PLANTLAB

I purchased this book while I was pursuing training in Matthew Kenney’s Culinary academy “PLANTLAB” both online and onsite. I have initially stumbled upon Matthew Kenney in Novemenbr of 2017 and quickly learned about his culinary school DIRECTLY through him and his aggressive promotions on social media platforms.Book quality: To my shock along with other students the amount of error, missed steps and sabotaged scientific techniques involved with a number of these recipes and cheeses. I reached out multiple times to inquire and confirm to no avail.Fast forward to August 2018, where PLANTLAB Matthew Kenney’s academy is shutdown trailing unpaid employees, canceled classes and thousands of dollars in paid tuitions. The most insulting part of all is Matthew Kenney claiming “zero involvement” in this whole debacle highlighting that he sold the school to its current CEO Adam Zucker a year before this happens. This claim is announced despite Matthew Kenney being on the premise of PLANTLAB numerous times during class and all through out this year as per colleagues and staff.This happens despite Matthew Kenney’s constant and fraudulent aggressive promotions on social media luring young students and international students that lack the experience and knowledge of his past and pending lawsuits. I know I certainly knew of this school and booked my courses through Matthew Kenney, and comepleted online courses directly on his website earleir this year JUST before he completely removes all associations and school content from his website. I know that I was not informed of management or ownership transfer, I also know that I specifically asked admissions “Eric Branson” if Matthew Kenney will be teaching my course and his response was simply “No, he won’t, he travels too mcuh” failing to mention that MK sold the company off. Also, I was told by employees that the ownership transfer was only done to protect Plantlab (his highest profitable business) from paying for his trail of lawsuits and IRS. It is absolutely insulting and alarming that this scam continues to happen over an over again.

I love cooking with vegetables and I love learning new things. I am especially interested in a challenge and in cookbooks and food writers who take food seriously. I was really excited to receive Plant Lab, which seemed to offer a new way to think about cooking vegetables. The book DOES do this. The format and writing is just rather repelling. Unfortunately it’s a lifestyle coffee table book more than anything else. Sprinkle flowers on a white plate, add a fork, and photograph! This gives me no culinary information and is not an artistic intervention or statement. It's a waste of ink. While the recipes inside may be interesting, the format is infuriating. The book contains 6 full page portraits of the chef (he skateboards!), countless photos of single ingredients, and landscapes that are desperately trying to be “artistic.” I rolled my eyes so many times my stomach felt upset rather than enticed by the end. More than the first half of the book is nothing but large glossy photos, with no text (or recipes) in between. In his introduction, the author emphasizes the role of the chef as influencer. This is hardly news. But the style of the book is clearly geared less towards teaching and promoting the love of food and, instead, geared towards _influencing_ people. Pretty photos of vegetables won't impress me when I'm looking for culinary direction. If I want beautiful photos of ingredients, I'll buy a book of Edward Weston photos. You. might think a book could deliver both, and it's true. Others have successfully delivered versions of the coffee table cookbook with much more success--I'm particularly thinking of Thomas Keller's French Laundry or Bouchon volumes. But Plant Lab is a monstrosity of narcissism, with poor writing that does little to change the way you'll think about (or cook) food. I’ve rarely been more disgusted by a book.

Matthew Kenney's company Plantlab took $3900.00 from my son for classes and then they shut the school down and never repaid any of the students... he lost 3900.00 plus plane fair and airbnb stay for a month in $Venice ca$.He still has a restaurant Called Plan Food and Wine on Abbot Kinney in venice, ca, if you do your research it is like OJ...why isn't Matthew in Prison ! Well in the end what will he be left with :)

Due to health reasons my wife had to become Vegan. For the previous four or five years she had been in and out of the hospital nearly dying twice. Luckily for her, one of the attending doctors happened to watch a YouTube video of another local doctor discussing a commonly missed pancreas disorder. That doctor came to the hospital and encouraged my wife to try not eating animal protein. Since she made the switch, her weight has stabilized and has had no hospitalizations in over a year. However, making the change meant finding food that was interesting to eat challenging. You can see how diligent Chef Kenney is with regarding to creating not only beautiful food, but also extremely tasty food. The book starts out with easier recipes and progresses to more difficult. The future section is very innovative and the section on Vegan Cheese will make an appearance at Thanksgiving this year. This is a more challenging cookbook, but for people who like to cook Vegan or want to add really cool veggie dishes, will find something to enjoy.

We first became aware of Master Chef Matthew Kenny's INCREDIBLLY Creative talent when we were blessed to find his Genius Work with Sarma M & their 2 Incredible Cookbook Collaborations.Absolutely AWESOME Creativity, Presentation, & Flavor! WoW ....So we just got this book & though a bit of a different direction for Chef MK - we can tell already there is very MUCH to enjoy here!Looks like another Chef Matthew Kenny Creative Masterpiece!Vaya con Dios - Jesu Christo es' el Camino.btw: no we don't drink alcohol, nor do we like: Maple Syrup, Agave, or much (if any) sugar either - so, we work around, or move on!best.

Although I love cooking this book is for experts only. The utensils they use and materials are not easy accessed. Also disappointed by the books format, (They have all the photos in the beginning and all the recipes at the end of the book so you have to spend ages trying to match the photos with the recipe).beautiful photos though !won't recommend it to a friend.

Already gave a positive review to this book and said was bit pricey. Actually reading and looking at all work done behind this book all pictures and good explanation is a good price actually. Good as all Mathew Kenney 's books best one for me. amazing glad I purchased. thanks

Although visually this book is very nice the recipes that I have tried from here are not as nice as other vegan based books i have used.

Nice book, design and pictures. Expected more inovative recipes...

Such a beautiful book, absolutely love it.