Christopher Kimball is a man of many hats — in college he was a self-described “Deadhead” who almost pursued a Ph.D. in Primitive Art. Today, he is the founder, editor, and publisher of Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country magazines. He also hosts PBS cooking shows America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country. And in 2012, because he wasn’t busy enough, Kimball began hosting America’s Test Kitchen Radio.
Kimball stopped by Greater Boston’s studios to explain his cooking philosophy, how he keeps his passion for food alive, and whether he ever finds time to sleep.
On Learning to Cook…
“Really what I believe is that getting good at cooking is about confidence. We’ve had people say that they’re more confident in the kitchen, but they’re more confident in the rest of their lives to. It’s about becoming confident. Just to say you can walk in the kitchen, and it’s art, and you can make stuff up — well, you can’t pick up a guitar or an oboe, or sit down at a piano, and just make great music … You’ve got to know the theory, and the same is true of cooking.”
On Finding Solutions…
“One of my favorite inventions that one of our test cooks came up with is using vodka in pie dough [instead of water]. What happens is you don’t get a tough dough, but you can also roll it out.”
WATCH: Emily Rooney Interviews Christopher Kimball
On Changing Attitudes Towards Home Cooking…
“That’s one of the things that people don’t realize. A generation or two ago, your repertoire was small, and you only cooked with what was available locally. So you didn’t need [written] recipes — if you only have 50 recipes, after a while you don’t need recipes. But today everyone’s looking at the food channel, and our shows, and they go, ‘Well, I’ll do Asian tonight, and I’ll do Pho soup, and then I’ll do a Brazilian dish.’ They want to do something new every night. So under those circumstances, you do need to follow a recipe because you haven’t made baking powder biscuits 832 times … So I think a good rule for people is, start out with 25 recipes, ones that cover a range of things you like, and make them so many times you don’t need a recipe anymore, and that’s how you start to be a good cook.”
On Inspiring Men to Cook…
“The show is really all about why. We do a lot of science, and we explain why things work, we talk about things like osmosis, et cetera. So we get under the hood and look at it. I think, now, that’s equally of interest to either sex. But it’s certainly more of a mechanical approach to cooking. Years ago someone wrote me and said, ‘You don’t cook with your heart.’ And I wrote back, ‘No, I cook with my brain, I’m sorry, but I want to know why.’”
On the Future of Publishing…
“I think what’s so important, especially in the digital world, is that you can only do well today if you are distinctive and have a personality and a point of view — and you’re not doing the same thing every body else is doing. When you are distinctive, some people will like it and some people won’t, but at least you stand out.”
On the Importance of Scrutiny …
“I think you need to test everything, because it turns out that the things that you didn’t think were important, are. It’s sort of a lesson for life — the stuff that you didn’t think was important really is. Our job is to really figure out what matters in a recipe and what doesn’t.”
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