Is Cooking Art or Science? with Kenji Lopez-Alt

Summary

Smart Girl Dumb Questions: Is Cooking Art or Science? with J. Kenji López-Alt

Host: Naeem Raza
Guest: J. Kenji López-Alt, James Beard Award-winning chef, cookbook author, and culinary expert
Release Date: April 18, 2025

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Introduction to J. Kenji López-Alt

Naeem Raza welcomes listeners to an engaging episode featuring J. Kenji López-Alt, a prominent figure in the culinary world known for his scientific approach to cooking. Kenji's journey from classical violin to MIT, and eventually to becoming a renowned chef and author, sets the stage for a deep dive into the complexities of modern culinary arts. Raza highlights Kenji's contributions, including his influential column "The Food Lab" and his popular YouTube channel, which demystify cooking through experimentation and exploration.

Are Recipes Science or Art?

Timestamp: [11:07] – [14:30]

Kenji delves into the distinction between recipes as scientific instructions and the broader techniques and crafts that elevate cooking to an art form. He likens following a recipe to following turn-by-turn directions on a map, emphasizing the necessity of precision and faith in the process. However, he argues that true culinary artistry arises from understanding the underlying techniques, allowing for creativity and adaptation beyond rigid instructions.

• Notable Quote:
  "A recipe is like turn by turn directions that you're getting from one place to another... If you just see a set of turn-by-turn directions... but you can also experiment and realize that the ingredients might not always be the same and the flavors will vary." ([11:07])

The Role of Craft and Technique in Cooking

Timestamp: [14:43] – [19:07]

Kenji expands on the importance of craft and technique, explaining how they serve as the foundation upon which culinary art is built. He compares plating to musical composition, where the visual presentation must harmonize with the flavors to evoke specific emotions and experiences in diners. Kenji stresses that while recipes provide structure, the true essence of cooking lies in the ability to translate creative ideas into tangible dishes.

• Notable Quote:
  "You need the craft element. You need to be practiced enough at your craft that you can actualize what's in your head." ([14:17])

Recreating Food Memories

Timestamp: [19:07] – [22:48]

The conversation shifts to the challenge of replicating childhood food memories. Kenji shares personal anecdotes about his mother's improvised cooking methods, highlighting how the lack of fixed recipes and the use of available ingredients made each meal unique. He acknowledges the difficulty in capturing these ephemeral flavors in modern recipes, emphasizing that food memories are deeply personal and often irreplaceable.

• Notable Quote:
  "Replicating that flavor is really impossible because it wasn't a fixed recipe... it's never going to taste quite the same." ([20:27])

Restaurant Pricing and Perceived Value

Timestamp: [27:11] – [30:35]

Kenji addresses the common misconception that restaurant food is overpriced by breaking down the actual costs involved. He explains that the price of a dish in a restaurant encompasses more than just ingredients; it includes labor, real estate, utilities, and the overall dining experience. This comprehensive cost structure means that even as real estate and labor costs rise, the price of certain dishes, like hamburgers, may not reflect these increases directly.

• Notable Quote:
  "You're not paying for the ingredients. You're paying for the salary of the people who are making it... and all the overhead, the rent and the utilities." ([29:56])

Is Brunch a Scam?

Timestamp: [34:21] – [35:27]

Returning to the initial playful question, Kenji affirms that brunch is not a scam. He argues that brunch offers more than just food; it's about the social experience, the ambiance, and the opportunity to enjoy time with friends over dishes like avocado toast. The perceived value of brunch lies in its ability to provide a communal and enjoyable outing, even if some items may seem overpriced.

• Notable Quote:
  "Brunch is about hanging out with your friends... it's gonna be an experience. You opt in for the brunch experience." ([34:22])

Impact of Modern Food Culture on Loneliness

Timestamp: [38:41] – [40:17]

Raza and Kenji explore how contemporary lifestyles, characterized by living alone and increased reliance on technology, affect our relationship with food. Kenji observes that while traditional extended family meals are less common, people adapt by building support networks and finding new ways to connect through food. He notes that modern conveniences, like precise ingredient measurements and single-serving options, change how individuals approach cooking and meal preparation.

• Notable Quote:
  "Necessarily leads to a different kind of food culture and you find your people in a different place." ([39:59])

Choice-Making in Career and Cooking

Timestamp: [40:17] – [43:30]

Kenji reflects on the role of choice in his life, from abandoning music to pursuing a career in culinary arts. He emphasizes passion-driven decisions, backed by a supportive safety net, as the foundation of his success. This philosophy extends to his cooking, where he prioritizes experimentation and sharing knowledge over mere recipe following. Kenji credits both personal passion and fortunate circumstances for his achievements.

• Notable Quote:
  "I always had this idea, like, okay, I'm going to find things I'm passionate about and do them. And then I'll be putting my best work out there." ([40:37])

Food as a Personal and Cultural Expression

Timestamp: [35:56] – [37:58]

The discussion touches on the intersection of personal identity and culinary practices. Kenji shares his experience growing up in a bicultural household, navigating the complexities of Japanese and American food traditions. He defends the authenticity of his family's adapted recipes, asserting that cultural evolution is a natural part of culinary expression. Kenji advocates for embracing individual experiences in cooking, even if they diverge from traditional norms.

• Notable Quote:
  "Maybe it's non-traditional to your experience, but it's 100% authentic to my experience." ([37:02])

Modern Cooking Tools and Debunking Myths

Timestamp: [32:03] – [33:27]

Kenji offers practical advice on essential kitchen tools, debunking the necessity of having an extensive collection of gadgets. He recommends investing in versatile tools like a good chef's knife and a versatile pan, such as a wok or sauté pan, over purchasing multiple specialized items. Kenji emphasizes functionality and comfort in kitchen tools, suggesting that the best tools are those that you will actually use regularly.

• Notable Quote:
  "The best knife is the one that you feel comfortable using." ([32:34])

Closing Thoughts and Final Reflections

Timestamp: [43:45] – End

In the closing segment, Raza and Kenji engage in a light-hearted exchange about personal cooking choices and organizational skills. Kenji expresses a desire to better organize his life, humorously suggesting Marie Kondo as a solution. The episode concludes with Raza summarizing key takeaways, including the blend of science and art in cooking, the significance of food memories, and the evolving nature of food culture in modern society.

• Notable Quote:
  "I do kind of worry about how many pictures we take of food and how perfectly our kind of single size orders arrive to our lonely homes nowadays." ([38:33])

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Key Insights and Takeaways

1. Cooking as a Blend of Science and Art: Cooking involves precise techniques and an understanding of underlying principles, allowing for creative expression and adaptability beyond rigid recipes.

2. Importance of Craft and Technique: Mastery of culinary techniques enables chefs to translate creative ideas into tangible dishes, elevating cooking to an art form.

3. Food Memories are Personal and Unique: Childhood food experiences are deeply ingrained and often irreplaceable, making replication challenging but also highlighting the personal nature of culinary memories.

4. Restaurant Pricing Reflects Comprehensive Costs: The higher prices of restaurant dishes are justified by factoring in labor, real estate, and the overall dining experience, not just ingredient costs.

5. Brunch Offers a Social Experience: Brunch is valued not merely for its food but for the social interaction and ambiance it provides, making it a worthwhile outing despite perceived high costs.

6. Modern Food Culture Adapts to Individual Lifestyles: Contemporary lifestyles influenced by technology and solo living reshape how people engage with food, emphasizing convenience and new forms of social connection.

7. Passion-Driven Choices Lead to Success: Following one's passions, supported by a safety net, fosters both personal fulfillment and professional success in the culinary field.

8. Culinary Tools Should be Functional and Comfortable: Investing in essential, versatile kitchen tools prioritizes functionality and daily use over ownership of numerous specialized gadgets.

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Conclusion

This episode of Smart Girl Dumb Questions offers a profound exploration of the culinary world through the lens of J. Kenji López-Alt. From dissecting the scientific underpinnings of cooking to celebrating the artistry of food presentation, Kenji provides listeners with a rich understanding of what makes cooking both a science and an art. His insights into food memories, restaurant economics, and modern food culture resonate deeply, encouraging both home cooks and culinary enthusiasts to reflect on their own relationships with food. Whether you're a seasoned chef or someone who simply enjoys a good meal, this conversation sheds light on the intricate dance between precision and creativity in the kitchen.

For more on Kenji López-Alt's culinary adventures and insights, visit his YouTube channel J. Kenji López-Alt or explore his acclaimed cookbooks, including The Food Lab and The Wok. Additionally, his podcast The Recipe with Kenji and Deb offers further exploration into the art and science of cooking.

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This summary is crafted to provide a comprehensive overview of the episode "Is Cooking Art or Science? with Kenji Lopez-Alt" from Smart Girl Dumb Questions. It captures the essence of the conversation, highlighting key themes, insights, and notable quotes to inform and engage those who have not listened to the original podcast.

Transcript

[Naeem Raza]

Is brunch a scam?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Is brunch a scam? No. In order for something to be a scam, there has to be an element of deception. With brunch, you know what to expect.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah. And you're getting avocado toast.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah.

[Naeem Raza]

And good chatter.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah. And part of the chatter is discussing. Is this $17 avocado toast a scam?

[Naeem Raza]

Exactly.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

But that's part of the experience of it, right?

[Naeem Raza]

Smart Girl, dumb questions. Welcome to Smart Girl, Dumb Questions. I'm Naeem Araza, and my guest, the great brunch defender, is J. Kenji Lopez. Alt. Kenji is a James Beard award winning chef, cookbook author, and what I'd call a recipe ologist. He really came to fame for his very scientific approach to cooking. He used to write a column called the Food in Serious Eats. And the Food Lab is also the title of Kenji's first number one New York Times bestselling book. Now Kenji is seen as something of an authority when it comes to food. The New York Times had an Ask Kenji column. And if you look in the comment section of various videos, you'll see people say, Kenji says to do this or Kenji Kenji says to do that. But as I think you'll see in this interview, Kenji is not one to be some kind of food autocrat. He's actually much more of an explorer, an experimenter. Even his path to food seems unlikely. He went from playing classical violin to getting into MIT to deciding to become a line cook before he started writing and blogging. These days on his YouTube channel, Kenji Cooks up all kinds of yummy experiments for millions of people in his Seattle houseboat kitchen. I had so many dumb questions for Kenji, like, am I a bad Asian if I need a rice cooker and do eggs actually expire? But I also had deep questions for him, like, why is it so hard to create those food memories from our childhood again? And is cooking an art or a science? Can everyone do it? Finally, I wanted to ask him about choices because so much of food seems to be about that. How much salt? What do I order? How much do I tip? And if anyone can talk about navigating choices, it's Kenji, who I think is a polymath and someone who's taken unlikely turns in his own life. Here's my conversation with Kenji Lopez.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Alt.

[Naeem Raza]

Thank you for doing this.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I'm excited to be here.

[Naeem Raza]

I also have a lot of dumb questions for you.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Great.

[Naeem Raza]

And I want to start with the talk of the town, which is the price of eggs. Eggs. Everybody is talking about eggs these days. And I wonder if anyone in the industry of food is also talking about eggs or if this is a political conversation.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Oh, sure. I mean, no, it affects everybody. I recently sort of relaunched, soft relaunched my YouTube channel. And when we were doing that, we're. I, historically, every time I've launched a new project, I've started it with eggs. Okay. And so I was like, oh, let's just do like every type of egg you can cook. You know, like, we'll make like a dozen videos over the course of like two or three months and it'll all be eggs. And so we shot, we scripted and shot all those videos. And then after that, the prices of eggs started to go up. And so now every video, people are like, how are you affording the eggs? Like, how are you affording eggs in this economy?

[Naeem Raza]

I have a hot take here, which is I kind of wonder if eggs are grossly underpriced and have been.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Oh, sure. I mean, almost all food is grossly underpriced, particularly restaurant food in major cities is grossly underpriced.

[Naeem Raza]

Eggs in particular, the nutritious value of an egg is like so much higher than a lot more expensive food. And the fact that you can get like a dozen of these things that are really fragile, very aesthetically pleasing.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Like two groceries, they need like delicate, custom designed packaging. They need to be individually inspected and weighed. Like, yeah, there's, there's a lot of stuff that goes into an egg. I mean, you know, a lot of that cost comes down to just economies of scale and also our willingness to exploit animals for, for our, for cheaper prices.

[Naeem Raza]

Okay, quick lightning round on eggs. Do eggs actually expire?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

They do, but very slowly. So I'm going to give you a long answer and a quick lightning round. If you travel outside the US you might notice that e stored on the, on the counter, room temperature. So there's a natural sort of waxy cuticle on the egg that protects it from moisture loss and prevent and protects it from outside contamination. In the US we wash that off with the idea that we're washing off any potential contaminants with it. But that does mean that after we do that, they have to be refrigerated. So. So there's two parts to this question. There's one which is like, how long does an egg last without when we don't wash off that cuticle? Like if you're getting it from your chicken in the backyard, for example. So in the US they can be sold up to 30 days after they're collected, but they can be collected up to 30 days after they're laid. And so there is that. There's that period when they still have the waxy cuticle on them where they can sit. In reality, it doesn't happen that way because nobody's going to leave 28 days worth of eggs sitting in their chicken coop. And then once you wash that off and sort of decontaminate. Decontaminate them and put them on the supermarket shelf, then it's another 30 days.

[Naeem Raza]

So that's a sell by day. And then use that.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

And then, so there's that phrase people say like, oh, it smells like rotten eggs. Most people have not really smelled a rotten. I don't think I've ever really smelled a rotten egg. It's really hard to, to make an egg go rotten. And so I have an egg in my fridge right now that I'm purposely aging. Like I have a dozen eggs that I've. I've had in there now for, since October.

[Naeem Raza]

You're growing an egg.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I'm trying to get them to go rotten. I want to see how long it's going to take these eggs that I bought from the supermarket to actually go rotten enough that they smell like rotten eggs.

[Naeem Raza]

Okay.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

You know, because it's always weird to me that that's our yardstick for bad smelling things when it's something we smell so rarely.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah. As opposed to bad fish. Well, how long does it, how long has it been in the fridge? In the fridge?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Since October. So what? Six. Six months?

[Naeem Raza]

Six months. And it does so far.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I, the last one I opened was a month ago and it didn't smell. Okay.

[Naeem Raza]

So we'll, we'll put a legal disclaimer. Don't try this at home, but have you, could you eat that egg, you think?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah, no, I cooked it and ate it. Yeah.

[Naeem Raza]

Okay. Yeah, Six months.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

You cooked it ate was fine. Yeah.

[Naeem Raza]

How long do you think you'll go? Will you go until, until it rot?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I mean, I want to go until it smells like what I imagine people say, oh, this smells like. I want to be able to set a bar for what that yardstick is. Like when someone says, does it smell like rotten eggs? I want to be able to say, I have smelled rotten eggs. And yes, this does or no, this doesn't. You know, going a little past the expiration date is not going to. I mean, the thing about expiration dates is they're not really, they're not really expiration dates. They are sort of sell by dates and they're, they're a voluntary thing. That companies put on their own products as a estimation of when a product is going to be sort of at its. In its best freshness. So like, they basically don't want you to get to a point where something tastes stale, like a Ritz cracker tastes stale, and you judge it based on its staleness. It's not about food safety. It's just about sort of what a company thinks is going to be a product is going to be at its optimal quality before it starts to decline.

[Naeem Raza]

So there are incentives for them. They don't want you to complain and they also want you to buy more of the product.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yes.

[Naeem Raza]

Replenish.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah, yeah. The only case where an expiration date is about sort of the nutritional or edibility of it is in baby formula. And that's where it's sort of like mandated, government mandated. But for most food products, the expiration date is voluntarily put on there and it's estimated by the company producing it.

[Naeem Raza]

You are somebody who has, like, who has built a career around experimentation and recipes. You come from a family of scientists.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

My father is a biologist.

[Naeem Raza]

Your father is a biologist and your grandfather was an organic chemist. And so you had that kind of science in your DNA, you think?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I'm sure, because my dad was a scientist, like it just interested me. So I was always real interested in science growing up and at school. I don't think I have like scientific blood. I think it would be unscientific to say that I have scientific blood, but. But through some combination of nurture and nature. Yeah, I fell into science early in.

[Naeem Raza]

Your career at places like Serious Eats. It seemed you were. I mean, you ran a column called the Food Lab. You seemed like there was a perfectionism to your food, like a kind of getting to a sort of precision.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I mean, so there's precision around the testing. I wouldn't say like my day to day cooking was very precise. It's like I wanted to know the answers to something so that you can then decide for yourself how much you want to apply that to your daily cooking or to find out, okay, I'm doing this thing that I don't actually need to be doing or there's a faster, easier way to do it. Certainly in that time there were a lot of recipes that we called like the Best X. So anytime a recipe on Serious Eats in those days said the Best X, it meant like, this is the type of recipe where we're going to really test every single variable and show you, like how it makes a difference. And you know, and I always try to make sure to say at the start of an article, say what my definition of best is. So it's like, I want my. I want my burger to have, like, a big, beefy flavor. I don't want, like, a lot of other ingredients in there interfering with the flavor of the beef. Like, I. I want it to have, like, a nice salty crust. I want it to be tender and juicy and have, like, little pockets of it. So I would explain what I wanted so that people can then say, okay, I agree. Like, that's the destination I want to arrive at.

[Naeem Raza]

Like, I want my chocolate chips to be gooey or not, so they could know what they're getting before they go and make it and then find out.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Right? And then. And that if. So, chocolate chip cookies is a good example. So if I want my chocolate chip cookies to be soft in the center, but have, like, little crispy, sort of caramelized, lacy edges. But if you want your cookie to be real soft, or if you like it crispy and like toffee, like, the whole way through, in the article, I'm going to show you what variables affect that so that you can read my recipe. If you read the recipe and the article as a whole, then you can say, okay, like, if I increase the ratio of white sugar to brown sugar, it's gonna make the cookie crisper.

[Naeem Raza]

Over time, it seems like you have moved away from best, more into play.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I'm past the phase where I care so much about, like, Empire expanding. You know, it's like, I don't need to pull all the eyes. I don't need to play the SEO game. Like, I don't want to. Like, I'm pretty comfortable where I am right now. And so I can avoid that kind of language and get the audience that I want. And people, like, who know the kind of work I do are able to find it. Part of it's also that, like, yeah, I have kids now. I've, you know, I've got kids, I've have employees. I've got more things going on. And so those days when I was married but not a parent, I could devote 100% of my time to just sitting in the kitchen. And I was also younger, had more energy, so 100% of my time meant like 7am till 4am and you were.

[Naeem Raza]

Tinkering all day, basically.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Or I would, like, run out in the middle of the night to get more flour to make more chocolate chip cookies.

[Naeem Raza]

Were you obsessive about it at that time?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah, at that time for sure. Yeah. And now I Am obsessive about delivering recipes that are, that work for people and making sure that anything I put out there is going to work. But I do also, I feel these days take a little more balanced approach to, you know, are you putting in 90% more work to make it 5% better and making sure that if you are going to, you know that, but also that it's like it's fine not to do it. Yeah, it's like it's okay to buy the instant mashed potatoes.

[Naeem Raza]

For a lot of people, myself included, cooking can feel daunting and recipes in particular can feel, I think, daunting because you, it's like it never turns out the way that I expect it to turn out.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

So a recipe to me is like turn by turn directions that you're getting from one place to another. And if you just see if you're in a brand new city, a place you've never been before, and you just see a set of turn by turn directions and it's like 20 things long, a bunch of, I don't know this street, I don't know, like, like you look at, it's like, I don't know where that's taking me, but I'm just going to trust it'll get me there. You have to be, you have to put a lot of faith in it. You also have to be really good at reading instructions and sort of following along precisely. And you have to have your head buried in it to get from point A to point B. But if you give someone a map and say, okay, like this is point A, here's point B and you get a full picture of it and this is the route you're going to be taking, like that's a lot easier for you to then grasp your head. Okay, like I get it. Like I'm heading that general direction. If I don't take this one little alley here, I can still go around this way and get to the same place or I can get to this place that's close by that might, that I might like even better. And to me that's like what understanding sort of technique and science behind cooking is. So, I mean, so I wrote this in my first book that I feel like it's far more important, at least with my work to read the surrounding material as opposed to just the specific recipe. Because the recipe is like a set of turn by turn directions that doesn't give you context.

[Naeem Raza]

It's like MapQuest when they used to have MapQuest.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Right. And do you remember when you used to get it texted to your phone.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah. Or you would print them because, like, you're going, I remember going on road trips with my parents, and I'd print them.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I would use this Google service. There was, like, a Google map service. You could text, like, take me from here to here on your phone. And then you were limited by the length of SMS messages. And so you would get, like, message, like, 18 out of 24 to get you to hear, and they would always come into the wrong order. So you had to, like, scan through your messages, like, figure out, like, piece it together like a puzzle.

[Naeem Raza]

Sounds very dangerous for driving. Recipes are like MapQuest. Turn, turn by turn. Directions. Techniques are like looking at the map and getting a sense of where you're going. Neil DeGrasse Tyson had this thing where he talked about the difference between knowledge and wisdom and insight with me, and it seems kind of similar. Like, he would kind of say, recipes are like knowledge.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah.

[Naeem Raza]

Just technique is like wisdom and then insight. Is there something else that's above technique, like craft or.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I mean, I would put craft and technique under the same umbrella. I mean, with food, there's. There's amount. There's an amount of artistry that you can get to, which is, you know, intentionally evoking feelings in people that are eating things beyond just like, oh, this tastes good, and making people think about a different point of view. And, you know, I think with certain chefs, you get there where they're expressing something of themselves in their food, either sharing a part of them and their story that people can then understand, or challenging the way people think about things to think about things in a new way. And I feel like, first of all, you have to have a. A good mind to get yourself out there and a certain vulnerability and openness to put yourself out there. But then you need to make technique and craft work for you. You know, it's like if you're. If you're a musician, like a jazz musician, you know, you could be listening to a. A chord. Chord progression and thinking of amazing melodies or amazing things to do in there. But if you're. If you can't translate that into actual vibrations that go out into the air and get into someone's ears.

[Naeem Raza]

What are you doing?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

What are you doing? Yeah, exactly. So you need the craft element. Like, you need to be practiced enough at your craft that you can actualize, like, what's in your head.

[Naeem Raza]

Right.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

And it's the same in cooking. It's like, I can have this flavor memory, or I could say, hey, I want to make this taste X like a certain way that's going to evoke a certain feeling in people. But if I don't know how to actually physically make that come to reality.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah. I want to talk to you about food memories in a second, but I do. So to use your analogy, it seems like there's like, turn by turn directions, there's maps, and then there's like, urban design, which is this artistry or some kind of creation of the world around.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

World. Yeah. World creation or. Yeah.

[Naeem Raza]

Does anyone just suck at navigation? Like, are there just people, like, you know, people just suck at navigation? Are there people who are just going to suck at cooking regardless of how hard they try?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I don't think regardless of how hard you try. You know, I think everybody has certain, certain innate. The way the way their mind works or the. The way their bodies physically work and their minds connect with their body is different, and that's going to change the way you approach cooking. But there's different styles of cooking, right? There's cooking in a restaurant, which is very much about sort of structure and making sure that the food is exactly the same every time. But then there's home cooking, which is real different from that. And you can cook the same dish different ways every time. You can try and make it taste just like your grandmother's. That's great. But you could also experiment and realize that, like, you know, the onion that I'm using today is not going to be the same as the onion I buy from the farmer's market in two weeks from now. And so the food's going to taste a little different. And, you know, when you work at smaller scales, those differences. There's subtle differences in flavor that come through sort of technique and ingredients are going to be bigger than when you're producing in a large scale. So, no, I don't think there's anybody that can't cook. There might be people that just aren't interested in cooking and don't want to put in the time. And that's. That's fine, right?

[Naeem Raza]

The thing like Pakistan, where I grew up, I. There's a. Women there use this thing called. We say in Urdu, it means your judgment. So there's no recipes really. Like, it's very frustrating because I will try to learn from my mother something and I'll say, well, how much? Like, I'm making dal at home. And I'm like, how much of this to use? And my mom's like, oh, just ndazase, which is so unhelp. It's like from your own Gut from your own instinct. And it's a way that like, I felt like people hoard their recipes, you know, it's like your aunt will be like, I can't tell you how to make. You'll just have to come over to.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Have my jobs, you know, or guarantee time with their nieces and nephews.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah. But also, I think there isn't. It's like that artistry. There's something about that tradition of home cooking. And a family friend of ours, Asma Khan, made a whole restaurant, Darjeeling Express in London, which is around us like women that have never cooked at restaurants. She was like, why do all these women cook at home? But when you go to subcontinental restaurants, yeah, it's all, you know, it's all men. It's all men, but they go home and their wives cook for them. So clearly. And so her whole restaurant is run by kind of at home chefs. And I think the food tastes really different. I don't know, it just feels more at home.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Right, right, right.

[Naeem Raza]

It feels more at home.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah. Food that, that's heavily spice based. In particular, that, that feel of balancing spices is really important. You. There's these new spice companies that are, that are dedicated to bringing you the freshest, most flavorful spices. Right. And it's like, okay, so if this spice company's cumin has a much more intense flavor and I'm using it like teaspoon for teaspoon or ounce for ounce with the cumin that I've been buying from the supermarket, like, of course the dishes are going to taste different. Right. And so like, is the amount I'm using here the right amount or is that amount the right amount? No, the right amount is like what tastes good to you.

[Naeem Raza]

Right.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Or what tastes good to doing it with intentionality. And it's like my, you know, like my mother, she moved out of an apartment that. The apartment that I was not born in, but moved to when I was 4 years old. So it was an apartment? Yeah, in New York. She lived there for 40 years. She recently moved out of it and with her came a can of McCormick cinnamon that was 40 that she had moved there with from Cambridge.

[Naeem Raza]

What was the sell by date on that?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Oh, I don't know. But it was like a 40 year old plus can of cinnamon that doesn't smell like anything in this. Right. Like you'd have to use like two cups of that if you want to get the same cinnamon flavor that you get out of like a quarter teaspoon of something else, you know, so so spices, like, anything, the potency, the way. The way it's grown, the environment that it's grown in, like, all those things really affect the flavor of it. And so one of the things that you learn with experience from cooking is what are the parts that are essential, Like a mechanical, mechanically essential part.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Of the recipe? You know, what. What is the bit that, like the engine that's making this run, and what are the bits that are your choice, like the. The tint or the. The finish on the seed? And it's like, very rarely are the spices the things that make. Make the. The engine run.

[Naeem Raza]

You know, it's like those are the tent. The things that make it run are like, what.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

The ratio of eggs to flour, the temperature that you're frying at, like, those.

[Naeem Raza]

Those are the type of thing you're cooking it in.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

The faster you're cooking it can often be. Yeah, it'll vary from. From recipe to recipe, but it's. Yeah, it's like getting. Generally getting the ratio of this sort of, you know, the active ingredients is. Is. Is more important than just the flavorings.

[Naeem Raza]

Has there been a food memory that you had that you were unable to recreate in a recipe, or do you sometimes start recipes with that?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah. We grew up on 125th and Riverside, which was a beef neighborhood. Like, it was. There was a bunch of meat packing plants around there, and so there was a lot of beef around. And, you know, so, like, my mom would buy meat. There was. If you stopped at the stoplight there at 125th and Broadway, a guy would come by with a cooler that he had probably stolen meat from the back of a warehouse and would sell you meat out your window while you're stopped at the stoplight. You know, so we always had a lot of ground meat at home, which she used for everything. And. And she was a very frugal cook. And so she would make her dumpling filling was ground meat and then whatever frozen vegetables she had. So often it was. Sometimes there might be fresh cabbage, but often it was like frozen spinach. It would be like the end of a carrot that she. That she would grate and mix in there. So it was a bunch of, like. And it was slightly different every time for me. Like. Yeah, replicating that flavor is, like, really impossible because it wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't a fixed recipe. My other favorite food growing up was Mapo tofu. Mapo tofu is typically a dish that combines beef and tofu. It's a Sichuan dish, but she made her version of. Of the Japanese version of Mapo tofu. Mapo tofu was brought to Japan in the 70s by.

[Naeem Raza]

From China.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

From China, yeah. By a Japanese Sichuan chef. He's. If you watch Iron Chef. Iron Chef Chen Kenichi, his father is the guy who brought Sichuan cuisine to Japan. And once it came to Japan, it got adapted to suit Japanese tastes, which don't run so spicy. A lot less garlic. They tend to be sort of sweeter and milder. So Japanese mapo tofu is a lot sweeter, milder than Sichuan Mapo tofu. And my mom. My mom's Mapo tofu is a further depart from that because she would make it out of this, like, dumpling filling that she also used to make her, like, you know, Italian meat sauce.

[Naeem Raza]

She is such an efficient cook. She's like, your mom could have done Blue Apron. She's like, use every last piece.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yep, yep.

[Naeem Raza]

So have you been able to recreate the Mapu tofu or. No, in my.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

In my book, the. The Wok, there is a. A sort of recreation of it, but again, it's like, it's never going to taste quite the same because it doesn't have, like, mine doesn't have that. Those random bits of freezer stuff.

[Naeem Raza]

I think about this a lot. Like, there's something so different to when I go see a play versus a TV series or a movie. Like, a play is never the same twice. Like, every production, something happens that's different. And are recipes like that? Or, like, is food like that? Like, they'll never be the same twice?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah. I mean, because even if, you know, even if a fast food restaurant, McDonald's does its best to make sure that every hamburger, no matter where you get it, is gonna be identical. And, you know, and that would be sort of the closest I'd say to coming. Like, that's like the blockbuster movie, you know, it's like a certain quality level, something that most people will find. Yeah, this is delicious. Even though I know it's not like a work of art, but it's predictable, like a Marvel movie, you know, and people know what they're gonna get when they go there. And so that's the closest you get. But even then, it's like you're gonna be in a different headspace. You're in a different mood. My kids, what we always say, the dinner table asides from don't yuck someone's yum, is that if you don't like something right now, don't like, don't don, or say that you don't like it, just say, oh, I don't like this right now. You don't know who you're going to be in three years. What we perceive as flavor is something that we make up in our heads, right? Your tongue takes in certain sensory data. Your nose and soft palate take in certain olfactory sensory data. But then that data also gets combined with the sound of the food, the way the food looks, our mood, and all of that gets jumbled into this matrix in our brain that then comes out and says, this is the pleasure you're feeling. This is the experience of eating.

[Naeem Raza]

This Right now I worry about, like, we're losing our food memory because we're taking all these pictures of food. Like, when you go into concerts, you see people. Like you were watching the concert through somebody's phone. And when you go into restaurants, it's like people take. I don't know, there's like a lack of presence in some way because you're taking pictures. Do you worry about that?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I try to recognize that there's definitely like a certain, like, old man yelling at clouds element to this. That just because, like, I experienced food in a certain way growing up, that doesn't mean that, like, the way my daughter is going to experience things is less valid. Like, through the. Through the lens of a new technology.

[Naeem Raza]

It also changes the thing that's being observed. The act of observing, which is like, plating has become such a thing in culture, or maybe it's always been. But is plating, like, is this food performance? Is this like, cosplay with carrots? Is this really an art?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I mean, I think plating was always important because we do eat with our. Eat with our eyes. No, I was at restaurants plating food in a fancy way before I ever even had a cell phone. And, yeah, you go back and look at food from the 80s and it's still plated really nicely. Yeah, no problem. Even historically, even pre photography days, food was presented nicely. Like they shoved the apple in the pig's mouth.

[Naeem Raza]

While we're here, can we do a quick lightning round on restaurants?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Sure.

[Naeem Raza]

Okay. What are the days? Not to order fish.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

There's no days not to order fish. Just don't order fish at a restaurant that doesn't have big turnover. Yeah, that whole idea that, like, from. I think it was from Kitchen Confidential. He was talking about one, you know, a particular subset of restaurants in a particular city that got their fish deliveries on X, Y and Z days. But people, especially these days, like, deliveries come daily, year round. Fish get Flown in, fish get trucked. It's like, it's. There's no day not to order fish.

[Naeem Raza]

What is the worst food to order on a date?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

It depends where you want the date to go afterwards. But for me, it's like anything that's going to, like, lower your energy, like, make you. Make you feel lethargic afterwards. So I try to eat light on dates. And if you're going to eat something that smells bad, make sure your date also eats the same thing so you.

[Naeem Raza]

Can be equally bad smelling. Speaking of dates, is not being an asshole to the waiter a good test of a person, you think? Or can assholes be nice to waiters, too?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

There are a lot of surreptitious assholes in the world, right? People who reveal themselves to be assholes. But it's safe to say that if someone is an asshole to the servers, or not even an asshole if someone. If someone sees the servers as servants, yeah. That's probably a good indication that they're not a good person.

[Naeem Raza]

What about the people that are overly nice?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Like, overly nice in, like, a patronizing way?

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah. Don't you. Do you.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Have you never experienced that the best thing you can do is treat a server like what they are, which is like, a human doing a job. And, like, if they look like they're in the mood to sit and chat with you, like, sit and chat with them. And if they look like they need to get to that other table or the restaurant's real busy, then, like, don't take up all their time.

[Naeem Raza]

When is it acceptable to request a substitution?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

That's always acceptable to request. If, if, if you want to. I mean, you can. You could make an unreasonable request, and they could. They could deny it.

[Naeem Raza]

I always ask for hot sauce, like, everywhere I go. Or, like, spicy something like extra chilies, whatever variation. And there are certain places that, like, they don't care. They're like, we do not carry any kind of spice. And you'll be like, but there's fresh bird's eye chili here. Can you bring me more? And they're like, no, there is.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

So that's. Yeah. If it's something that you're going to have to ask a. Someone in the kitchen to change their flow of operations for, like, they have to go get a cutting board, cut it out, chop some chilies, and put it in a thing for you. Unless the restaurant's real slow, that's gonna. That can. That's the kind of thing that can throw off a whole kitchen.

[Naeem Raza]

Wow. I've just learned. I'M an asshole sometimes.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

It's not an asshole to ask for it, though.

[Naeem Raza]

It's not that.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

If you insist on it and say, like, I'm gonna write this in my Yelp review, then. Then you're an asshole.

[Naeem Raza]

How much should you tip?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah, I took. I've tip a minimum of 20%. You know, I. I know tipping's a real controversial subject. This is also one of those things that I feel like will have to be legislated away if we ever want to get rid of it. Because as much as people like to say, oh, just like, pay your. Pay your staff a fair wage and we'll pay the prices, it's not true. You know, like, some chefs that have. That have some status can do that, right. And say, hey, like, they have a strong.

[Naeem Raza]

Danny Meyer.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah, he can do that and know that his restaurants are still going to be packed. But you can't expect, like, the mom and pop that's just opening, trying to make a name for itself. And everybody there is living paycheck to paycheck and hoping for customers to come in, like, to take that kind of risk. The harder thing about tips these days is that is. Is times that you're now asked to tip when you weren't. Historically, were not.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

And sometimes you're even asked to tip on already what was traditionally untipped labor. Like the apps, right?

[Naeem Raza]

It's the apps. It's like the default, and then the default being, like, 20, 25, 30.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Those are the times where it's like, are you expecting me to tip? But now it's like, I just bought a. I bought a Coke at the convenience store. I expected to tip on this thing that I went and got out of the fridge case by myself.

[Naeem Raza]

Oh, I'm just waiting for, like, that, like the vending machine at the airport to, like, ask me for a tip. Like, no, we've reached, like, peak simulation at that point. Why are the portions so big in America versus elsewhere? Is that just.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I'm not a sociologist or, you know, I would guess there's something to do with this American promise of prosperity and abundance. And people want to feel that when they come and they want to have that represented on the plate. I mean, food costs are the lowest part of a. Of a restaurant's budget. You know, food costs generally in a restaurant is around 25, 28% of the price that you pay. So if you're paying $10 for a hamburger, generally $2.80 goes to the actual cost of ingredients. So adding an extra patty to your Burger. Making it twice as big as the person next door for another 70 cents seems like a much bigger value to the customer than. Than the cost of the restaurant. So increasing the portion sizes is a. Is a cheap way to increase revenue.

[Naeem Raza]

How much broccoli would fit into this light bulb? It turns out it's half a cup cooked. Which brings me to the question of how can I tell what's actually on my plate? I'm Naima Raza, host of Smart Girl Dumb Questions, and this is the sponsored Dumb Question brought to you by Noom. You're probably seeing all these recommendations about how many ounces of protein or cups of veggies you need in your diet every day. But if you're like me, you go out to dinner with friends, not with measuring cups and scales. Thankfully, Noom has given me a set of hacks to eyeball how much food is on my plate. Like, it turns out 3 ounces of beef looks like a deck of cards, but 3 ounces of fish, that looks more like a checkbook. And when it comes to carbs, a half cup of mashed potatoes looks like half of an apple, but a half cup of ice cream looks like a tennis ball. And a half cup of cooked spaghetti that looks like a baseball. And that same baseball would fit a cup of salad. If you're looking to understand macros and portions and proteins, you should check out noom. Their behavior based weight loss app isn't about fad diets, but a more sustainable, personalized, colorful way to figure out what's on your plate and to feel good in your body. You can start with their simple Noom quiz. And while you go do that, I'm gonna go replace all my measuring cups with light bulbs and basic balls and checkbooks. The thing you just said about food is grossly underpriced at restaurants. That's something that just like, blows people's minds because people think it's so expensive. Why really is food underpriced in restaurants? It's because it has to capture real estate and labor and all that.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Real estate and labor? Yeah. So people like people when they look at the cost of a hamburger. They're thinking, okay, I can make a hamburger at home for four bucks. Or like, McDonald's gonna make a hamburger for five bucks. Like, why am I paying $16 for this? And it's, it's because you're not paying for the ingredients. You're paying for the, the salary of the people who are making it. You're paying for the, the. All the overhead, the rent and the utilities. You're paying for the. The whole experience and not just the food. So, like, you know, I. I recently moved from the Bay Area to Seattle, and both of these are cities where cost of living has gone up massively in the last 10 years, but the cost of a hamburger hasn't gone up to match that.

[Naeem Raza]

One of the things I love about you is, like, you're an antidote to our consumerist culture. You are. I trust you to, like, tell us the shit we need and don't need, and I like that in your house, you live in a houseboat.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Not for much longer.

[Naeem Raza]

Okay.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

But it was a. It was a rented place, and they are putting the boat on the market. So, you know, it was a fun experiment for a year there.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah. But you have, like, a normal size. Like, for a New York person living in a New York apartment, you have a kitchen that, like, I can relate to versus, like, I've been inside Martha Stewart's kitchen, and I cannot relate to her. She has, like, a pot that's the size of me.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Oh, yeah.

[Naeem Raza]

I, like, picked up the thing it was then.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

In her kitchen.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah. You know, so here, I want to know what I actually need. Fuck. Marry. Kill air fryer. Stove oven.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Kill air fryers.

[Naeem Raza]

Okay. Kill air fryers.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Kill air fryers. Marry the stovetop.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Fuck the oven. No, other way around. Marry the oven. Fuck the stovetop.

[Naeem Raza]

Really? I would marry the stovetop. How are you gonna make noodles and stuff?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah, it's hard, but. But also, like, having having kids. Like, it makes having kids and like. Like having more hands off stuff. I would say I use the stovetop more, but ultimately, I like. I. I rely on the oven for certain situations.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah. Because you don't have to be at it the whole time.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

That's a real tough 1.

[Naeem Raza]

Okay.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

3. 3.

[Naeem Raza]

It's okay. You can be polyamorous.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah.

[Naeem Raza]

What about a rice cooker? I always fuck up rice, which I think makes me a really bad Asian.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Right.

[Naeem Raza]

Like, me too. It's always gooey. You. You make. You don't get rice.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Rice. Over the years, I've gotten better, but the rice cooker makes much better rice than I can make.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah. Yeah.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

And rice cookers, I mean, they're. They're cheap and they're. And if you use them a lot, they're like a real. You know, you can get a $25 rice cooker that works great. You don't need a rice cooker. But if you're from a culture that eats a lot of rice, you love rice. Like, my kids love rice, I love rice. It's really easy to just have a rice cooker. I know now, like, what type of rice I have. The ratio of water, I can measure it out, like with a juice glass. And that's like a 30 second task that I just put. Push a button and part of my meal is taken care of for me.

[Naeem Raza]

Does it matter what knife I use? For what?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I use a chef's knife or a Chinese cleaver, depending on my mood, for virtually everything. Sometimes a Japanese santoku knife. But my choice in that is not about functionality. It's just like, what am I in the mood for? Because I'm like a knife nerd and I collect knives. But functionally, you need one chef's knife. Maybe a bread knife if you cut a lot of bread with a hard crust. Yeah. Maybe a paring knife if you like, you know, doing fine, intricate work. And you find a chef's knife to be too involved with that. But when I worked in restaurants, like, 90% of what I did was chef's knife. So, you know, the best knife is the one that you feel comfortable using.

[Naeem Raza]

Right, Right.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

So if you buy yourself a knife that's too expensive, that feels like an art piece, and you're never gonna. You're worried about dinging it or never gonna use it, then, like, the knife is useless.

[Naeem Raza]

But like that, like 18 knife set that ace.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

You don't need an 18 knife set. No. You just need one good knife that feels comfortable in your hand that you can see yourself using day after day.

[Naeem Raza]

All right, sorry, Kaffalon or whoever. If it's only one.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Everyone makes knife sets.

[Naeem Raza]

Everyone makes them. If one. Only one pan. Are you going to say the wok because you have.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

It really depends what you cook. It really depends what you cook. For me, it would be the wok, but, you know, my other favorite pan would be like a deep either saute pan or Brazer. So something that has a wide bottom surface area for like searing a lot of meat, but can also double as something you can braise in, but you could also like fry an egg in or whatever. That's a real versatile pan. Like something that's like a few inches high, real wide and nice and heavy.

[Naeem Raza]

Are the following things scams like Le Creusette cookware.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

No, I mean Le Creuset makes really.

[Naeem Raza]

I'm saying it wrong.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

That's okay. Yeah. Le Creuset cookware, they make really fantastic things. They also have really good warranties. You buy it once, you pay a lot of money, but Then you're guaranteed to have this pot for life. And, you know, and they're. Yeah, they're really well made. They're beautiful. They're fancy.

[Naeem Raza]

They have the Dutch oven thing. You're talking about Dutch oven?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Heavy Dutch oven.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah.

[Naeem Raza]

Is brunch a scam?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Is brunch a scam? No. I mean, I don't think anything's a scam. I love brunch because I don't think anything's a scam if you enjoy it. Brunch is about hanging out with your friends. I think I love brunch foods. Anything that you can add eggs to, I enjoy. No, again, I think you might feel like, okay, am I just overpaying for pancakes and waffles that I can make real cheap at home? Yes. But the point of brunch is not necessarily just the food. Brunch is a thing. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna wait on a line with some friends. We're gonna hang out. There's gonna be other people also waiting on this line, and it's gonna be fun. We're gonna chill, and we're gonna have Bloody Marys or Virgin Bloody Marys. And it's gonna be an experience. You opt in for the brunch experience.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah, yeah. You have to align on it. Like, there are people who love having. I don't like brunch. I find it, like it's an. It's like a weird time of day. I'm not a bruncher, but, you know.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I feel like in order for something to be a scam, there has to be an element of dec. You have to not be getting what you're expecting to get. And with brunch, you know what to expect.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah. And you're giving it to avocado toast.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah.

[Naeem Raza]

And good chatter.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah. And part of the chatter is discussing. Is this $17 avocado toast a scam.

[Naeem Raza]

Exactly.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

But that's part of the experience of it. Right?

[Naeem Raza]

That's brunch. You grew up in this extended communal household a bit. I think your grandparents lived above the floor below us. Yeah, on the floor below you. One of the things I loved about your book Every night is pizza night. The kids book, which I've bought for my godkids, is like, growing up, I used to be really kind of embarrassed about some of the food I had, especially when I moved to America from Asia. I'd be like, oh, my mom would make me these burgers that were kebabs, and they would smell a certain way. And I always feel like the girl with the smelly lunch food. I don't know if that is a memory that other people had. Is it?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Oh, I know lots of people have had that memory. Yeah. It wasn't one that I necessarily grew up because my mom, like, really bought into American food culture when she moved. She moved here when she was, like, a late teenager. But then when she started cooking for her kids, it was a lot of. It was Japanese food, but it was also, like, you know, Italian, American meat sauce. Like, she made New York Times recipes and Betty Crocker recipes. Okay. And so we had a mix of food at home growing up. No, for me, the cultural element was more. It was, you know, kind of like this third culture thing where I didn't. When I went to Japanese school every Saturday as a kid, and, like, I got relentlessly made fun of by the kids there because I wasn't fully Japanese. But then I also did feel Japanese. Cause I grew up like, Japanese was my first language, and my. My grandmother didn't speak any English, and I saw her every single day. But then when I went to an American school, not American enough, Not Japanese enough. And so for a long time, I kind of, like, denied my Japaneseness because it's like, okay, well, I guess I clearly don't fit in with the Japanese culture because they're not letting me fit in. But it took a long time before I was like, no, you know what? I am. I am Japanese. Just reclaim it. It's like, no, I'm Japanese.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I'm not gonna let, like, someone else tell me what I feel like or the way I grew up. And I've got. I mean, I get that reaction online sometimes. Like, people will say, like, oh, you're like, you made this Japanese recipe. And it's. It's, like, so untraditional. It's like, well, yeah, I learned it from my grandmother, who learned. Who started making it this way when she lived in the US and so, yeah, like, maybe it's non traditional to your experience, but it's, like, 100% authentic to my experience. And. And I think that's, like, a perfectly valid way to cook.

[Naeem Raza]

So I was fascinated by your upbringing of growing up kind of with this extended family, because it seems to me such a difference from current modern life, especially modern American urban life.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Oh, yeah. I mean, I live with my. My two kids who split time with me and their mom. And my. My mom lives on the East Coast. My mom lives in New York. My dad lives in Boston. I have two sisters in the Rockies. And so Yeah, I don't have that extended family. But, you know, you build it. You like, you find friends in a support network.

[Naeem Raza]

You go to brunch on Sundays with the same crew and talk about the avocado toast.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I don't do brunch because I think it's a scam.

[Naeem Raza]

But me you do. I knew you would think it was a scam.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Do you? Actually, no, I don't do brunches because, no, I just don't like lions. But some people don't mind them.

[Naeem Raza]

I used to live across from Plow in San Francisco. My boyfriend would always wake up and go to Plow and put our name in. And I was like, I'll go because there's no line. And it was so good.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Plow's great. The potatoes.

[Naeem Raza]

Oh, wow. Plow is a Kenji approved potato.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Oh yeah. So Plow, they boil their potatoes and then like slightly smash them and then they have thyme in them and then afterwards they deep fry them.

[Naeem Raza]

I'm having a total food memory right now.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah, they give their like, almost like mashed potatoey, creamy inside but really crispy on the outside and like have all these nice craggy edges and they catch like the salt and the thyme. They're really good.

[Naeem Raza]

They're beautiful. They're beautiful. How do you think our culture of living alone and loneliness affects our food?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Well, you know, when I wrote the Food Lab, my first book, what I found is that a lot of the audience that my books appeal to are people who grew up in sort of the same era as me where they maybe they had two working parents and so they didn't grow up cooking and they grew up like taking food out or eating a mix of many different foods. I wouldn't say that loneliness or living without an extended family or a family.

[Naeem Raza]

At all or a family at all.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Necessarily leads to a lack of a food culture. I think it just leads to a different kind of food culture and you find your people in a different place. Over the years, I've connected more with accepting, like, okay, like, what my mother was doing is what my, what my mother is doing. And like, and you know, my food experiences are also, it's like, okay, like, my dad was really into Chinese food and Mexican food in New York and like, we would go to Chinatown every weekend. So like, that's part of my food culture. You don't necessarily have to grow up or live in a, in a extended family or in a strong or with a family at all to be able to experience food and share it with Other people.

[Naeem Raza]

But it's definitely, like, changed. Like, I, I just like, it's like instead of family style cuisine, we're like having like a single sweet grain.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Oh, sure.

[Naeem Raza]

Salad.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah, that's true. That's true. And you can order and get the exact right quantity of ingredients for one serving of a dish these days, which is not something you used to be able to do.

[Naeem Raza]

It's kind of wild.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah. I mean, in that sense, it does sort of change the way people approach cooking because you don't have to be as adaptive. You don't have to think about, okay, what am I going to do with these leftovers?

[Naeem Raza]

So I think of your life as like a kind of study in choices. As I was reading about you and prepping for this interview, like, you made a choice. You were. You loved violin.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yeah.

[Naeem Raza]

And you thought about pursuing music, but you got into mit.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yes.

[Naeem Raza]

You could pursue architecture and you decided to pursue food, Right?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Yes.

[Naeem Raza]

How do you make choices?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

It is always blindly based on what appeals to me most. It's like, I'm very lucky in that I feel like I have a good, you know, I grew up with a pretty good safety net. It's like, you know, we didn't grow up rich or anything, but it was like I knew, okay, like, if this fails, I can, I can move in with my mom. It's not, you know, I can, I can take some risks here. And so I always had this idea, like, okay, I, I know that when I'm passionate about something, when I'm really into something, I'm going to put my best work forward. All I have to do is, like, find things I'm passionate about and do them. Yeah. And then, you know, I'll be putting my best work out there and, and hopefully it'll get discovered. And. And that is really sort of what happens. Like, I put what I, I think is the best work out there and what I think what I'm most passionate about. And luckily that has happened to be what a lot of people want to read. Like, the food lab is just like, I wrote a book thinking, started a column thinking, okay, what would me as a young cook have wanted? And I thought, okay, I'm going to write this book for. For someone who grew up like me and for someone who was cooking like me. And it just happened that there were a lot of people who were in that same boat. Finding the career has been a combination of making those passionate choices about things I'm really invested in. And then a lot of luck, both in my own personal happenstance and also in like, my upbringing and things I was born into. And also. And also the context of other people finding it.

[Naeem Raza]

How does choosing something make you love the other thing differently? Like, I've heard. I've heard you say that you love playing violin more than you love cooking. You get more enjoyment out of it. Is that like loving your ex more than your spouse kind of thing or.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

No, because I'm not in a. I'm not in a that kind of committed relationship. Food and music are not people. I don't think so. I think, you know, I love playing music. My favorite thing in the world is to find a group of, you know, like three to four people and play music. Whether it's, you know, classical music or rock music or whatever. It's like, that's like my happy space is like playing music with other people. I don't know that I would feel that way if it was my job and if I did it all the time. And I see that kind of burnout in all fields with food that it's not necessarily the cooking itself that I find pleasure in. It's like I don't often sit at home and when I'm all by myself, cook something and take pleasure just in that pure act of cooking. I take pleasure in the exploration of technique and in the distribution of that exploration. Like the writing I love and the sharing and the teaching I love and the feeding of other people. The hospitality element of it. I love all that. Yeah. If I'd gone into music, I would probably find the joy in music to then be the exploration and the sharing of it as opposed to just the. For me right now, it's just the technical, like the sitting down and playing with friends and then the connection you get from playing with other people.

[Naeem Raza]

Have you ever made a bad choice? Like a bad food choice? Have you ever eaten something and regretted it emotionally instantly?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I've certainly made things that didn't taste good.

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I don't know that I've made something that I've regretted emotionally, but I've never made anything that I regret because I always feel like.

[Naeem Raza]

Have you eaten anything that you regret emotionally? You know when you eat like a Dom Domino's Pizza at 4am and you regret it emotionally? You don't have that.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

I have eaten Domino's Pizzas at 4am by choice. I don't generally regret it though.

[Naeem Raza]

Oh, wow, You're a stronger person than me.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Okay. No, sometimes I do. It's not the thing I ate, but the quantity. Sometimes I'm like, I didn't need to eat that third taco. That was the same as the first two tacos, but it tasted really good. And I'll just make up for tomorrow.

[Naeem Raza]

Okay, last question we ask every guest on this show.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Okay.

[Naeem Raza]

Is like, you're very wise. I think from the choices you made, from everything you've told me, it's all luck. No? Yeah, but you're very wise. What are you dumb about? What do you not know about? What's a question that we could go answer for you?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

How to organize your life and how to get things done.

[Naeem Raza]

How to get things done.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

How to get things done. Yeah. It's like I feel like I'm just like flying blind all the time. Like there are people who, it feels like no matter how much you put on their plate, they seem to know what the next thing they have to do is, you know, and that type of organization is just like, it's like, it feels like someone's like, you know, like playing a whole orchestra by themselves to me, right? And I just don't know how to do that because I get caught in these like little rabbit holes that I like to explore. But then I'm like, oh shit. Like I was already looking at that one, that rabbit hole over there. Oh, and this one over here. And it's like, just like, yeah. How to, how to organize your life.

[Naeem Raza]

How to organize life. Okay, that's a good question. Who do you think could answer that?

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Oh, I don't know. Marie Kondo?

[Naeem Raza]

Yeah, I was like, I'm gonna ask Marie Kondo. She's gonna be like, we'll have fewer ingredients and definitely throw out the 40 year old cinnam. Thank you so much, Kenji, for doing this. I really appreciate it.

[J. Kenji Lopez Alt]

Oh, thanks for having this fun.

[Naeem Raza]

So I totally knew brunch was a scam. Or I guess scam is the wrong word, but a conspiracy. And if all the people who are looking into the we didn't land in the moon conspiracy could finally turn their attention to the brunch conspiracy, I would really appreciate that and so would so many people. Sunday afternoons now, conspiracies aside, I just love talking to Kenji. I really appreciated hearing about the evolution of his career, the kind of obsession and 20 hour days that he spent in his 20s and 30s perfecting recipes and how all of that kind of changed when he had a family of his own to feed and how he's taken this kind of more hands off approach. For many people like me, cooking is going to be a science. A recipe I follow from start to finish for people like my mom, it's much more technique that she kind of follows by instinct. And then for Kenji, a select few, it's this artistry. And I loved hearing him talk about how food can evoke feelings. And it was actually humbling to know that even he cannot recreate his mom's Mapo tofu. Although I'm sure his is really yummy. In fact, you can find the recipe for it in the wok. And maybe this makes me an old man yelling at clouds, but I do kind of worry about how many pictures we take of food and how how perfectly our kind of single size orders arrive to our lonely homes nowadays. I do think that all of this kind of disintermediates future food memories. Unless you're like Kenji and just secretly cooking up rotten egg experiments in your kitchen and making new food memories every day. So that's just something to think about in terms of our food culture and our broader culture. If you want to spend more time with Kenji, and I certainly do, you should check out his YouTube channel, J. Kenji Lopez Alt. You can also grab his cookbooks, the Wok or the Food Lab or my personal favorite every night is Pizza Night, which is a kid's book, but it's for adults too. And you can check out his podcast called the Recipe with Kenji and Deb. That's it for this week on Smart Girl Dumb Questions. You can find us next week for an all new episode. This episode was produced with Sick bird Productions, Diana DaCosta, Healy Cruz and Cass Agnew, with additional editorial support from Holly Peele, Dana Belluke and Claire Lichtenstein. Our theme music is by David Kahn and I'm your host Naima Raza. If you like this show, please hit, follow or subscribe and tell 10 of your friends about it. If you have dumb questions, tell me about it. Leave them in the comments or email me naimaraza101mail.com See you next week on Smart Girl Dumb Questions.