One Year in Community Together (Patreon)

The Cookbook Club is turning one! We’re already looking forward to our next year with the best community of food nerds on the internet—we hope you join us for it. 

Dear Cookbook Club,

This Sunday, October 18, marks one year since we launched this online community of Frienjis, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to say thank you in a way that feels big enough.

I started cooking professionally nearly 30 years ago now, and the thing that initially drew me to restaurants is the same thing that drives me today: hospitality. I loved the moment-to-moment rhythm of restaurant work and the fact that it represented a set of very practical skills that I could develop and watch grow. But hospitality—the idea that I was creating something with my own hands that would then play a role in bringing people together over a shared, joyful experience—is what lays at its core.

Since then, that idea has been at the core of every career move and project I’ve worked on. Nothing brings me more satisfaction than helping people develop the tools to make their real life connections more meaningful and more joyful, and that’s what this community right here has been all about.

Making things and sharing them has been a huge part of my life for a long time. Whether it’s a dish, a recipe, a video, a book, or a simple explanation of what happens when you put food in a hot pan. I love that work. I love having a question I can’t quite answer, following it into the kitchen, and coming away with something useful (and more often than not, a half dozen more questions and a sink full of dishes).

But here’s the part that makes the work satisfying; the part that ties it all to that core idea of hospitality: Knowing that there’s someone there on the other side.

No matter how much I cook, no matter how many articles I write or videos I shoot, no matter how many restaurants I visit or how many new projects I collaborate on, the thing that always brings me the most joy is when someone tells me about a meal they cooked with their kids, a dinner they hosted for friends, or a book or recipe they shared with loved ones.

Hearing about those moments, where the food becomes almost irrelevant compared to the connection it creates, is what inspires me the most.

Over this past year, you’ve made that part of the work feel especially close.

Your support helps give me, Lena, Erin, and the rest of the team here the time and space to make things we care about. It lets us follow an idea, spend longer on an explanation, and share work while it’s still taking shape. I don’t take that lightly. There are so many things competing for your time, your attention, and your money. The fact that you choose to spend some of those things here means a great deal to me and everyone here.

And on top of that you give even more. You cook, you offer feedback, you ask interesting questions, you freely share your own experiences, and in doing so, you help make all of this work better.

Our Cornerstones

Here at JKLA World HQ, we often talk about curiosity and generosity being the cornerstones of what we want to build.

Curiosity is what gets us into the kitchen. Why does this work? What happens if I change it? How does somebody else do it, and what can I learn from them? Where does this dish come from, and what does it mean to people? What do I take for granted that I ought to question? How can I make this more foolproof or easier or tastier?

Generosity is what makes us want to share what we find. It’s that spark of joy you get when you discover something brand new to you and you just can’t wait to share it. (Unlike my kids, here you can easily skip the lectures and get straight to the practical stuff if that’s what you’re after).

I see both of those qualities in what you bring here every day: the questions you ask, the experiences you share, and the time you take to help each other (and me!).

Between watching this community grow and relationships develop, seeing the same folks show up week after week or month after month, learning from your experiences, and getting to do work that I truly love with people who inspire me every day—that’s a lot to be grateful for in one year.

But that doesn’t mean we’re resting on our laurels! As we head into the new year, we’re making some changes that I’m excited about.

Here’s What’s Coming Next

First, the recipes that accompany our weekly YouTube videos are moving to the free side of Patreon. I want more people to be able to come in, cook something, and join the conversation. Your support helps make that possible.

For Super Frienjis, our bonus content will focus on extended cuts of videos, more writing, random dispatches from the kitchen, and more livestreams. There’s a lot I want to share that doesn’t fit neatly into a finished cooking video, and I’m looking forward to having more room for it here.

And, as we mentioned in our most recent recipe, the Cookbook Club is entering a new era, too. We’ll continue our monthly recipe-testing project, but we’re moving from the blueprint-and-three-variations format into something more freeform that follows what I’m actually working on in the kitchen. That might mean testing a recipe for my next book, working through a question I haven’t settled yet, or cooking something from a guest chef I’ve invited onto the channel.

I want you to be part of that process while it’s happening. Your feedback can help shape where a recipe goes next, and I want to share those revisions with you so you can see what changed and why.

You’ll also get more dispatches from the making of my next book, including cookalong livestreams, excerpts, behind-the-scenes looks at the writing process, and updated recipes you helped make better.

Join Us for Another Year!

And there’s more coming beyond changes to the Cookbook Club! Our new shop launches this upcoming Monday, with early access for Cookbook Club members alongside discounted, limited release merch. We’re also working on our holiday content—including a series of Thanksgiving cookalong livestreams coming to Patreon soon—some new long-form video series ideas, real-life community events, and lots of other things I’m looking forward to sharing.

Thank you so much to the team here who put so much care into this work and this community, and thank you, all of you, for a year of showing up.

I hope something you found here made dinner a little easier or more delicious. I hope something you read or a conversation you had with a fellow food nerd made you curious enough to try something new or question something you’d previously accepted. I hope you cooked something you were proud of, or made a meal that gave you a reason to sit down with someone you care about.

It means a lot to get to play even a small part in that.

You’ve given me room to keep making things, keep asking questions, and keep learning. You’ve also given me people to do it with. I’m deeply grateful for that, and I’m excited to keep cooking with you.

With love and hot dogs,

Kenji