J. Kenji Lopez-Alt Quotes

"Well, my mom is Japanese. She moved to the U.S. when she was a teenager. And so, her food is - she did all of the cooking at home for the most part."

"A fridge is basically just a big, cold box with a few shelves in it, right? Well, that's true, but where you store food in the fridge can have quite an impact on its shelf life."

"In its pure crystalline form, MSG can be added to soups, stews, sauces, and stocks to add a rounded, savory flavor."

"For creamy sea urchin pasta recipes, the typical process is to saute garlic, shallots, and chilies in olive oil, then add the pasta and pour in a sauce made from raw sea urchin roe blended with softened butter or heavy cream."

"Here's what I think, though this theory is hardly unique to me: Kids aren't picky because they really care about particular foods; they're picky because it offers one of the few opportunities in their heavily guided and chaperoned lives to express opinions and exercise control."

"Like regular table salt, MSG can also help boost our perception of other existing flavors. Tomato soup with a pinch of MSG tastes a little more tomato-y. Add a dash to beef stew to make it taste beefier."

"The texture of Mexican crema is thinner than that of regular American sour cream, but it also has a more distinct tang to it."

"When I had a side-by-side-style freezer, I kept everything - soup, ground meat, steaks, cooked rice - frozen in flat packs that I filed away vertically like vinyl records."

"There was a lightbulb moment as soon as I walked in the kitchen and started working. I love the physical action. I love the whole idea of feeding people and bringing people together over food. I love the craft involved."

"An ice cream sundae isn't complete without a crunchy element."

"I first became aware of Lao Gan Ma chile crisp at a potluck baby shower in 2016, where a friend brought a bowl of chilled hand-pulled noodles that he tossed with black vinegar, soy sauce, sesame seeds, scallions and a ladleful of the sauce."

"A zipper-lock bag will work for basic, short-term sous vide cooking projects, but for extended cooking and storage, you'll want to pair your sous vide circulator with a vacuum sealer."

"Symbols have power and meaning and can mean different things to different people at different times and in different contexts."

"I have very strong opinions about bagels."

"Walk into any Japanese fish market, and you'll see neat rows of sea urchin roe sold in little wooden trays."

"Fattier, expensive cuts like prime rib or New York strip are celebratory centerpieces that do best when simply roasted with salt and pepper and served straight away."

"We host Thanksgiving in my mother's apartment in New York. I don't know if you've seen many New York apartment kitchens, but they are not known for spaciousness."

"My love of buttered popcorn has never been a secret. It runs deeper than a bottomless jumbo tub, free refills and all. It's my favorite food."

"I found, when I was working in restaurants, that I did have this sort of natural curiosity about why things work."

"Ham and cheese between two slices of bread do not make a great sandwich. But add some creamy mayonnaise, maybe some bright pickles, and some crunchy vegetables, and we got a decent lunch going on."

"Like broccoli, their closely related cousins, Brussels sprouts benefit from extremely high heat and browning, to the point of a near-char, in order to intensify their sweetness and bring out their unique nutty flavor without turning them overwhelmingly sulfurous."

"No matter how many great things you say about Jacques Pepin, there's always more. Through his books and videos, he taught me the importance of technique in the kitchen, but, more significantly, he showed me what it means to be a great teacher and educator."

"Batters are made by combining some sort of flour - usually wheat flour, though cornstarch and rice flour are not uncommon - with a liquid and optional leavening or binding ingredients, like eggs and baking powder."

"So, the first step to opening a restaurant is, don't. Opening a restaurant is a series of putting out fires every single day. I mean, even once you're open, it's still a series of putting out fires. Step one: don't."

"Making sea urchin pasta is a lot like a toddler playing with Play-Doh: There are a million right ways to do it, and most of them are salty and delicious."

"Frying is essentially a drying process. Batters and breadings are formulated to dry out in a particularly graceful way."

"Generally, if two ingredients sound like they're going to taste bad together, they're probably going to taste bad together."

"Your goal when searing a steak is to make sure that the temperature and evaporation buckets are as small as possible, so that you can rapidly fill them up and move on to the important process of browning."

"Good knife skills are lessons you learn over time."

"Kids want to know things - it's just a matter of keeping them engaged with cooking in a way that provides these learning points, while also giving them some degree of control over the finished product."