Cooking at Home with Kenji

Years ago, someone gave me the James Beard-award winning cookbook Food Lab by Kenji López-Alt. Its massive heft and minimalist design make it look like a family Bible on the shelf over my kitchen counter.

I love Kenji’s approach to food, cooking, and culture. In the cookbook you will find a boots on the ground, scientific approach to cooking the best version of nearly everything, even if the methodology seems iconoclastic at times. He is after the best, not always the most accepted. But in Kenji’s home cooking videos you will find a much more relatable chef. He’s spent hours finding the “best way to cook a dish,” but at home he’s just as likely to throw it away and do something else simply because he likes it that way.

I can appreciate that. I’m often guilty of researching and investigating how to do something right but then cutting a corner or deviating when the time comes. There’s more than one way to skin a cat as they say.

Check out his videos for inspiration to cook at home. I especially like his late night cooking ideas, like these tortilla pizzas.