UrbanUpdate

For years, the world’s most famous smooth jazz artist never gave cooking much mind. Food he loved, specifically the spread from restaurants like Nobu. But the actual idea of cooking himself? Not for Kenny G. That is, until 10 years ago when he found himself living alone, recently divorced. 

“My son was, at that time, about 14,” he explained from his home in California. “I thought, I want to show this guy that a guy can take care of himself. That you can cook and make great things. I didn’t spend a lot of time cooking, so he never saw that as an example. So that’s when I started.”

You might think that a guy who has sold upwards of 75 million records over a 40-plus year career would take the esoteric route to this new endeavor—make some calls, tap Nobu Matsuhisa himself to give him some one-on-one cooking lessons—but Kenny G is far too practical for that.

“I’m just going to go on YouTube and watch the greatest chefs in the world take me on a play-by-play of how to make this delicious thing. So it wasn’t very hard. And I loved it because it worked and the results were there. Instant gratification.”

These days, Kenny G has a new album—the recently released New Standards—and a run of live shows on the horizon. GQ caught up with the saxophonist from his home in California before he hit the road to discuss the meal he has best mastered, how life on tour changes his diet, and his impressive golf game. 

For Real-Life Diet, GQ talks to athletes, celebrities, and everyone in between about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.

GQ: When you first decided to get into cooking all those years ago, do you remember the first thing you tried to make?

Kenny G: Well, it really started as simply as, “How do you make chicken breasts?”

So you were going straight to the basics?

Bare bones. Like, how do you know when they're done? How do you do that? I mean, I had no idea. So then it's like, Oh, wait a minute, there's a certain temperature. Okay, well, let's not take any chances here. Let's not randomly hope that this tastes good. Let's just nail down all the specifics and make sure that they all are taken care of. And there you go! And it worked out really well. It's like chemistry in a way.

Then I started to improvise, because I am a jazz musician, so I know how to improvise. So I thought, Okay, wait a minute, well, I liked that chicken last time, but if it was just a little bit more like this, it would be better. Let me try this. When no one was around, I'd make something. And then I would experiment with trying different things. At some point, I’d actually have my recipe for something and now I can just nail it every time.

Did you enlist your son to serve as your taste tester?

We definitely do that. And we have no problems with each other going, “I don't know how good this is going to be. What do you think?”  Usually we agree. Not every time, but mostly we agree. But he's really, really good. Actually, he can cook steak, I think, better than I can. And I think I make the best steaks that anyone could ever have. I really do. I think I've got that so nailed. Making a steak is something I’m pretty proud of. Every time I make my steaks, whoever has them says they've never had a better steak.

What is the Kenny G approach to steak that's going to put it above the rest?

Since I'm not a professional chef, and I don't really care if anybody else makes it, I'm happy to reveal my secrets. So first of all, you've got to get the right steaks. So you can't just go to the store and get a steak. You've got to go and order your steaks from Snake River Farms. I don't get anything for saying this, by the way—I'm not a spokesperson for them. But that's pretty much where you get your steaks. You go online, you go to Snake River Farms, and you order the Manhattan steak, which is usually the one that has the most marbling. I really like the steaks that melt in your mouth. 

So you get one of those steaks, and they're not cheap, but you get them. And then the steaks come and then now how do you prepare it? I've read online about salting steaks. And the consensus from everything I've read—I've read probably a dozen different ways about doing it—is that if you can't salt the steak about an hour before you're going to make it, don’t salt it. Just salt it immediately before. So I usually salt them like eight hours before with tons of salt. And then you just let that steak sit in the refrigerator. I don't know, technically, what it does. I just know that all the great people that know about this are saying that's what you do. So I do it.

So now you take the steak out, you let it come to room temperature. And then it's pretty simple. I put a little olive oil in the pan and I start to sear one side. I do that for a while—maybe for three, four minutes. And then when I turn it over, then the magic happens. You put a bunch of butter in the pan, you cut up a thing of garlic, you put that in there. And then you start just basting that steak while it's cooking on the other side with this garlicky, buttery thing. You just keep basting and basting and basting. You can turn it over another time if you want, or you can stick it in the oven, and then you cook it until it's about 130 degrees inside.

Now you’ve got to make your sauce for the steak. My favorite sauce is the sauce that I had at Nobu, where he makes this balsamic teriyaki sauce. And it took me 20 years for him to give me the recipe for that. So to the people reading this, you're not going to be able to make this sauce. But basically, it's a balsamic vinegar reduction, which means you just take balsamic vinegar and you put it in a pan and you boil it until it reduces to almost nothing. And then you add that to some other things like soy sauce and sugar. And you make a little sauce out of that. And when you put that sauce on that steak that I just described, you're talking about the most delicious bite that you're going to have. You're gonna say, “I'll never eat another steak again.”

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You have a new album out, you're playing shows again, you're touring. I don't think people quite understand how difficult it can be to maintain a consistent diet when you're on tour, when you’re living out of tour buses and airplanes and traveling constantly. So I'm curious, does your diet differ quite a bit from when you're at home versus when you're on the road?

It's completely different. When I'm home. I wake up and practice my sax for three hours before anything happens. So right around 6:30 to 9:30, 7 to 10. Afterwards, I'll eat my breakfast, which is usually Japanese food. And why do I like Japanese food? Because when I eat it, my stomach feels good. I don't feel heavy from being too full. I'm not hungry. I'm not hyped up from something sugary. I feel just great.

A Japanese breakfast is basically like Japanese lunch, or Japanese dinner. It's rice, fish, vegetables, and stuff like that. I usually have some salmon with some sticky rice, and I have some cucumbers with it. Maybe I have some pickled vegetables, and I have some soy sauce. Maybe I'll make some scrambled eggs to go with that. So that's kind of a Japanese breakfast, and I always have that at home.

On the road—I don't get to have a Japanese breakfast on the road. I usually have, like, a banana and some granola. Usually where we’re staying, it's pretty cheap hotels, so they don't really have a big room service menu. So my breakfast is stuff I've just kind of kept in my bag. And I work out on the road, so I usually eat my breakfast, work out, have my lunch, then I go to the venue and I practice. That’s where I do my three hours of practicing when I’m on the road, because I can’t really practice in hotel rooms, unfortunately.

When I have my lunch, that's my main meal on the road, which I have at about 1:00. I like to have an empty stomach when I play around 7:30 or 8 at night, so 1:00, that's when I have my main meal. And guess what, it's Japanese food. I need to know that my stomach is going to feel good when I do my performance. Like for an athlete, I'm sure if you're going to go out there and you're gonna play a big game, you don't want to be going, “Oh man, I shouldn't have eaten those spicy meatballs.” That's not a smart thing to do. “Oh, I shouldn't have experimented with jalapeno!” You’re not experimenting on the road, when you have a big game. And every show to me is like a big game. It's a big event and I want to be my best. So I usually eat sushi. Or it can be rice and fish and vegetables. And that's what I eat for my lunch.

Then I play my show and now it's like 11:30 at night and I'm starving. And I'm already too skinny. So, what do I do? You know, I have basic things that I would eat late at night. It could be chicken and pasta. It could be Thai food. It could be noodles and seafood, or noodles and chicken. I don't eat a lot of meat, but sometimes I’ll eat meat. But by the time the bus gets rolling, and we’re all chit-chatting on the bus, it might be 2 in the morning when I lay down and go to sleep. So these foods have had a chance to digest for a couple of hours. And I basically just repeat that every day.

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How exactly do you get your food on the road? Is it all pre-planned?

Well, I’m lucky in the sense that, since it’s my gig, I’ve got people. I have a tour manager whose job is to make sure all the little dots are connected. He already knows that at 1 o'clock, in a perfect world, somebody comes to my hotel room, knocks on the door, and hands me a paper bag. And the paper bag has the food that he's figured out is his best choice for getting some Japanese food. Now when we're in Mobile, Alabama, where are you going to get Japanese food? Maybe it doesn't exist. So he gets as close as he can. And sometimes the food is really awful. But you know what? I look at it like, Okay, there's a piece of rice. There's some fish. Okay, it tastes awful. It’s prepared terribly. But I need this fuel. And I just do it. And then you go. End of story. They can’t all be winners!

Does that routine ever get boring for you, or hard to maintain?

You might say it gets boring, but I don't think about it like that. It's just, I'm maintaining myself so I can perform my best. That's what I'm thinking about on the road. I'm not trying to have a culinary experience and enjoy myself in that way. And I don’t eat junk food. See, the problem for me is if I grab a snack, it means I have to brush my teeth. ‘Cause I can’t play my sax if I’ve got stuff in my mouth. So then I go, “Ah, I don’t feel like brushing my teeth, so I’m just not gonna eat anything.”

We shouldn’t let it slide that you’re an athlete in your own right and are quite the golfer. What’s the handicap these days?

Oh, thank you. I used to be a +1 handicap. I’m a +4 right now. And I'm a +4 because I decided that I was not getting any better. I was really good at my home course—that's where I got such a low handicap. But when I traveled to other courses, I really didn't perform anywhere near my handicap. So really, the truth was that my game was not that great, but I was pretty good at figuring out how to play my course, which was a skill in itself. I've won two club championships. So that's okay. It's nice to have that. But realistically, I wanted to be a better athlete. I wanted to be able to get my skills as a golfer better. So I decided to scratch my old swing and learn how to swing better. It's a hard process. Right now I'm taking lessons from the very famous golf teacher George Gankas. I love George and I'm just now starting to feel a little bit of the athleticism that I know I have in my body. It's just starting to come out in the golf swing now. So I'm really super, super excited about what I've got going on golf-wise, I gotta say. I think it's going to be unbelievable how good I'm going to get and I'm psyched about it. But it takes time.

Everyone always talks about the pimento cheese sandwiches at Augusta National, or the burger dog at Olympic Club. By your account, what golf club has the best food?

Hillcrest Country Club out here in L.A. is considered the one that has the best food. That was the country club where all the old Jewish comedians, like George Burns, were members. And every time I’ve had food there, it’s been phenomenal.

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