As someone who grew up around professional chefs you might not understand the true baseline level of cooking knowledge that many have going into adulthood; foll

As someone who grew up around professional chefs you might not understand the true baseline level of cooking knowledge that many have going into adulthood; following a recipe is a challenge and they have no idea why they do any of the steps. Kenji Lopez-Alt (weird that you intentionally chose to write his name in a way that he doesn’t) is by definition not an amateur (he worked professionally in kitchens), but more importantly, he is a really good communicator. His work is about explaining the why of cooking instead of the how to people who did not have the benefit of being raised by professional chefs. He may not have pushed food science forward, but he has pushed understanding of food science forward. His writing is for people that have no clue that adding pasta water to a sauce is a thing, let alone why. Of course professional chefs know to do this, and some of them even know why. Has he had some dud recipes? Sure. That’s a good thing though, it means that he is willing to both try new things, as well as make mistakes.