Taku Kondo makes delicious meals outside with ingredients that he forages or catches in the wild. He documents his cooking creations on his YouTube channel, Outdoor Chef Life, which features videos of Taku harvesting the ingredients and preparing meals back at camp.
Taku Kondo makes delicious meals outside with ingredients that he forages or catches in the wild. He documents his cooking creations on his YouTube channel, Outdoor Chef Life, which features videos of Taku harvesting the ingredients and preparing meals back at camp.
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Shelby Stanger:
Taku Kondo makes delicious meals outside with ingredients that he forages or catches in the wild. He documents his cooking creations on his YouTube channel, Outdoor Chef Life, which features videos of Taku harvesting the ingredients and preparing meals back at camp.
Before Taku became a full-time YouTuber, he worked for three years as a high-end sushi chef. Now he brings that restaurant experience out into the wild and shares his culinary creativity with the world.
I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-Op Studios Production brought to you by Capital One.
Taku Kondo was born in Japan and came to the US when he was a young kid. He spent a lot of time camping and fishing, but on a typical evening at home, Taku also loved helping his mom make traditional Japanese meals, like okonomiyaki and oyakadan. He especially loved using a knife, so he would often chop vegetables and help her with dinner prep.
Taku Kondo, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. I'm so excited to talk to you, because I love food, and I love the outdoors, and you've figured out a way to combine your love of cooking and the outdoors.
Taku Kondo:
Thank you, Shelby.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, let's just start. Where did your love of cooking begin?
Taku Kondo:
I think it started with cooking with my mom. Just as a kid, I would help, I'd watch her cook. And she'll have me peel onions. I remember peeling a whole onions by just trying to get my fingernails under there. And later on, like now, I just cut it in half first, and then cut the ends off, and it's so much easier. I think, why did my mom used to make me do that? Just to probably keep me busy.
Shelby Stanger:
So your hands could smell.
Taku Kondo:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
That's amazing. Okay, so did you always know from a young age that you wanted to be a chef?
Taku Kondo:
Well, yes and no. Towards the end of high school, I went to one of those orientation kind of things for La Cordon Blue. It was thinking about going to culinary school. And one of my smart friends, back then in high school, she was like, "No, don't do it. That's too much money," and cooking, being a chef. I'm like, "Yeah, that's true." And I went to San Francisco State and pursued kinesiology. I was going to become a physical therapist.
But throughout college, cooking for myself every single day, I fell in love with cooking. And I was just whipping up food left and right, every single day, multiple times a day. And that saves you money as a college student, and it's just fun for me.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm curious what you cooked in college?
Taku Kondo:
I made a lot of random stuff. I used to cook for my friends too here and there, and I used to make them try some stuff. I would make some ramen, but it'd be really simple, just Top Ramen, but I'll add a bunch of other stuff to it. Right? Like with things like-
Shelby Stanger:
So elevated Top Ramen?
Taku Kondo:
Yeah, kind of.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. So then how did you get really into cooking? What helped you step up the game? Was it after college? Was it in college?
Taku Kondo:
Yeah, the last month of being at SF State, I decided to pursue sushi. I was like, "You know what? I want to become a sushi chef," because I wanted to get my knife skills really good, because I know sushi chefs have some of the best knife skills of any profession.
So I started applying to restaurants and none of them called me back. I applied to like five, six restaurants. And then once none of them called me back, I asked a friend of mine who was a front of house manager at a sushi restaurant, sort of more high end, and I asked her to get me an interview with the chefs. And I sat down, talked to, it was three or four of them, kind of intimidating. And I told them, I was like, "I want to be a sushi chef. I don't have any experience in a professional kitchen, but I do a lot of cooking at home. I learn fast, I know the Japanese ingredients, because of my background." And they were like, "Okay, you can try it out for a month, but no pay."
If we think you're good enough at the end of it, we'll think about hiring you. If not, then you got to go. And that's kind of how the restaurant industry goes. It's called a stage period.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah, a stage, but it's also just free labor. It's pretty gnarly.
Taku Kondo:
Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, for sure. It is free labor. So I agreed to it, because I was like, well, at least I'll get some professional kitchen experience. And during the interview they asked me, "Oh, do you have any knives to bring?" I was like, "Oh, yeah, I got a knife at home. I can bring it." And so the first day I bring my knife, and I pull it out. I was like, "Oh yeah, here's my knife." And the chef just grabs it, and just puts it right back.
I had the cheapest knife ever. It was a $1.50, and he was like, "Here, you can use one of my knives." But I was like, "Yeah," I was like, "Yeah, no, I wasn't going to use this knife anyways, it was, just brought it for fun." And after the month was over, they actually ended up firing two people and they hired me.
Shelby Stanger:
What did you learn being a sushi chef that you'll never forget? What are a couple of lessons you took with you?
Taku Kondo:
I learned a lot. One of the top things that they really pressed me on was cleanliness and being organized when you're cooking. And that's really key to good food. And at anytime, even if we were slammed and super busy, orders, many orders behind, but if the station wasn't clean, the chef would just stop, clean it up, and restart. And we're making sushi, we're ringing a bunch of rolls, it gets messy. There's rices everywhere. But yeah, being real clean.
Shelby Stanger:
Have you always been outdoorsy? Did you play a lot outside as a kid?
Taku Kondo:
I've always loved camping. Growing up, my dad would take us camping. My dad lives in Japan, so my brothers, two brothers, and my mother moved to the US in 2000. And the plan was for him to move with us about a year after, once we got settled in and things are smooth. During that time, he was just supporting us working in Japan.
But 2001, when he was supposed to move over, 9/11 happened, and after that, immigration shut down. And even though they poured a good chunk of money into it, they hired lawyers to try to get a visa sorted, it just wasn't possible. So he would visit us probably once a year, and then we would go every other year to Japan, my brothers and I.
Shelby Stanger:
That must have been really hard, only seeing your dad once a year.
Taku Kondo:
Yeah, back then I didn't think too much of it. Of course, we missed him, and every time he came over, we'd have a lot of fun and do a lot of fishing too. He loves fishing too. So now looking back at it, yeah, it did suck. It was unfair that we were separated.
Shelby Stanger:
It's totally unfair. Are you able to see him still today, like more often?
Taku Kondo:
Oh yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, good.
Taku Kondo:
Yeah, now I can see him way more. And I stay in Japan way longer. And he loves fishing still. And so my parents divorced, naturally, being so far away. And my dad remarried and he has another baby, so I have a baby sister who is nine.
Shelby Stanger:
Cute.
Taku Kondo:
Yeah, and she's super cute. She loves fishing too, so we go fishing. We just went to Okinawa recently, which is a very, really nice subtropical place in Japan. We did a lot of fishing.
Shelby Stanger:
Taku's love for the outdoors stayed with him as he grew older. Even when he was working as a sushi chef, he'd spend his days off fishing and camping. When he was home, Taku watched a lot of fishing YouTube videos. Most of these clips were about catching the fish, but when they actually cooked it, the final product didn't look very appetizing.
To fill a void in the YouTube space, Taku decided to make videos that were as much about cooking seafood as they were about catching ingredients. He wanted to show people that they could make beautiful, delicious meals from ingredients they found in the wild, mussels, morel mushrooms, and even sea cucumbers.
His girlfriend, Jocelyn, became interested in the project too, and she started helping Taku film and edit the videos. Eventually, after a year and a half of pursuing this side hustle, Taku's YouTube channel became a full-blown business.
When did you decide to start taking your chef experience outside?
Taku Kondo:
I used to camp a lot during that time when I was a sushi chef too, so I quit that initial restaurant, and then I started working at another, even more upscale kind of sushi restaurant, Omakase place, where you sit in front of the chef and they serve you one by one. So I was one of those chefs.
And during that time, I decided to start a YouTube channel. When I'm camping, I make these awesome meals, I'll just start filming it and see how it goes. And just immediately, people loved it. People loved the idea of just making really nice meals outdoors.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm really curious to know what some of those first dishes you made were, that just resonated with everyone?
Taku Kondo:
One of the first things was actually the seafood chowder. For a small YouTuber, I got 10,000 views on the video. That was my third video ever posting on YouTube. And people loved it. People were going crazy over it. And I did that, and then I started a series called Catching Sushi, where I catch the fish and then make sushi out of it. And people loved that too. So I just kept doing it, because I loved it too. I loved the fishing. I still look forward to fishing every single day. And the cooking is very fun too.
Shelby Stanger:
Did you have this aha moment where you're like, "Okay, I have worked in a restaurant for a long time, but this YouTube thing, this is going to be my career path"?
Taku Kondo:
Yeah. So when I first started my YouTube channel, and I was working at the sushi place, I told my boss, I told him, "200,000 subscribers and I'm out of here." And just, I had 10 subscribers, right? I just started. And he was like, "Okay, sure, sure."
Shelby Stanger:
That's pretty ballsy.
Taku Kondo:
He was like, "Sure, buddy. Good luck. Good luck." I was like, "All right." And then, within a year and a half, I got to about 160,000 subscribers. And then I was making more on YouTube than I was at the restaurant. I was like, I could be out there making more videos, and adventuring the world. And I decided, quit the restaurant, pursue full-time YouTube, and ride this wave.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm curious what your parents thought when you told them you were becoming a YouTube star?
Taku Kondo:
My dad was jealous. And actually, my sister will watch my videos too, and they wanted to start a YouTube channel too. So I sent them one of my old Go Pros and now they'd make YouTube videos themselves, in Japan. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, that's awesome.
Taku Kondo:
Yeah, my mom was completely fine. She's very supportive. And one of the reasons why we moved to the US was because my mom said, "Because in Japan, kids don't have time to play." They don't really have time to be themselves, just to be kids, have fun. It's always academics first in Japan, it's like if you don't do well in academics and all these extracurricular things, you'll fall behind. So that's kind of the reason behind why we moved to the US, my mom said, so we can play, and be kids, and have fun. And now that's what I do for a living.
Shelby Stanger:
Taku has filmed over 300 videos all over the world. He spearfished for hogfish in The Bahamas, caught salmon in Alaska, and he forged for shellfish and mushrooms on the Pacific Coast. Taku has also made several videos exploring Japan and fishing with his family there.
When we come back, Taku tells us about how he and Jocelyn decided to transition to full-time van life, his process for cooking outdoors, and how he learned to forge for his ingredients.
Sushi chef and YouTube star Taku Kondo has built a career fishing, foraging, and cooking outdoors. He loves spending the day out in nature, putting together new creations with the ingredients that he's foraged or caught. After becoming a full-time YouTuber with his channel Outdoor Chef Life, Taku and his partner Jocelyn decided to build out a camper van. They spent the first six months of 2021 on this project, making sure they could sleep and cook comfortably on the road. After a couple of years, Taku and Jocelyn decided to live this nomadic lifestyle full-time.
You and your partner, Jocelyn, live together in a van. When did you decide to get rid of your apartment and live on the road?
Taku Kondo:
In the beginning of 2023, we moved out of our place. We had a place in San Mateo, in the Bay Area. And we put everything into storage, and we got a visa. We've got a yearlong visa for New Zealand, and we just-
Shelby Stanger:
Got a yearlong visa in New Zealand?
Taku Kondo:
Mm-hmm.
Shelby Stanger:
I have a lot of questions about how you did that?
Taku Kondo:
We got a work and holiday visa, which actually you can't get unless you're under 30. But at the time, I wasn't under 30. I was already 31, I guess. But I had applied two months before 30.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, that's awesome.
Taku Kondo:
I had applied. But that was also the same time as COVID, right at March 2020. And they never got back to us. And then a year and a half later, they emailed us saying, "Oh, we're resuming the visa process again, and if you're over the age now, as long as you applied before, you can still be accepted." I was like, "Okay, sweet. Let's do it." And we got accepted for the yearlong visa, and we went to New Zealand for most of the year.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, so that's how you got started. You went to New Zealand, you put your stuff in storage. So Johnny and I have a very similar story. I met him, I fell in love. We were going to go to Nicaragua, got a little hectic and expensive. I was like, "Let's look at flights to New Zealand." This is 2013. And we did, and it was like, we did three months and then extended it. And then another three months, and then came back the next year and did six months. But I fell in love with New Zealand.
Taku Kondo:
Yeah, I love New Zealand. Right when we got to New Zealand, we bought a van.
Shelby Stanger:
That's how you do it.
Taku Kondo:
Yeah, that's how you do it. But they had one of the worst summers in history, and it was like a ton of rain, and everybody in New Zealand was like, "This is terrible. We've never had a summer like this with this much rain."
Yeah, so it wasn't amazing at first, because we were stuck inside a lot. But we ended up going to some of the most beautiful places and still got to explore a lot of the country. And then we came back. We came to the US after our visa was up. And instead of getting a rental place, we're like, "Well, we have the van." We lived in the van for a few weeks. We were just camping up in Mendocino, beautiful coast. And we just lived up there, just at a campsite.
And like, "All right, let's go..." I'm working on the cookbook right now, that's why I kind of need a place to cook and do dishes. I need a dishwasher. A lot of recipe testing and all that, so, "All right, let's just get monthlong Airbnbs, because they are already fully furnished, and we can live in some cool places. And it's been awesome.
Shelby Stanger:
Not everyone can spend that much time moving around so much. How has the transition to van life been for you?
Taku Kondo:
Growing up, I think in about the first 10 years of living in the US, we moved nine times. So I've pretty regularly changing places, and never in my life actually had a permanent address. That's something I think about, when a form they ask you for a permanent address, I always think like what? I've never had a permanent address. So that's kind of the way I've grown up, and I accustomed to that lifestyle.
Shelby Stanger:
Every month, Taku and Jocelyn move somewhere new, following in-season ingredients that Taku can use in his videos, with whatever they find, oysters, porcini mushrooms, even barnacles, Taku whips up new culinary creations. I also think it's important to point out, that the food that Taku makes is visually beautiful. He applies his background as a sushi chef to his work, making colorful dishes with artful presentations. His videos feature a variety of mouthwatering meals, like fresh fish tacos, squid skewers, and mushroom infused Japanese rice.
Taku loves foraging for all kinds of mushrooms, like morels, chicken of the woods, and chanterelles.
Let's dive into cooking outdoors. What does it look like when you camp and cook outside? What's your setup? What do you make? How do you get your ingredients?
Taku Kondo:
Yeah, so I always have a table, most of the time, unless I'm hiking in somewhere. But I have a table, a foldout table that's pretty cool. And recently, I've been using a big stove, just so I don't really have to deal with lacking firepower. And I have a nice big cutting board, and got my knives.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, so walk me through ideal camp dinner menu.
Taku Kondo:
I make whatever I'm catching. Let's say it's mushroom season. We're going mushroom foraging. And so in the morning, we'll get out and go scout some spots for mushrooms. There's some places that we know is good, but a lot of times we're finding new places as well, so we're just exploring.
And we do pretty well. We do pretty well. We've gotten really good at it, to where we can time it really well, like how many days after the rain, which way is the hillside facing, because a lot of times, depending on what kind of mushrooms you're looking for, you want a north facing hillside where there's less sun. Or recently, we did morels, which you want a south facing hillside so they get the first sun, and it warms up the fastest, and they'll be popping out the soonest.
And all the mushrooms that we gather, we usually put it in this mesh bag. The mesh bag allows for the spores to keep spreading around the forest while we hike around, and potentially create more areas with mushrooms. So we do that, and then we'll take them all back to wherever we're staying, clean them up, and we'll prep them and make something delicious.
I do a lot of mushroom risotto. Been doing a lot of this other Japanese style mushroom rice, which has some soy sauce in it and some mirin for a little sweetness, and dashi, and a lot of mushroom aroma and flavor. It's really delicious.
Shelby Stanger:
Tell me where foraging came to play. How did you learn to forage? Where did it come up? Was this something you learned in Japan? Or was this something you more learned in Northern California?
Taku Kondo:
Yeah, I learned it in San Francisco, in and around San Francisco. The first book that I picked up, it was in college. I picked up a book called the Bay Area Forager, and that was a really good book to get started, because it talked about a lot of plants that you see when you're just walking around on the streets, a lot of weeds that you see.
And so I just started identifying all these plants, "Oh, this one's edible, that one's edible. This one will kill you." And that was kind of fun. It was a fun little game to play, where you're just walking around. And then I started experimenting with doing some of those, and then quickly moved on to the coast. And when you move on from just picking plants, to actually getting protein, like crabs, and mussels, and clams, and all this other great seafood, I just got really focused on doing the coastal foraging.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, so tell me more about this, because to me, foraging can be a little intimidating. Like, if you pick this mushroom and it's the wrong mushroom, you die. How did you learn how to forage in a way that made it less intimidating for you?
Taku Kondo:
I first used to take a bunch of photos. Whatever looked good, I'll just take a photo of it, and later on try to identify it, and find out if it's edible or not. Otherwise, books are very helpful. Having all the mushroom books, and learning their identification is just key. You just learn what the key identifiers are, like the gills, and the stem, and the cap, and everything about the mushroom.
And you start, and you just go out there, and then you get the firsthand experience of actually feeling the mushroom, seeing the mushroom. And you soon realize that a lot of the edible ones are really easy to identify. And there are some that are not, and you just stay away from those.
Shelby Stanger:
How do you carry all this stuff into your campsite? How do you get all this gear and all these little ingredients outside?
Taku Kondo:
Well, it's easy for us. That's part of the reason why we have a van. I have a fridge in the van. I always have a cooler too, for extra space. I always have nice plates. I have a bunch of seasoning in the van, sauces, different types of pan, cast iron, woks. I got everything in the van.
Shelby Stanger:
Do you set your menu ahead of time?
Taku Kondo:
I'll think about menus sometimes. Like if I know what I'm going to catch, then it's pretty easy to prep for. But I like just going off of what I have, but I'll usually supplement it with herbs, like onions, garlic, cilantro, green onion, things of that nature. I have a lot of that on hand always.
Otherwise, it depends, like, "All right, am I going to cook over live fire? I'm going to cook over just a propane stove?" And then I can figure out the flavor aspect that way too. It's going to be a lot of, over fire, a lot of charred kind of flavors, and work in some freshness with that. Maybe we'll need some creme fraiche, we'll need some Greek yogurt, or something to lighten things up. So I don't have a specific process for it, it just happens in my head as I go.
Shelby Stanger:
What tools are a must-have for you?
Taku Kondo:
A knife, cutting board, micro plane. That's a pretty useful one. And besides like a stove, a source of fire, I would say a lighter to make fire. And I also think about... I love presentation. I even think about the colors as well, like the color scheme of the plate.
And oh, I have a lot of red, so I'm going to need some green to make it pop a little bit more. Or even the plates, is it a darker background kind of thing? If I'm making carpaccio, some sashimi, I want to use maybe a white plate to have oil drizzled over it, so you can visually see the oil. If you use a black plate, you won't see the oil at all. So the presentation side of it is really fun for me too.
Shelby Stanger:
I just imagine you have these cool pottery plates in your van.
Taku Kondo:
Yeah, I used to do some pottery too. And currently, Jocelyn is doing pottery, and she's making a bunch of different bowls, and plates, and things. And it's beautiful, it's perfect.
Shelby Stanger:
Do you have any advice for those who want to learn how to cook over a fire?
Taku Kondo:
Safety is a number one concern. I think here in California, if it's a windy season, you're probably not going to be allowed to have a fire anyways. But if you're first starting, the most important thing is you got to start the fire at least 30 minutes before you start cooking on it, because you don't want to cook on freshly lit wood. It creates a lot of black smoke.
If you use pots and pans, it'll get really black, your food will turn black as well. And not really like a charred black, more like smokey black. It's not a good flavor. It's more of a bitter flavor. So you got to wait until the wood is cooked down into a nice white-hot coals.
And one of the best things about when you're outdoors, is you don't have reception, and nobody can reach you. I love that, right? A lot of people really think about how cooking is a chore, or how it's challenging to cook outside. It is a challenge, but it's a fun challenge, because what else are you going to do? If you're at camp sitting around, might as well experiment, and make something delicious. And you can take all the time in the world, because nobody's there trying to get your attention via email, or text, or any other thing.
So I just like to take the time, while I'm out there, cook slow, have a beer. And I'll cook all day, just outside, just do a... I've done smoked salmon over fire, but I spent eight hours smoking it, just tending to the fire.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, that's lovely.
Taku Kondo:
Just tending to all the smoke, and yeah, just hanging out.
Shelby Stanger:
I also feel like food always tastes better outside.
Taku Kondo:
A hundred percent. A hundred percent.
Shelby Stanger:
If you want to learn more about Taku and what he's cooking, check out his YouTube channel, Outdoor Chef Life. And keep your eyes peeled for a cookbook that Taku is coming out with in 2025. Taku and Jocelyn also have another channel called Taklyn the World, where they share vlogs of their adventures. We'll link to that in our show notes.
Wild Ideas Worth Living as part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our Senior Producers are Jenny Barber and Hannah Boyd. Our Executive Producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby.
As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it, and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.