sure there are still people bored of pipetting.

• 9:44Dan Pashman?

  A drop into this vial, a drop into that vial for like hours.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:46Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  And it was one of those moments where I was like, oh, like if I, if I keep doing biology, this is going to be my life for a while. Yeah. So the summer after my sophomore year, I, I kind of decided like, I need to figure out what I'm actually going to do. Uh, and in the meantime, I need to make money. And so that's how I ended up cooking.

• 10:04Dan Pashman?

  You ended up cooking at a Mongolian barbecue place in Harvard Square.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. I started out with a prep cook, but I was very quickly promoted to Night of the Round Grill.

• 10:13Dan Pashman?

  A Night of the Round Grill. So this, and this was Fire and Ice, right? I've been to this place. Yeah. I'm, I mean, like, I mean, I graduated from Tufts in 1999, but stayed in the area for two more years. I may have eaten your cooking there. It's possible. This is one of these sort of assembly line places. You would pick out meats and vegetables and then you had to pick out one or sauces handed to a chef who would throw it on a, it was in a wok or was it on a grill?

• 10:39Speaker 01

  No, it was a giant, giant round, yeah, cast iron thing. Yeah.

• 10:43Dan Pashman?

  I was flummoxed by the paradox of choice there. It was too many sauces.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:47Dan Pashman?

  And then I always felt like, well, just one sauce would be boring. I should mix sauces. But like, which sauces to mix? And I don't know. And then I always had FOMO. I thought maybe I should have different, a different sauce.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  It doesn't matter. It was, I mean.

• 10:59Dan Pashman?

  It all tastes the same?

• 11:00Speaker 01

  It all just mixes up on the grill anyway.

• 11:03Dan Pashman?

  Right. You're probably getting a little bit of every sauce.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  I mean, people going there are not going there for the culinary experience.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  But but restaurant work is very similar, whether it's at like a super high end place or an Italian place, or a burger place, or a pizza place, or whatever, like it's sort of mind numbing, but in a different way that biology is mind numbing. When I became a cook, my mom hated it. And I was like, but look, now I'm working at this like fancy restaurant. And she's like, oh, like, you might as well be flipping burgers at the fast food place because like, you know, a cook is a cook. And at the time, I sort of resented it, but it but it is true. The job of a cook is, well, difficult and underappreciated, but also also sort of largely similar, even from like high end places to fast food places.

• 11:48Dan Pashman?

  And in the intro to the Food Lab, your first cookbook, you write, "Like a head injury patient who suddenly develops a brand new personality, something snapped the moment my hand touched a knife in a professional kitchen. It didn't matter to me that I knew nothing about cooking and that my job mostly consisted of flipping asparagus spears. I knew right then that I'd discover what I was going to do with the rest of my life." What was it about that job?

• 12:14Speaker 01

  I mean, it was it was sort of the physical work of a kitchen, you know, because I've, I mean, I wouldn't write that now, you know, that was like. I wrote that then, I think I was like, channeling Jeffrey Steingarten or something, you know, like I was, anyhow, I've always enjoyed building things with my hands, you know, like doing music or art and, you know, food was just like a very satisfying way to do that. I think I know now understand a little better about some of the complexities of food issues that I didn't think about back then. But at the time, when I when I was working as a cook, I was like, I'm at this job where I get to work with my hands and all I'm doing is like, making people happy, you know, it's like they they come in here, they want to have an experience, they want to enjoy it.

• 12:57Speaker 01

  It's obviously a little more complicated than that, but but I think that's really it, like the sort of transformation process.

• 13:02Dan Pashman?

  You say, you know, you played music all your life. I saw you, you said there was part of you that kind of wanted to be a rock star, and working in a professional kitchen seemed like the next best thing.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. I also wouldn't write that now.

• 13:20Dan Pashman?

  What appealed to you about being a rock star then and what's changed?

• 13:25Speaker 01

  I mean, when I was younger, I definitely had much more of a, I want to be famous, I want to, you know, do XYZ, whatever I do, I want to be the best at it, you know, and these days now, what's changed is I feel like I've, I've reached a point in my life where it's like, I can work harder at being better in some specific part of my career or whatever. Or like, I can be okay with the fact that I'm, I've been like, very lucky and, and, and successful at what I've done. And so I can, I have the luxury of being able to say, like, I want to spend more time with my family, or I want to do this project for fun, or for charity, or for whatever, you know, whatever reason that is not just like, trying to become more famous or more popular. So like, it feels like I can make that decision now, and why wouldn't I make that decision?

• 14:10Dan Pashman?

  Well, I mean, there's a lot of people for whom it's never enough.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. They're always the bad guys in the movie, right? Like, they're, they're the ones who die unhappy, because, you know, you don't hear many people say like, I wish I spent less time with my kids.

• 14:23Dan Pashman?

  No, a hundred percent. You're preaching to the choir, but, but I don't think that it necessarily makes you the bad guy to be the type of person who is never satisfied. But I agree that sort of a, not a great way to live.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, for me, it's more just that I know that there's this like, bit of my personality that can cause trouble, you know, like that, that makes me unhappy. And so I try not to feed that, that part of my personality.

• 14:49Dan Pashman?

  The part of your personality that once wanted to be a rock star.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, that once wanted to be like, in front of a room full of people just listening, like, hanging on to their every word and...

• 15:01Dan Pashman?

  You finally made it, Kenji.

• 15:10Dan Pashman?

  So, you, you get that summer job at Fire and Ice, the Mongolian barbecue, you kind of get hooked up professional kitchens, you go back to school, you start reading cookbooks in your spare time, you then you cook part-time in another chain restaurant called Rock Bottom. And you're getting more and more into cooking as you're going through MIT. You have all these questions about cooking because you didn't grow up, you know, sort of like learning at your mother's side or whatever.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:34Dan Pashman?

  Sometimes hear with certain people's stories. You graduate from MIT. You set out with this attitude of like, you're going to spend your life trying to answer so many of the questions that you have as you're getting more into cooking. The scientific mind is sort of germinating and you have a lot of questions about why things are done a certain way. But in restaurants, you weren't finding the answers to these questions. It was very much like, this is how it's done. Just do it.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and I mean, you know, that was the attitude like 20 years ago when I started working in restaurants. And to some degree, I think it still is now. I think it's changed a lot, but at a restaurant, it's like, yeah, it doesn't exist to answer your question. It exists to like produce consistent food and to do it, you know, to do it the same way every time and, and do it quickly.

• 16:15Dan Pashman?

  Right. But you, you wanted to understand like the science, the underpinnings of it. And you were also seeing things in restaurants that you felt like, ah, I'm not sure if that's actually the best way.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  You know, I remember one job where we were making french fries and, you know, we were doing this sort of traditional, cut the potatoes, soak them, fry them once at a low temperature, fry them again at a high temperature right before serving. You know, so I asked our chef, like, why do we, why, why do we do it that way? You know, because this is the first time I'd seen french fries cooked. He's like, why do we fry it twice? He's like, ah, well, the first fry is like, cook it all, you do it at a low temperature. So you're just basically cooking it through to the center and then the second fry makes it crispy. And so I was like, well, if the first fry is just to cook it through to the center, like, can we boil them so that we don't have to like tie up the fryers or can we bake them? And, and he's like, no. And I was like, why? And he's like, that's just not how it's done.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  And it turns out, you know, there are reasons why you don't do it that way, but.

• 17:11Dan Pashman?

  Why you don't do it the way you suggested?

• 17:13Speaker 01

  Why you don't do it the way I suggested?

• 17:14Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  But it's, but it's still like, I feel like you want to know those reasons, right?

• 17:23Dan Pashman?

  So your frustration with not getting the kinds of answers you were curious about in restaurants leads you in 2006 to leave restaurants and go to work at Cook's Illustrated as a test cook and editor, hoping maybe that'll give you more of a chance to explore some of these food science questions you're curious about. And pretty quickly, it seems like it does. I mean, you write a piece about how you want to solve pie crusts. You know, the dough is dry and crumbly. It makes it hard to roll it out. But if you add more water to make it more pliable, that also stimulates gluten development, which makes the finished product tough and not flaky.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:58Dan Pashman?

  So you come up with what I think of as your first viral recipe concept.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:03Dan Pashman?

  Add vodka instead of water.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:06Dan Pashman?

  And it cooks off. And then you get pliable dough to work with and flaky crust at the end.

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:13Dan Pashman?

  Amazing, right? Genius. A couple of years later, you leave Cook's Illustrated, you go to Serious Eats where you start the food lab. And that's really the thing that takes your career to the next level. And you start to really be known as this food science guy. You're doing these kinds of deep investigations. Why do we do it this way? Is there a better way? Is there a better way to fry french fries? Tell me about the process behind those columns.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  So we pick a recipe. And then it's a lot of research into that. So the historical and cultural elements of a recipe, like it's really important to sort of know what meatballs means to different people. Because the last thing you want to do is work really hard at a recipe and publish. And then someone being like, you know, I come from the land of meatballs. And I can tell you, this is not, you misunderstand what meatballs are. And then generally, it's like, so you generally have to pick a problem that you're working on. Yeah, with pie crust, the problem is if you add too much water, it becomes tough. But if you don't add enough water, it cracks. So like, that's the problem I'm working on in this recipe.

• 19:12Dan Pashman?

  And so the food lab... Grows steadily in popularity over a period of years and you do have a real reputation as being this guy known for these sort of deep dive articles solving different dishes. And I know that like for a lot of years you would, your pieces were kind of framed, not always, but often as sort of the ultimate or best way to do it. And you've been talking recently about how you've sort of moved away from using those terms when you write a recipe. Why have you moved away from those terms?

• 19:42Speaker 01

  I mean, it's so like, right now, you said like solving, solving certain dishes. It's like, I've solved, I've solved spaghetti. Like, it's probably because of like stuff like that, like this idea that like, there's definite right and wrong ways to do things. And that one style is better than, you know, like a crispy hamburger is better than a soft hamburger by default, you know, like our formula at Sirius Eats was like focus all our energy on producing the best possible content. And that, you know, if we do that consistently, people are going to get to know our name and they're going to come search for us and whatever. And so it doesn't matter what Google does with their algorithm. Like in the long run, it'll, it'll work out this way. But if, you know, but, but where that doesn't apply necessarily is the titles, you know? And so, you know, so there's always

• 20:25Speaker 01

  this pressure, like, okay, if we're writing about chocolate chip cookies and we did all this testing, like, better call it the best chocolate chip cookies, because people are going to, if you see something that says the best chocolate chip cookies versus pretty good cherry, pretty good chocolate chip cookies, depending on how you like them.

• 20:41Dan Pashman?

  Chocolate chip cookies that Kenji likes quite a lot.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:44Dan Pashman?

  Isn't quite as grabby.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  And so, you know, and so we use that kind of, that kind of wording frequently. But, but it also meant that like, you know, what I, what I frequently found was cooking being used as like, like weaponizing it and like, especially like on online communities, you know, you'd see people being like, that steak is terrible because it has, you know, you should let, you have to let it rest. Like, I wouldn't, I wouldn't feed that to my dog because he didn't let the steak rest. And, you know, it's like all these things that, that people use to put other people down. And, and sometimes you would see like, oh, like you didn't do this the way Kenji said, so it's bad. Like, this is like objectively the best because the food lab says it's the best.

• 21:21Dan Pashman?

  Because Kenji says.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's stupid, right? It's dumb.

• 21:27Dan Pashman?

  I hear you, but I do wonder, like, at the time, like you were saying earlier, you know, there were, when you were younger and more full of hubris, as we all were when we were younger.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:38Dan Pashman?

  Back then, at that time, was there a part of you that kind of liked it? When people would-

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 21:44Dan Pashman?

  Be like, Kenji says-

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Um, yeah.

• 21:46Dan Pashman?

  Screw you.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  For sure, um, yeah. I mean, there was, there was a part that liked it, yeah. Yeah, you know, it's, it's one of these weird things where it's like, you, you know, you use social media and you feel like, and it's really easy to forget that, like, the person on the other side is a person, you know, and then, once, like, my voice started getting louder on social media, it's also very easy to forget that, like, what I say is like 100 times louder than what the person saying back to me is saying. Uh, and so, you know, reconciling the fact that, like, you're, you just feel like a normal person, but then also that you have this kind of megaphone, yeah, that's, that's tough, right?

• 22:27Dan Pashman?

  Totally, and I, I mean, I, I feel like I've had a similar arc, to be honest, because like, you know, the, the Sporkful, when I first launched, was mostly just me ranting about my opinions about the best way to eat things. Not to cook, but to eat. And we had some fun debates back in those early days. When I was doing your Eating and Raw on Cooking Channel and stuff, we would argue about hot dog buns, and I don't even remember what else we talked about. Uh, your wife, Audrey, always said I was right, which is why I always liked her a lot. She's obviously the brains in the family, but, uh-

• 22:58Dan Pashman?

  But yeah, you get a little older, and you're like, oh, I don't really care.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:02Dan Pashman?

  So what changed for you? What, what triggered this, this shift?

• 23:06Speaker 01

  I mean, it was, it's been kind of an ongoing process, you know, uh, um, a lot of it is just my wife's influence, like, you know, like, conversations with my wife, who's very honest with me about this stuff, um, conversation with my family. I'm certainly, you know, certainly having kids made a big difference, you know, because when you have a kid, it's like, you wanna, you wanna be the best example of yourself, right? And you want to do better. Uh, and so, yeah, you know, realizing that, like, Twitter makes me the worst version of myself, right? It's like, so then why am I doing it? It helps my career, like, it helps sell books or whatever, right? But it's like, is it worth it? You know, it's like, is it, is it worth it to put yourself in this position where you're constantly, like, trying to battle with a worse version of yourself, you know?

• 23:50Dan Pashman?

  You've said that your audience is overwhelmingly male, based on the demographics you can see on YouTube and elsewhere. I mean, it's not an exact science, but broadly speaking. Why do you think these columns you were writing for the Food Lab, especially in this time, these best, ultimate, et cetera? Why do you think your work appeals to this demographic?

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Like, you want to talk about systemic issues with society?

• 24:16Dan Pashman?

  I mean, well, I mean, we can, if you want, we can. I guess, I guess, it's interesting that you were saying earlier that the fact that you didn't grow up in a food-obsessed family, learning to cook as a kid, informed your approach to food and that you feel like your work appealed to that demographic. When you started doing food to other people who maybe didn't have that sort of institutional, cultural, family knowledge, but wanted to know. And I think that makes sense, first of all. Men may be, I mean, maybe this is unfair generalization. Men may be more likely to be in that category if they didn't think of themselves as wanting to care about cooking

• 25:01Dan Pashman?

  when they were a kid and then got into it later. I don't, maybe, maybe.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:06Dan Pashman?

  But the other thing is that if you didn't grow up doing something and you think you're not good at it, you may feel insecure. And then when some guy comes along and says, "Here's the best way", then that makes you feel tough.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Part of it, I mean, no, I mean, I think a lot of it has to do with sort of the way, so, okay. So, part of it is sort of like the gadget and science angle. And men are just generally more encouraged to care about those things, you know, for whatever reasons. And so that, you know, that kind of leans into that demographic. And then I think there was also a very real, like, the macho element, like the best, the ultimate, like, we're testing the variables. And, you know, it's like you're writing about food like it's a car.

• 25:51Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  You know, and so, so that, um, there's this kind of like bro culture.

• 25:57Dan Pashman?

  It's kind of like a pissing contest.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:59Dan Pashman?

  You know, like, "I learned how to cook the best steak", you know, "And his penis grew three sizes that day."

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, exactly, that kind of thing. So, you know, I think that's part of why the audience is what it is.

• 26:13Dan Pashman?

  But it's a thin line to walk because also like you do have real expertise that average readers don't have and they want from you. So they do want to know what's the best. Like, like the world of cooking, the internet can be overwhelming. If I Google "how to cook a steak",

• 26:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:29Dan Pashman?

  I mean, I would have a panic attack. So I just want someone who I trust to just give me the answer. So I will, often when I have a question about how to do something, I will just add the word "Kenji" to my Google search. Because I'm just like, "Well, I trust Kenji." And this way, I don't need to wade through a bunch of other stuff. I just will click on the first link. And that doesn't necessarily-

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Do you do this for non-food articles too?

• 26:54Dan Pashman?

  Right, yeah. You know, but I'm just saying, like, to be good at communicating food information and knowledge to people who know less than you do, you do need to make some choices for them.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, okay, so there's different types of recipe users, right? There's some people who really just want no nonsense. They just want the steps. They want to be able to like, go to the supermarket, pick up the exact ingredients, come home and make the exact recipe. You know, it's like when you, when you start learning more technique and the science behind the food and it allows you to realize like what parts of the recipes you can change. It really is much more like, it's like, here's a map. Here's where you are, like, this is where the recipe takes you, but like you can go any of these places you want.

• 27:44Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, Kenji opens a restaurant and it does not go as planned. Plus, we hear about his new book and break down the science of cooking with a walk. Stick around.

• 28:06Dan Pashman?

  When you're cooking, ingredients matter, right? You use higher quality ingredients, you usually get better results. And if you're listening to this show, you're probably the kind of person who puts some thought and effort into your ingredients. But ingredients don't just matter with food, they also matter with laundry detergent. Of course, the cleaning job needs to get done, the odors and stains have to be tackled, and I want to feel good about the detergent and the ingredients in it. Because remember, whatever's in your laundry detergent is essentially in your clothes, and then you're putting those clothes on, you want good stuff in there. And All Free Clear uses only essential ingredients. It's 100% free from dyes, perfumes, parabens, and irritating residues. Check out the label and see for yourself, it lists all the ingredients and what they do. We've been using it in my house, we're very happy with it, and let me tell you, family

• 28:48Dan Pashman?

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• 29:32Dan Pashman?

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• 30:12Speaker 02

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• 30:57Speaker 02

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• 31:12Speaker 03

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• 31:44Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman and we're getting ready for our big live show in Boston coming up. We did a show in Boston two years ago at the same spot, WBUR City Space, and we blew the roof off the place. Not only did it sell out, I think that was the rowdiest crowd on my book tour. Our guest lineup for this one coming up is phenomenal. Reporter Matt, Matt Shearer will be there. Irene Lee from May May Dumplings will be there. Reporter Ian Cosse from WGBH will be there and I'll be there and it's going to be a blast. May 1st at WBUR City Space in Boston. Get info and tickets at sporkful.com/live. Okay, we now take you back to Swedish American Hall in San Francisco for our live show with Kenji Lopez Al.

• 32:30Dan Pashman?

  So off the success of your Food Lab column on Serious Eats, you released the Food Lab Cookbook, your first cookbook in 2015, which takes a similar approach as the column. It includes recipes and techniques for everything from chili con carne to French onion soup to meatloaf. It gets rave reviews, wins numerous awards, including the James Beard Award for Best General Cookbook. It's a huge hit. To date, it's sold more than half a million copies. Congratulations.

• 32:59Dan Pashman?

  And then you decide to open a restaurant.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:03Dan Pashman?

  Wurst Hall in San Mateo, just a little south of San Francisco where we are tonight.

• 33:10Dan Pashman?

  It's ostensibly a German-style beer hall with all kinds of sausages, but you incorporate a wider range of flavors. You have miregoes, Cajun sausages, Korean fried chicken sandwich. Now, you said originally you weren't supposed to be super-involved in the restaurant. You were gonna contribute a few recipes.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:27Dan Pashman?

  And then you shared something on social media like, "Hey, I'm gonna be working on this restaurant." And food media kind of picked it up and went berserk and said, "Kenji's opening a restaurant." Suddenly, it became "Kenji's Restaurant."

• 33:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:38Dan Pashman?

  And that kind of changed your role.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  Well, yeah. Initially, I was going to be a consultant. Yeah, and then it just became this like, "Oh, Kenji's opening a restaurant." And wrongly, I felt, "Oh, shit, like, people are gonna judge me on this thing now. I better do it well."

• 33:55Dan Pashman?

  Why is that wrong?

• 33:57Speaker 01

  Because ultimately, I shouldn't have let it control my life. Like, I had a, you know, I had a young daughter at the time, and I started out as a full-time stay-at-home dad. And like, I picked up this restaurant thing as sort of like a, "Okay, like, she sleeps during the day sometimes. Like, I'll work on this thing for a little bit." That was sort of my plan initially, but then, once it became a serious thing, it became like, "Okay, now, like..." I'm going to the restaurant every night after her bedtime. It's like I'll work at the restaurant part-time during the day while she's at daycare. And then I'll come home, do bedtime, and then I go to the restaurant from like, you know, 8:00 PM till 1:00 AM. Ultimately, it wasn't worth it to me.

• 34:35Dan Pashman?

  Like a lot of your fans and followers, I was following the process of the development of the restaurant on your Instagram and there would be pictures, "Oh, the beer taps were installed today," or "Here's this chicken sandwich we're testing. It's gonna be great." And I was, you know, excited to see what you were sharing. And then one day, you wrote in all caps, "Opening a restaurant is insane, and I don't know why anyone in their right mind would choose to do it."

• 34:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:02Dan Pashman?

  What was happening that day?

• 35:05Speaker 01

  I think most likely what happened that day was our first night of soft opening. I think we had 80 people in there that night, fixed menu. And, you know, we had tested out the kitchen and like everything was going fine in the line, like all the beer is pouring fine. What we didn't test was whether the bathrooms can handle 80 guests. And so the bathroom, like, there's like an old cast iron pipe that was sagging that broke in the wall and flooded into the foundation. And so these brand new bathrooms that we had just had installed, like we had to get them completely torn out and excavated and delayed opening by six weeks.

• 35:43Dan Pashman?

  Oh.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  Anyhow, yeah. That's the kind of stuff that happens.

• 35:48Dan Pashman?

  Right, right.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  And why you shouldn't open a restaurant.

• 35:53Dan Pashman?

  But I mean, it sounds like that was like, that was a rough time. I mean, like, how bad does it get?

• 35:59Speaker 01

  Got really bad.

• 36:01Dan Pashman?

  Was there like a rock bottom? What was?

• 36:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it affected my family life. It affected my marriage. It was, it was just, it really was one of those things like thinking like, when I'm like 80 years old, am I gonna think to myself, I wish, I wonder if I could have opened a restaurant? I wonder if I could have started a successful restaurant and am I gonna, am I gonna regret this? Like saying no to this right now because it's like opportunities just like kind of falling on me. So I was like, yeah, I should probably do this for the experience of it. And so I am glad I did it for the experience of it. And I would recommend that other people don't go through the experience of it.

• 36:33Dan Pashman?

  So you left the restaurant in 2020. You no longer have any stake in it. Did you end up making any money off it?

• 36:39Speaker 01

  No, uh, eight cents. And, you know, that was, that was the only paycheck I ever got.

• 36:44Dan Pashman?

  So all the work you did, like all the menu developing and all those hours, eight cents?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  So I had like my, my management shares, I returned them to the pool and they had to pay me, I think, at least a penny per share for some kind of legal reason.

• 37:00Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  So, um, yeah, so I get eight cents out of that.

• 37:03Dan Pashman?

  So you can confirm it's not a great business to be in, is what you're telling me?

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you want to make money, no, yeah. If you, if you want to make money, if you want to have like a good work-life balance, if you, you know, if you want any of the joys of life, then no, it's not.

• 37:16Dan Pashman?

  Right. Being a bestselling cookbook author is better.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Yes. Sure.

• 37:23Dan Pashman?

  Speaking of which, these days you're no longer writing the Food Lab column. You're writing occasional columns for the New York Times, which are similar in some ways to the Food Lab. They tend to involve a lot of research and testing to come up with a recipe. But a lot of your time is also spent on your YouTube channel, where you recently hit a million subscribers. Congrats. And in your... Yep. And in your videos, you mostly just strap a GoPro camera on your forehead and cook something. It's not really edited. We watch your hands at work, we only see you, and you narrate as you go. It's sort of very improvisational. It's kind of based on whatever you happen to have in the kitchen or in the pantry, and whatever you feel like cooking. So in that sense, it feels very different from the Food Lab and the cookbooks. And it's almost the polar opposite. Is that by design?

• 38:08Speaker 01

  The whole show is not by design. Like, it's just, uh, I started doing it because there was a GoPro in front of me one day while I was about to cook. Uh, and I only do it now because it, like, it doesn't interrupt my life. Uh, like, my, my, my criteria for when I'm shooting a video for that is, it's, it's, it has to be something that I was going to cook anyway. Um, and it has to be something I'm cooking when there's nobody else in my family in the kitchen. If those two criteria are met and, uh, the camera battery is charged, then I'll probably shoot it.

• 38:37Dan Pashman?

  Right. So you've got your YouTube channel, it's going very well. And now we have the new book, The Wok: Recipes and Techniques.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:48Dan Pashman?

  Now, Kenji, I know you to be a lover of puns.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:53Dan Pashman?

  You acknowledge in a footnote in the book that "wok" is a very pun-able word. But you didn't really go through all the potential puns you could have gotten for the title.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Okay, what'd I miss?

• 39:04Dan Pashman?

  I don't know that I have them all, but the Sporkful team and I, we were just brainstorming a little bit. You could have gone with "Everybody's Walking."

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:12Dan Pashman?

  "Walk Tall."

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:14Dan Pashman?

  "We Will Walk You."

• 39:16Speaker 01

  I think I did do "We Will Walk You."

• 39:17Dan Pashman?

  Maybe, yeah. Something to walk about.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 39:21Dan Pashman?

  Walk around the block. Walk around the clock. Chip off the old wok.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:27Dan Pashman?

  Walk Honda forever.

• 39:32Dan Pashman?

  Walking for the weekend.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 39:34Dan Pashman?

  And my personal favorite, which I think was on your list, which I legit think would be a great cookbook title, "Walk This Way."

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:41Dan Pashman?

  Right? And yet, you went with "The Wok."

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:49Dan Pashman?

  So, you started writing a sequel to The Food Lab, and you were writing a wok chapter that ended up ballooning, and you said, "This is just gonna be my next book."

• 39:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:57Dan Pashman?

  And you make a case that it's the wok is the most versatile pan in the kitchen, good for stir frying, deep frying, smoking, braising, and more. You break down the science of wok cooking. I loved this part of the book. I also love that you cited a study from David Hu, professor of fluid dynamics at Georgia Institute of Technology, who we've had on the Sporkful for...

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Oh, you had him on?

• 40:16Dan Pashman?

  Yes, he broke down noodle slurping.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 40:18Dan Pashman?

  I think about it every time I have noodles, because he explained how, as you slurp a noodle, as it comes towards your mouth, and more of it goes into your mouth, the noodle outside of your mouth is getting shorter and shorter, and therefore lighter and lighter.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  So it goes faster and faster.

• 40:31Dan Pashman?

  So it fishtails back and forth more and more, and increases the splatterability factor.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:36Dan Pashman?

  That's my term, not his. Anyway.

• 40:41Dan Pashman?

  You cite other studies as well, and then at least you explain how when you cook with a wok, so you're using its sloped sides to toss the food up in the air in sort of parabolic circles.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:51Dan Pashman?

  And you say that it's the tossing of the food through the air that makes it cook so quickly. Which is the opposite of what I would have guessed. I would have guessed that food flying through the air, it's like blowing on the food. Like, doesn't that cool it down?

• 41:06Speaker 01

  So, yeah, to some degree, but, but what you're really doing is you're encouraging evaporation. And so, in the, in the same sense that like, you know, when you're sweaty, right? Blowing a fan at you is gonna cool you off faster. Um, and it's gonna get rid of moisture faster. So like, a lot of the energy that goes into cooking food, um, goes into the evaporation of moisture. You know, in certain cases, so if you're working with like, uh, you know, with a gas burner, the motion of tossing it, you kind of create this column of hot air that rises up the back of, of the wok from the fuel source and jumps up the back of the wok. Um, and so you're also kind of tossing your food through that column of hot air. Um, so, you know, you're essentially, you're, yeah, you end up cooking it faster by virtue of the fact that you're helping moisture evaporate faster.

• 41:48Dan Pashman?

  You realize this book is gonna start a wok craze, right?

• 41:53Dan Pashman?

  Like, you, you, you may be starting a whole new trend.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  I hope so.

• 42:02Dan Pashman?

  So it seems from the photos that I see on Instagram that unlike you, your kids are growing up in a food-obsessed house. Is that fair to say?

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:13Dan Pashman?

  How, how would you say that food in your home now is different from food when you were growing up? Like, the role food plays in your home today versus the role of food in your home when you were a kid?

• 42:23Speaker 01

  For us, mealtimes when we were kids were so, on rare occasions, they were like joy, right? It was like, I get to eat like mapo tofu and, and dumplings, right? And those meals are great, but, but my mom was one of those types of moms that, that whatever was on our plate, we finished it. Uh, and so sometimes, you know, mealtimes were a chore, right? It's like you're forced to sit here until, like, my, my, my sister, um, my, my younger sister was the worst, like, where she would sometimes take like three hours to eat a meal. Like, there was, remember a, um, there was a Saturday morning where my mom made oatmeal and my sister hates oatmeal. Um, and she was sitting at the breakfast table for like two hours, like, we were already

• 43:04Speaker 01

  done watching cartoons, um, and she took a bite and then like, like regurgitated it back out into her bowl and then my mom made her eat it.

• 43:12Dan Pashman?

  Oh, man.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Um, so that was our relationship to food.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  No, I mean, our approach to food with our kids is much more, you know, like, I like to let them feel empowered at the tables. My daughter comes shopping with me and says, like, I want this duck. I want that charred, whatever, and then we'll come home and figure out what we're gonna do with it.

• 43:38Dan Pashman?

  And then she cooks with you?

• 43:40Speaker 01

  She cooks with me, yeah, most nights. But most nights, like, she, if she doesn't finish her music time, like, her violin practice before I start cooking dinner, then she has to practice violin through, so that's like, so not getting to cook is like, is like punishment for her. Like, she feels it when she can't cook. She likes to cook. But then sometimes she doesn't eat, you know? Like, sometimes she won't eat what she cooks, which is fine.

• 44:04Dan Pashman?

  You said that when you decided to become a chef, your mom was like, "I don't care if it's a high-end restaurant, you might as well be flipping burgers."

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:11Dan Pashman?

  What does she think now?

• 44:13Speaker 01

  So, okay, so I have a New York Times column, and like, that makes her happy, you know?

• 44:19Speaker 01

  But other than that, you know, it's like, she would rather have a doctor, of course.

• 44:28Dan Pashman?

  And what will you do if one of your kids comes to you in 20 years and says they want to be a chef?

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm, you know, I support my kids with whatever they want. It's like, I want them to, I feel like my role is to give them the moral backbone, and then, you know, they can do whatever they want with that.

• 44:47Dan Pashman?

  Right. Just don't open a restaurant.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  I might give them advice about opening a restaurant, yeah, but, you know, but if, I mean, yeah, there are people who love that, you know? I just found out I'm not one of them. But there are people who love it, and if you love it, do it.

• 45:03Dan Pashman?

  Well, the new cookbook is out now. It's called The Wok: Recipes and Techniques. It's available wherever books are sold. Big hand for my friend Kenji Lopez Alt.

• 45:15Dan Pashman?

  Thank you to Swedish American Hall. Thank you to all of you for coming out to see our first live show in two and a half years. Thank you so much. Good night.

• 45:31Dan Pashman?

  Thank you again to everyone who came out to our live show. It's great to see all of you. Thanks to Swedish American Hall and thanks to Kenji. His new book, The Walk, is really fantastic. I already learned so much reading it. Can't wait to start cooking some of those recipes.

• 45:47Dan Pashman?

  This show is produced by me, along with senior producer-

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Emma Morgenstern-

• 45:51Dan Pashman?

  and producers-

• 45:52Speaker 04

  Andres O'Hara-

• 45:53Dan Pashman?

  and-

• 45:53Speaker 02

  Johanna Mayer-

• 45:54Dan Pashman?

  our editor is- Tracy Samuelson- the show is mixed by- Amita Ganatra- music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher. Our executive producers are Peter Clowney and Daisy Rosario. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 46:09Speaker 05

  And I'm Ben Perkins from Petaluma, California, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 46:22Dan Pashman?

  This reheat was produced by-

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Gianna Palmer-

• 46:25Dan Pashman?

  the team that produces The Sporkful today includes me, along with managing producer-

• 46:29Speaker 02

  Emma Morgenstern-

• 46:30Dan Pashman?

  and senior producer-

• 46:31Speaker 04

  Andres O'Hara-

• 46:32Dan Pashman?

  our engineer is- Jared O'Connell- music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  This podcast is supported by Nurtac ODT. Remedy Pant. We know you didn't ask for an interruption, but migraine doesn't wait for the right moment to interrupt either. It just barges in, takes your time, and throws everything off. So when migraine takes your time, take Nurtac. It's for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults. Nurtac can provide pain relief in two hours, which can last up to two days. Ask your healthcare provider if Nurtac is right for you, because your time is for you, not migraine. Don't take if allergic to Nurtac ODT. Allergic reactions can occur even days after use. Get help right away for trouble breathing, rash, swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or throat. High blood pressure and Raynaud's syndrome can occur. Get help for high blood pressure, numbness, coolness, pain, or color changes in fingers

• 48:02Speaker 02

  and toes. Common side effect is nausea. For full prescribing information, call 1-833-4-NURTC or visit Nurtac.com. All right, back to your podcast, playlist, or whatever's keeping you going today.

• 48:18Speaker 06

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