For our inaugural episode The Empower Podcast, it may seem strange that we’d interview someone known more for cooking than for budgeting. Yet, as soon as you start listening to Kenji’s story, you’ll see the connection.
Kenji López-Alt had a start in cooking that is probably similar to what many of us face when we’re put in charge of our own financial lives. In his award-winning cookbook, The Food Lab, Kenji describes his early culinary mishaps, “The one time I did exert myself in the kitchen, I produced a batch of what I thought were some pretty awesome almond tuiles coated in chocolate and filled with raspberry preserves. Being the incurable romantic that I am, I’d slaved over them for my high school girlfriend for Valentine’s Day, see? Turns out she wasn’t as into romantic nerds as I thought she was. I got dumped on Valentine’s Day, her dad ate the tuiles, and my fledgling cooking career was put on hiatus.”
He spoke too soon. Kenji’s path from that point in high school, through his time at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and various cooking jobs, to where he is now is a story that will resonate with everyone who has struggled to do what they believe they’re meant to be doing.