Kitchenhacker Profile: Kenny Shopsin

Image by pheezyOne of the things that I'd like to do in this blog from time to time is to provide a bit of a showcase for people who seem to me to embody the kitchenhacker spirit.

I hadn't given it a lot of thought, but I expected my first such profile to feature someone like Alton Brown or Homaro Cantu. Then I picked up Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin, and I knew that I needed to focus on someone who people might not know about.

It isn't as though Kenny Shopsin is a total unknown. He is the long-time owner and chef of Shopsins, a diner which he began as a grocery in Greenwich Village in 1973. I was an infant at the time, so I don't know, but I imagine it having been a cornerstone of Greenwich Village during its heyday. While he name-drops throughout his book, I don't get the impression that Shopsin was bragging - it was just that some of his regulars happened to be celebrities. Shopsins is known for its eccentricities: its seemingly arbitrary rules (such as its refusal to seat parties of greater than four people), its enormous menu, and Kenny himself.

Eat Me is Shopsin's first (and only) book. It is both a cookbook and a memoir, and is interspersed with some tasty hacks. For exampe:

• Shopsin drilled out the holes in his gas burners to get more heat
• He makes crepes with thin flour tortillas drenched in a cream-based mixture
• Guacamole made with green bananas instead of avocados!?!
• Pizza made with well-cooked egg instead of a flour-based crust?
• When cooking burgers for people who like varying degrees of doneness, he suggests making the rare burger patties thick and the well-done patties thin. Not only will you be able to tell them apart, but they'll cook in (more or less) the same amount of time.

The banana guacamole, in particular, resonates with me. I've always liked the idea of playing with expectations when it comes to whether an ingredient is sweet or savory. This inclination of mine has given birth to such things as chocolate lasagna and the felafel waffle. I will also have to try his crepe-making method. I once had a crepe pan. I don't know what became of it. While I don't miss my crepe pan, I do miss crepes.

Shopsin's book isn't for everyone, though. He comes off as potentially abrasive (He's been compared to the Soup Nazi and I worry that if I were to walk in to his restaurant, he might refuse to serve me.) and has a tendency to use sexually-charge comparisons in his writing (and, I suspect, speech).

Shopsin's methods are born of experimentation and contrariness. When he's told something isn't doable, he tries to figure out a way to make it work. He also focuses on efficiency. He runs a kitchen for a very small restaurant that has almost a thousand menu items. As a result, he's always cooking something different. He needs to have a wide variety of ingredients on hand, as well as good long-term storage solutions. He takes a lot of shortcuts, but balances them with a desire to ensure quality. Because of these things, I expect that many of his techniques will be useful for the home cook.