The Home Cookos Hero

If you’re married and your wedding took place anytime after 1998, there’s a very good chance that someone gave you a copy of How to Cook Everything, Mark Bittman’s groundbreaking first book — and that it is now splattered with all manner of kitchen grease, thanks to years of regular use.

He followed up that home cook’s bible with a vegetarian version in 2007 and a technique primer in 2014 (How to Cook Everything Fast), and now he’s turned his attention to baking. With How to Bake Everything, Mark demystifies what’s often seen as a fussy and exacting business, making pies,cakes and more (like apple crisp, right) seem as easy to prepare as a plate of scrambled eggs. He chatted with Judy  Joo about how he became a cooking guru and his philosophy in the kitchen.

How’d you learn to cook “everything”?

I grew up in Manhattan in the ’50s and ’60s, and it was a food place like no other, in large part because of the U.N. There were diplomats from all over the world who wanted to eat their own food. So by the time I was in high school I was eating Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, experimenting with food from all over. Then I went to Massachusetts [for college], where the food was so bad I was forced to learn how to cook. I started teaching myself.

What is your favorite comfort food?