John Kanell

"Preppy Kitchen Super Easy" is John Kanell’s follow-up to his best-selling cookbook “Preppy Kitchen.” In this episode of “Dishing With Stephanies Dish,” I speak with him about his success, the ease of his recipes, and his favorite tools to use in the kitchen.

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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS:

Stephanie [00:00:15]:

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Dishing with Stephanie's dish podcast. I am here with John Cannell, and he is the author of the Preppy Kitchen cookbook. Now feel like Preppy Kitchen is such a complete statement because it makes me think of all the things about you right off the bat. Congratulations on a great moniker on on a well titled cookbook.

John Kanell [00:00:42]:

No. Thank you. Preppy Kitchen's super easy.

Stephanie [00:00:44]:

Yeah. And, like, do you identify with that just in terms of I mean, I'm looking at you. You're pretty cute. You seem like a preppy person.

John Kanell [00:00:52]:

I suppose I do. But, you know, I used to be a math and science teacher, and I dealt with all these kids. It's kind of a long story, but I dealt with kids who had all this math anxiety and science anxiety too. They thought, like, I am an English person or I'm I love history, but I cannot do it. My brain doesn't work this way. And I was teaching middle schoolers, and they already had the sense of failure ingrained in them, and it was heartbreaking. You know, like, later on in life, when I switched careers and I pivoted over, I saw the same thing for people in the kitchen. They're like, I'm a baker.

John Kanell [00:01:24]:

I cannot cook. Or I am fine on the grill, can't bake anything. Or I just use my credit card and call it a day.

Speaker C [00:01:30]:

No. You can send it

John Kanell [00:01:30]:

with my kids. Like, you can do it. Let's just be prepared. Let's have all the steps laid out and everything else. So it's kind of a play on words. It's about being prepared in the kitchen and having, like, a fun, easy time, not anxiety inducing train wreck where you're, like, halfway through a recipe, like, I don't have this ingredient. Why do I die? You know?

Stephanie [00:01:51]:

Okay. I'm just gonna back up for a second because your aesthetic is really appealing to me in lots of ways. Number 1, just talking to you and the way you have your background set. Awesome. Number 2, the photographs in the book and the photographs on your Instagram and on your sites are also incredibly beautiful. Are you doing all this by yourself? Do you just have this lifestyle persona hidden inside you as a math and science teacher? Come on.

John Kanell [00:02:18]:

Well, I used to do it all by myself back back in the day. But to answer part of your question, like, in pieces, I was an art major. So I wasn't a science teacher, but UCLA and had, like, a fine arts degree. So I was about color theory and putting things together and conceptual art. So my career path has gone all over the place. And now, you know, I find that as business gets busier and my kids get older, I have 2 7 year old boys, they're twins, that whatever someone else can do, they can free me up to, like, spend more time with my family or do things that only I can do, I'll outsource. So the book, book number 1 and book number 2 were both shot by David Meloche, who's a be like, a wonderful photographer. For styling here, like, I do like to collect antique copper and stuff like that.

John Kanell [00:03:09]:

But there's there's a community that comes together.

Stephanie [00:03: