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I haven't read his book or followed him online extensively, but I credit Kenji with my first breakthrough in cooking food that was better than what I can get in

I haven't read his book or followed him online extensively, but I credit Kenji with my first breakthrough in cooking food that was better than what I can get in a quality restaurant. His "Late Night Cheeseburger" video produced one of the best hamburgers I've ever eaten, and I made it myself! Since then I've been cooking a lot more for myself, mostly using Joshua Weissman's recipe's. His videos get annoying quickly (lots of overdone, repetitive, "meme" humor) but his recipes include exact seasoning amounts and the low end cooking time he lists is always perfect, never overcooked. My mother cooked almost every night for us as children, but when I eat her cooking now I'm almost always shocked at how underseasoned and overcooked everything is. I'm not sure most people know how to follow "season to taste", they just throw some salt in and set the table without tasting anything, and keep some good ol' iodized salt in a shaker handy.

mabbo 5y ago
Joshua Weissman has brilliant information that adults want to know, packaged in a format designed to make adults want to murder Joshua Weissman. I believe it's some kind of social experiment. Like his entire online persona is an experiment.
- ngngngng 5y ago
  > I believe it's some kind of social experiment. Like his entire online persona is an experiment. I like the theory, though as someone that's been exploring content creation I really think it's often just necessary to act different to stand out. Often that's just narcissism though if I had to pick between narcissism and weirdness I'll take weirdness.
- chihuahua 5y ago
  That's funny because I was watching some Joshua Weissman video for a few minutes and my wife said "I never want to see that guy again" and I agree that he is pretty aggravating.
  - mabbo 5y ago
    The deep, burning question I want to figure out is whether it's real or not. Like in other things- the Binging with Babish episode he did for example- he seems like an okay guy. Is he acting normal for other videos and does what he likes for his own? Or is he a normal person but has some kind of insane SEO strategy that involves making people want to punch him in the face?
binarycrusader 5y ago
For me, what really revitalized my interest in cooking at home was discovering Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street: https://www.177milkstreet.com https://www.177milkstreet.com They have a bunch of free videos on YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/ChristopherKimball%E2%80%99sMilkStreet https://youtube.com/c/ChristopherKimball%E2%80%99sMilkStreet Kenji used to be part of Milk Street and occasionally is still a guest on their videos or podcasts. I’ve had many cookbooks at home over the years but their recipes are far more practical for the home cook and are tailored to ingredients you can usually get at an American supermarket. Plus they have a lot of recipes that from start to finish are an hour or less including prep time.
- Larrikin 5y ago
  Kenji used to be part of Cooks Illustrated, that produces America's test kitchen, which had Kimball as his boss there. Kimball was fired from ATK and his image scrubbed from there. Kenji seems to still be friends with Kimball and has had a couple guest appearances.
  - binarycrusader 5y ago
    Whether Kimball was fired from there depends on who you ask -- Kimball says he was fired, ATK's board claims he refused to continue to be involved, etc. Not a pretty situation; Wikipedia has more about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Kimball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Kimball With that said, I highly recommend Milk Street. I've cooked hundreds of their recipes at this point and it's incredibly rare that I don't enjoy one of them. They have a great staff and guest appearances from many of the people (Alex, Kenji, et al.) referenced in the comments on this story. Also yes, sorry, I had watched an episode recently where Kimball mentioned Kenji used to work for/with him and assumed that was Milk Street but it looks more likely it was Cook's Illustrated.
    - tptacek 5y ago
      If you read between the lines on the two competing lawsuits, ATK hired a CEO to manage Kimball, who had one foot out the door and was already preparing to start a competing company which he'd own, unlike ATK where he was a minority partner. One way to read the situation is that he was "constructively" terminated --- that ATK would keep him on the books, but had planned to remove all his authority.

mabbo 5y ago

Joshua Weissman has brilliant information that adults want to know, packaged in a format designed to make adults want to murder Joshua Weissman. I believe it's some kind of social experiment. Like his entire online persona is an experiment.

ngngngng 5y ago
> I believe it's some kind of social experiment. Like his entire online persona is an experiment. I like the theory, though as someone that's been exploring content creation I really think it's often just necessary to act different to stand out. Often that's just narcissism though if I had to pick between narcissism and weirdness I'll take weirdness.
chihuahua 5y ago
That's funny because I was watching some Joshua Weissman video for a few minutes and my wife said "I never want to see that guy again" and I agree that he is pretty aggravating.
- mabbo 5y ago
  The deep, burning question I want to figure out is whether it's real or not. Like in other things- the Binging with Babish episode he did for example- he seems like an okay guy. Is he acting normal for other videos and does what he likes for his own? Or is he a normal person but has some kind of insane SEO strategy that involves making people want to punch him in the face?

binarycrusader 5y ago

For me, what really revitalized my interest in cooking at home was discovering Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street: https://www.177milkstreet.com https://www.177milkstreet.com They have a bunch of free videos on YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/ChristopherKimball%E2%80%99sMilkStreet https://youtube.com/c/ChristopherKimball%E2%80%99sMilkStreet Kenji used to be part of Milk Street and occasionally is still a guest on their videos or podcasts. I’ve had many cookbooks at home over the years but their recipes are far more practical for the home cook and are tailored to ingredients you can usually get at an American supermarket. Plus they have a lot of recipes that from start to finish are an hour or less including prep time.

Larrikin 5y ago
Kenji used to be part of Cooks Illustrated, that produces America's test kitchen, which had Kimball as his boss there. Kimball was fired from ATK and his image scrubbed from there. Kenji seems to still be friends with Kimball and has had a couple guest appearances.
- binarycrusader 5y ago
  Whether Kimball was fired from there depends on who you ask -- Kimball says he was fired, ATK's board claims he refused to continue to be involved, etc. Not a pretty situation; Wikipedia has more about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Kimball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Kimball With that said, I highly recommend Milk Street. I've cooked hundreds of their recipes at this point and it's incredibly rare that I don't enjoy one of them. They have a great staff and guest appearances from many of the people (Alex, Kenji, et al.) referenced in the comments on this story. Also yes, sorry, I had watched an episode recently where Kimball mentioned Kenji used to work for/with him and assumed that was Milk Street but it looks more likely it was Cook's Illustrated.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    If you read between the lines on the two competing lawsuits, ATK hired a CEO to manage Kimball, who had one foot out the door and was already preparing to start a competing company which he'd own, unlike ATK where he was a minority partner. One way to read the situation is that he was "constructively" terminated --- that ATK would keep him on the books, but had planned to remove all his authority.