Quotes from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

Kombu isn't the only food rich in glutamic acid, though it may be the richest.

Over the years, I've discovered that lessons in cooking come in two forms. There are the lessons that you never fully learn; skills that you get better and better at, but never quite perfect. Then there are the lessons that you only need to learn once because the results of not following them will literally scar you for life.

Steel is dense, which means that, for a given volume, it can hang on to more thermal energy than aluminum can. On the other hand, aluminum is highly conductive, which means that it can transfer heat from one place to another very rapidly.

I wasn't meant to be a cook. It's a profession I accidentally fell into one summer between college semesters while looking for an easy job as a waiter. Nobody would hire me as a server, but one restaurant, in desperate need of a prep cook, told me that if I could hold a knife, I could have a job.

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.

I like to think of deviled eggs as a suit. The egg white and filling are like the jacket and pants - they're the main attraction, and the part that the egg is largely going to be judged by.

So in order to make a large volume of sausage, you need to have a dedicated refrigerated room, where you can grind and mix and stuff and everything, because if sausage mixture gets too warm while you're forming it, it doesn't bind properly, and your sausages end up crumbly and dry.

There are a number of things that can cause your fridge to break down or lose power: electrical shorts or surges, clogged ventilation, et cetera. So it's possible that even with your temperature dial adjusted to the correct position, your fridge might be far warmer than it should be.

The higher the surface area-to-volume ratio of a given amount of meat, the more efficiently it will freeze and the less damage it will suffer.

You'd think that being that guy who always has pizza to give away would make you really popular with the neighbors, but I've had people turn down free pizza after I'd offered it to them too many times.

The key to a successful Thanksgiving is planning. Know what needs to get done, when it needs to be done, and how much effort and time it's going to take you.

The good news is that even if your early crepes have funny lumps and bulges or aren't paper-thin, they're still gonna be plenty edible and delicious.

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.

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

Pancakes are simple. They're diner food. They're what you make on a Sunday morning with the kids. Crepes are fancy. They're French-bistro food. They're what you make once a week after your Parisian vacation because you want to relive some pleasant memories.

Tempura-style batters were originally brought to Japan by Portuguese missionaries in the 16th century.

Kids do gross things. For several months, mine would combine everything on her plate into a single bowl, pour her drink on top of it, then mash it up and eat it with her hands. It didn't matter what it was.

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

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

I am very proud to come from a diverse family. My mother is an immigrant from Japan and my father is from a steel town in Western Pennsylvania. My family spans across the political spectrum.

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

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.

Many call for cooking pasta directly in milk, a technique that works okay, but it can lead to scorching if you're not super careful with stirring. I prefer the evaporated-milk route because it ensures a clean pan with no burnt bits on the bottom.

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.