A Cookbook From the Host of ‘Outdoor Chef Life’ Entices Us to Fish & Forage👇

Ace Food Desk – In a Pacific tidepool in Northern California, Taku Kondo squats down, seawater sloshing around his ankles, and examines the rocks below the water Kondo, a fisherman and forager, uses a knife to detach a purple sea urchin from a large rock.

He cuts open the spiky shell, splits the urchin, and discovers a perfect sliver of orange roe, or uni—worth at least $80 a pound. “Let’s try it,” he says to the camera, then slurps up the roe. A smile spreads across his face. Success.

This was Kondo’s first YouTube video, “Camping + Coastal Foraging for Uni,” uploaded in May 2018. It’s hard to know whether Kondo foresaw what other successes awaited him and his channel, “Outdoor Chef Life.”

Today, though, the former sushi chef, 33, has guided millions of viewers on his journeys, whether he’s throwing a fishing line from a rocky coast or pedaling a hands-free kayak to catch king salmon. He’s clearly built a business from what he loves. In most of his videos, Kondo spends nearly a whole day catching seafood—digging for clams, foraging sea urchins, catching crabs—then setting up an outdoor kitchen. There, he’ll create meals like crab ramen or fried-fish sandwiches, dressed with pickles made from foraged kelp.

Now he’s releasing a cookbook, Coastal Harvest, which dives even deeper. Coastal Harvest,  to be published March 25, is both a culmination of his years of YouTube videos and a beautifully photographed and illustrated cookbook, with detailed instructions for sushi, sashimi, whole-fish cooking, and more. The book starts with the basics—how to fillet fish, knife skills, and how to store fresh fish—and then takes the reader through the wild foods Kondo loves: fish, shellfish, wild mushrooms, and coastal plants. Most of the photographs were taken by his partner, Jocelyn Gonzalez, a forager and angler herself.

There’s no shortage of fishing YouTubers, but, as a chef, Kondo stands out. He spent a few years working his way up in restaurants in San Francisco, progressing from line cook to sushi chef at a popular omakase restaurant, before he left that life to become a full-time fisherman, forager, and YouTuber. In Coastal Harvest, Kondo demonstrates a deep knowledge of Asian cooking through recipes that work in the wild as well as at home.

In a conversation with Civil Eats, Kondo discussed how Japanese culture has shaped his views on food, the best ways to eat seafood, and the importance of local ingredients.

You seem to really like being in nature. Why is that so important to you?

I was born in Osaka. Growing up there, we went camping with my dad, usually in the summertime, and we would go fishing. That was our thing.

We did a lot of largemouth bass fishing, and we also fished off the piers for baitfish like mackerel and sardines. Just like a regular kid, I played video games too, but it wasn’t a huge part of my life. I always would rather be outside doing something else.

When you’re off the grid, especially camping and you have no reception, you’re focused on who you’re with and what you are doing—making food or fishing, or focused on stoking the fire. It’s really important for us, especially nowadays, to get away from some of the outside noise that we’re facing.

What made you want to become a sushi chef?

I always enjoyed cooking, but when I moved to San Francisco for college, I wanted to have good food but couldn’t afford to eat at restaurants. So I was cooking for myself pretty much every single meal. And I thought I was getting good at knife skills.

Sushi chefs are so skilled with the knife; it’s so surgical and precise. I wanted to see if I was up to the level of a professional. I started working at a Japanese restaurant just to see if I could hang with the pros.

I was quickly humbled. On my first day, they asked me to bring in my own knives, and I [brought] my $3 Daiso knife with a little plastic handle. That’s what I used at home. I thought, I can cut pretty well with this! They let me borrow their knives. From there, the learning began.

How did you end up making YouTube videos?

A Cookbook From the Host of ‘Outdoor Chef Life’ Entices Us to Fish, Forage, and Feast

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