J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

“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.”

“I've tested every imaginable brand of popcorn and popcorn-popping product I could get my hands on.”

“People should eat what they like, even if it's some jalapeno and cheese-covered monstrosity with blueberry cream cheese.”

“If you want your kids to have fun learning about food, you need to let them explore it in their own way. Let them figure out for themselves what textures and flavors go well together. Who knows, maybe they'll invent the next French-fry-dipped-in-a-Frosty trend.”

“Tempura chefs are sort of like the Jedi of the cooking world: They must deftly perform with the utmost skill and precision, using extremely dangerous tools, all while maintaining a calm, serene demeanor. It is an elegant technique, from a more civilized time.”

“I love fresh-from-the-vine summer tomatoes almost more than any other food I can think of, and when I come home with a big haul from the farmers market, I'd like those tomatoes to be at peak flavor and texture for the whole week, until I can replenish them.”

“As a recipe tester, it's really easy to fall into the trap of eating only what I'm testing. Sometimes this is okay, but other times it means four straight days of Buffalo chicken wings, lunch and dinner.”

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

“I was very involved in back of the house, and finding good people is by far the hardest thing. So, when you're living in a place like New York or San Francisco, where the cost of living is so high, finding great people is very hard. Even finding remotely reliable people.”

“Different hot sauces fulfill different needs, and I wouldn't want anyone to live in a world in which each fridge held only one bottle.”

“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.”

“I had developed the initial opening menu on my own in my home kitchen before we had even hired any sort of kitchen staff. And I'm pretty methodical, so I had a recipe booklet written out, everything done in metric units, something that anybody could look at and replicate.”

“After your knife and your cutting board, quality pots and pans are the most important tools in your kitchen, and a good set can run hundreds, even thousands, of dollars.”

“I take my daughter to the San Mateo farmers market every Saturday morning, and despite repeated advice to the contrary, I usually do it on an empty stomach. Bad mistake. I wind up buying far more produce than our small family can eat within a week, which means I'm constantly trying to figure out ways to pack more vegetables into a single meal.”

“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.”

“Book proposals are written like business plans. You need to identify your market, see what the competition is in the space, calculate how many books you think you can sell, work on building a platform to sell them and promote them.”

“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.”

“Every since my wife, Adri, got pregnant with our now-eight-month-old daughter, Alicia, I regularly get asked what my plans are for feeding her. How can someone who writes about food and tests recipes for a living meet the picky and precise needs of an infant without losing his mind?”

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

“In those rare cases in which you have a dull knife and cooking to do, but no ceramic in sight, the top edge of a rolled-down car window will work just as well. Even a smooth stone or slab of concrete outside can work in a pinch.”