Quick Bites: Kat Kinsman

People who love food are the best people. I enjoy learning more about my favorite cookbook authors, food writers, and bloggers and hope you do as well. Every few weeks, I will share a new article under the tag #QuickBites. Upcoming columns will feature: Melissa Clark and Paula Forbes.

Two years ago at the IACP conference in New York, I had the pleasure of attending a panel discussion where I came to know the fabulous Kat Kinsman personally. This fireball of personality is full of love and compassion for everyone and I feel the perfect subject for the inaugural Quick Bites column.

Who is Kat?

I’m the senior editor at Food & Wine, host of F&W Pro’s Communal Table podcast, founder of Chefs With Issues, and author of Hi, Anxiety: Life With a Bad Case of Nerves

Q: What first triggered your interest in cooking? What is your first cooking memory?

Bless her for getting food on the table for us, but my mother had no particular interest in cooking and cycled through the same handful of high school home ec recipes night after night. My dad took to reading international cookbooks and crafting elaborate meals for us on the weekends when she was heading up the religious education program at our parish, and it opened up a whole new palette of flavors and ingredients for us. She became less and less physically able to prepare meals through my teenage years, and I started cooking dinner for the family using our trusty Better Homes and Gardens book—which I still have. It started out more as survival and became a source of escape and even pleasure. I can’t nail down a first cooking experience, but I vividly recall that I preferred the Kool-Aid I made to that at my friends’ homes because I insisted on using the unsweetened packets and only using half or two-thirds of the suggested amount of sugar, and slightly less water so the flavor was more concentrated and on the tarter side.

Q: If you had to describe your cooking style, what would it be?

I’m resourceful. I was raised to believe that food waste is a sin and while my religious upbringing is still a source of confusion for me, that part stuck. I tend to cook big – stews, shoulders, whole birds, giant salads – and find clever ways to remix it throughout the next few days, especially at breakfast.

Q: Are you a cookbook collector? If so, tell us about your collection – that number of books in your collection, favorite genre, favorite author? What do you look for in a cookbook?

My husband has handmade numerous sets of shelves just for my cookbooks, and I must have a least a few hundred. I get sent just about everything because of my job and am constantly in danger of being crushed under what I jokingly call “Cookbook Mountain” at my desk. It takes a lot for a cookbook to be deemed worthy of my hauling it home because I rent a New York City apartment and space is at a premium, but I will always make room for spiral and comb-bound community cookbooks, old product pamphlets, editions of The Joy of Cooking, volumes for “brides” and “seduction,” and vintage Time-Life, Better Homes and Gardens, and Southern Living compendiums. For new books, there’s often just a gut feeling, but I love cultural exploration and celebration along with recipes. Books like Toni Tipton-Martin’s Jubilee, Nik Sharma’s Season, and Priya Krishna’s Indian-ish, I like especially much.

Q: What is the best part of your job as an Editor for Food and Wine? Do you sometimes feel like working with food all day keeps you from wanting to get creative in the kitchen?

Here’s the weird thing: I don’t actually work with food much. My job has become much more about the people rather than what’s on the plate as my focus has turned toward mental health for people who work in restaurants and bars and stories about the business. That’s partially because that’s where my interest tends to be, but also because I’ve been battling a gut condition for the past few years that often makes it painful to eat. It’s alienating because I can’t always taste what my colleagues are working on, but everyone is really kind about it. I also fall prey to what so many people at food publications do – you spend all day thinking about food and then end up without time to get a proper meal and just eating weird handfuls of whatever free snacks showed up at the office.

Q: What is your go for a quick dinner?

If it’s my husband and me, we’ll roast or grill some seasoned chicken thighs and sweet potato cubes and sauté some greens. If it’s just me, I could eat breakfast tacos at any time of day. Eggs and whatever protein is around, with some manner of condiment.

Q: Do you use EYB and if so can you tell us what you like most about it?

I’m proud to say I’m a charter subscriber! It’s a godsend for anyone who hates wasting food but lives with a person who hates leftovers. It’s endless inspiration for the constant edible mixtape that is my cooking life.

JH note: Nik’s second cookbook Flavor comes out in October 2020 and we have a promotion and giveaway up for Jubilee.