Tonight I was watching Milk Street (PBS)… they straight up said that they’d sent an intern to Diane Kochilas’ cooking school on Ikaria…then made 3 recipes straight out of Diane K’s book My Greek Table
Ive never been a fan od Kimball’s, but is this how far they’ve slipped? They gave full credit for the recipes, but wow…they literally just phoned it in.
(Also…where do I sign up for an internship like that?)
I took a class at Milk St Kitchen with a dozen friends and acquaintances in 2018. It was pretty dumbed down as cooking classes go. We made a breaded chicken cutlet with a fennel slaw.
That was partly due to some fussy eaters in the group, but I wasn’t too impressed with the experience. The cooking instructor seemed to think none of us knew how to bread a piece of chicken.
I like the one cookbook I have.
I like some of the staffers, but Ive never like Kimball.
I’ve seeb plenty of shows that hosted other chefs as guests (Julia and Jacques did it all the time) but I’ve never seen one where they just blatantly used someone elses menu and recipes.
I’ve always like Cook’s Illustrated and Milk Street, though agree Kimball isn’t always my favorite. I’ve also done one cooking demo at Milk Street with Andrea Nguyen (Pho cookbook) but that was almost 10 years ago. She was great.
What you describe almost sounds like a “paid placement” of some type. I’ve always like that both publications don’t take ad money - I think that is a real credit to them. Yes it does come with some down sides like always pushing subscriptions, almost all recipes behind the pay wall, etc. I wonder if things are tough if they’ve tried a different revenue stream by promoting chef’s, cookbooks, and/or tourism. That is just a guess . . . but those avenues would be “better” than product placements IMHO, though still a move away from the 'ad free" model of the past. Hmmmmm.
Actually, now that I think about it - isn’t Milk street doing Culinary trips now too? I seem to remember them promoting culinary travel with them (maybe that was on one of their podcasts). If so, I wonder if that is a destination for them, so more cross promotion than paid placement (ish)?
I hit up Cooks Illustrated at the library. I take photos of the recipes I like. It’s a great resource.
If I recall the whole sordid story, ATK/Cooks Country asked Kimball to move along, at which point Kimball created Milk Street (amid some pretty heated squabbles over the name, as there was already a restaurant called Milk Street).
So they are, as far as I know, separate entities at this point.
I cant remember who ended up with the magazine (and frankly don’t caee enough to go find out).
It was somewhat amusing to see practically no references to or footage of Kimball during the ATK 25th Anniversary show. Maybe they weren’t allowed to.
FWIW, I think ATK and Cook’s Country have greatly improved in the years since his departure, particularly in the diversity of the people on screen. Toni Tipton-Martin now hosts Cook’s Country.
I am definitely in the “not friend of Kimball” camp and have been for decades, well before he started Milk Street and took over the name of one of the kosher cafes/restaurants in the Boston area, also located on Milk Street.
He posts a few recipes in the Boston Globe Sunday magazine every week, so I can see "for free* that he’s gotten a little bit more “adventurous” with spices and seasonings and techniques as well as with geographical regions than he was at Cooks Illustrated. I’ve actually used some of those recipes while increasing the spices. However, I have so many cookbooks that have so much more authentic recipes that usually seeing a recipe he publishes prompts me to turn to my more interesting cookbooks.
His marketing schemes and his pompous, pseudo-folksy persona and his in general dumbing down for recipes have always turned me off.
I love Toni Tipton-Martin, her recipes, and especially her historical research and insights. Big improvement!
I find Kimball creepy in a twerpy patrician kind of way…and using someone else’s recipe, even if sighted, fits in with this kind of thinking. If I see him on the tube, I change the channel. I could say way more but I’ll refrain.
ATK has good info, esp testing products but not into the cooking info so much. The lack of diversity in 2025 is no longer tolerable. I think the two hosts fine and likeable but the use of America’s (in ATK) is outdated. TBH if they’re doing traditional American fare, okay…but I’m not going watch anything international or “ethnic”.
You can still see Kimball on ATK if you’re watching very early in the morning. Everyone looks very young, the kitchen set is different (wooden cabinets!) and the aspect ratio of the video is 4:3. I try to avoid. I’ll watch Bloomberg market news instead.
I see Kimball has a ‘new’ show airing on the Create channel (we have this thing called a television with an antenna that we can see shows on) highlighting family recipes. His co-host is a southern baker, which I think was on his previous shows.
Milk Street’s My Family Recipe - I saw one the other day too. Online it says they first aired in 2023 but I hadn’t seen it until now, so not sure where it aired originally.
Regarding some of the above chatter - I’m not a “Kimball historian” by any means. But my memory of the split from America’s Test Kitchen/Cooks Illustrated and Milk Street was that there was also some friction once he left and started Milk Street - I’m assuming (totally assuming) it had something to do with some type of non-compete and him going and starting essentially the same thing under a different name. But his argument at the time (as my faulty memory recalls) was that Milk Street was going to focus on a more international perspective which ATK/CI wasn’t doing. So I’m not sure what the “chicken/egg” relationship is/was between him leaving and starting Milk Street and ATK/CI having a slightly more diverse set of recipes and guests.
Regardless - ATK and Milk Street are really some of the very few cooking shows I watch anymore.
Its an interesting concept. They take family recipes and fine tune them.
As the keeper of family recipes I have deciphered several that are just lists of ingredients, so I totally get thenurge to make Grandma’s dish just like she made it.
I watch both shows on occasion and enjoy them. I definitely enjoy going to the library and looking at back copies of Cooks Illustrated. And you can always season or adjust to taste. If you know the flavor you are going for, too easy.
Isn’t that the right way and good “advertisement” for other chefs, cookbook writers etc. And it is not like only Milk Street is doing it - for example Diane Henry often writes in her cookbooks about how certain recipes from other chefs or authors were the starting point or inspiration for her recipe.
Also, we should remember that this board is its own “bubble” and that many Americans get exposed to cooking and “foreign” recipes through CI and Milk Street - those might be boring or not authentic etc for food nerds on this board but there are rarely discussions with people who aren’t so much into food and cooking where these magazines aren’t mentioned as important for them
I haven’t watched Milk Street in a while, but when I did early on, this is exactly their premise – pick a cuisine, invite a chef or expert in, or go visit them, or travel the region with them, then come back and make one of more of those recipes, adding their own tweaks.
(My issue wasn’t taking those recipes, but the conceit of making them “better” – for eg they totally changed Jose Andres’ garlic and bread soup for no discernible reason.)
Father wore bow ties. He said that it brought a bit of mystique to his personality. He said people wouldn’t usually trust a man who sported a bow tie. I don’t know why.
