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The Lazy Genius Kitchen

Have What You Need, Use What You Have, and Enjoy It Like Never Before

Kendra Adachi

About The Lazy Genius Kitchen

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the New York Times bestselling author of The Lazy Genius Way comes a fresh perspective for getting the most out of your kitchen!

“An empowering, transformative, and slightly sassy guidebook.”—Jenna Fischer, actress, author, and producer/cohost of Office Ladies podcast 

You want your kitchen to be the heartbeat of the home, but you’re overwhelmed and out of breath trying to make it happen. Meals are on a never-ending loop, and you don’t have time to prepare dinner, much less enjoy it. Popular Lazy Genius expert and bestselling author Kendra Adachi is here to help! 

Packed with proven Lazy Genius principles, the book will teach you to: 
• name what matters to you in the kitchen—whether that’s flavor, convenience, or something else entirely 
• feed your people with efficiency and ease 
• apply a simple, actionable five-step process—prioritize, essentialize, organize, personalize, and systemize—to multiple areas of your kitchen, empowering you to enjoy your kitchen the way you’ve always wanted 

You don’t need magical recipes, fancy gadgets, or daunting lists to follow to the letter; you just need a framework that works whether you’re cooking for one or for twenty. 

Straightforward, strategic, soulful, and a little sassy, The Lazy Genius Kitchen will turn your hardest-working room into your favorite one, too.

Praise

“Most ‘kitchen books’ are cookbooks, but not this one. The Lazy Genius Kitchen is your guide to strategic meal planning, organization, cooking, and cleaning up. You don’t have to dread stepping into the kitchen, because Kendra Adachi shows you how to create a sustainable rhythm for managing your kitchen and feeding the people you care about. And you’ll have fun doing it.”—Jenna Fischer, actress, author, and producer/cohost of Office Ladies podcast
 
“Have a kitchen? You need this book. Kendra teaches you how to be the boss of your kitchen in all the ways that matter most to you.”—Myquillyn Smith, New York Times bestselling author of Welcome Home
 
“Adachi is like the smart big sister I never had, revealing the secrets of a kitchen that not only take the stress out of daily meal prep, but actually make it fun. With warm, no-nonsense advice and proven formulas that liberate you from kitchen clutter and complicated recipes, The Lazy Genius Kitchen is an essential tool for living better every day.”—Ingrid Fetell Lee, author of Joyful
 
“Whether you are a new cook in a quandary about getting something on the table over and over again each day or a seasoned professional who lives and works in the kitchen but gets weighed down by decision fatigue, Kendra is here to put a friendly hand on your shoulder and remind you what could and should really matter about keeping the heart of your household beating strong.”—Bonnie Ohara, author of Bread Baking for Beginners and owner of Alchemy Bread Co.
 
“This book is chock-full of smart cooking hacks, from tips to eliminating what you don’t need to creating autopilot solutions that make it easier and more efficient to get meals on the table. I’m officially on the Lazy Genius cooking train. Choo choo, fellow food hackers.”—Sherry Petersik, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Lovable Livable Home
 
“This is so much more than a system or a collection of rules. It’s about embracing and loving who you are and working within that to create the space that works for you.”—Ashley Rodriguez, creator of Not Without Salt and author of Date Night In
 
“Now that I have thought about how I can make my kitchen into a place that serves the needs and personality of my family, I feel empowered as I move through my daily kitchen chores. Kendra has shown me what matters . . . even a lazy cook like me.”—Anna Sale, host of Death, Sex & Money podcast and author of Let’s Talk About Hard Things
 
“With Kendra’s no-nonsense, witty, and practical advice, you’ll feel empowered to choose your own priorities based on looking at your life with a kind, grateful eye. The result is not only empowerment but peace and gratitude even for the messy places. That’s a skill I’ll be using not only in the kitchen, but in the rest of my life, too.”—Aarti Sequeira, cookbook author, chef, producer

About Kendra Adachi

Kendra Adachi went to college to become a high school English teacher but instead became the Lazy Genius, passionately and candidly sharing how to stop doing it all for the sake of doing what matters. Her work includes hosting The Lazy Genius Podcast, cooking dinner on Instagram, and convincing her three young kids that talking into the phone is Mommy’s job. She and her husband love raising their family in the same North Carolina city they both grew up in.

Product Details

208 pages | Published by WaterBrook

On Sale Date: May 3, 2022

Trim Size: 7-1/4 x 9

Carton Quantity: 18

Sneak Peek

Start reading chapter one

Do you ever walk into your kitchen and feel the urge to turn around and walk right back out? Maybe you get hives when you hear the phrases "meal planning" and "food prep," or you feel as though you just cram stuff in cabinets and hope for the best. And if someone asks you to host Thanksgiving at your house? Forget it. This is the book that will change all that, helping you create a kitchen that works for you. Learn to love your kitchen with this practical guidebook from the New York Times bestselling author of The Lazy Genius Way. Using proven Lazy Genius principles—embracing what matters and ditching what doesn't—Kendra Adachi helps you feed your people with efficiency and ease. You'll learn to apply her simple, actionable five-step process—prioritize, essentialize, organize, personalize, and systemize—to multiple areas of your kitchen so you can equip and enjoy it in ways you've always wanted, no matter your life stage or skill set. As you learn to plan, prep, cook, and host like a Lazy Genius, you will find the five Lazy Genius steps become a part of every aspect of your happier, easier kitchen life. They are foundational to finding pain points, naming helpful solutions, and creating a sustainable rhythm in your kitchen. This practical book—loaded with color, illustrations, and actionable help—is where you begin. This is a guidebook, not a cookbook, about kitchen organization, meal planning, grocery shopping, prepping, cooking, and cleaning up. Straightforward, strategic, soulful, and a little sassy, The Lazy Genius Kitchen might just change everything in your hardest-working room.

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Lisa Beech, Assoc. Publicity Director
lbeech@penguinrandomhouse.com / (719) 439-9403
Chelsea Woodward, Publicist
cwoodward@penguinrandomhouse.com / (719) 268-1915

THE LAZY GENIUS KITCHEN
By New York Times bestselling author Kendra Adachi
A WaterBrook Hardcover | On Sale 5/3/22

Is your kitchen out of control? Or maybe you feel like you’re on a turbo-charged hamster wheel cranking out meal after meal with no end or enjoyment in sight? Home kitchen expert and New York Times bestselling author Kendra Adachi—who is best known for encouraging thousands of women like her who have a lot of plates to spin (no pun intended)—is here to help.

Essential for every kind of home cook regardless of skill set, Adachi’s new book, The Lazy Genius Kitchen: Have What You Need, Use What You Have, and Enjoy It Like Never Before (WaterBrook Hardcover, 5/3/2022), is the ultimate kitchen guidebook you didn’t know you needed. Using her Lazy Genius method—be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don’t—she’ll help you feel less robot and more human by focusing on what matters in your life and in your kitchen rather than everyone else’s. Adachi, the founder of and The Lazy Genius Collective (190k social followers) and creator/host of The Lazy Genius Podcast (14 million downloads), shares her tried and true tips such as how to name what matters to you in your kitchen (is it price, quality, convenience, aesthetics?); how to have tools and ingredients on hand that you'll actually use; and how to roast, grill, sauté, prep, organize and so much more. Busy moms, fans of kitchen how-to guides, and readers of books such as The Home Edit Life will love The Lazy Genius Kitchen’s treasure trove of resources that’s straightforward, strategic, soulful, and a little sassy.

Adachi writes, “I feel supremely confident—like, Beyoncé confident—that this book will change your life. And since your kitchen is such a huge part of your life, the change will be big.”

Possible talking points for interviews include:
• Adachi’s Lazy Genius origin story and how she has built an online community of thousands of women: Women and moms across the country look to her for advice on how to focus on the things that matter in their own lives rather than in other people’s.
• Why it’s important to define what matters in your kitchen: When you prioritize what matters most, you know (1) what to cook, organize, and renovate; (2) what to buy, skip, and prep; and (3) if a certain recipe is worth spending time on or not.
• Tips for cooking and using your tools: (1) How to grill, roast, and make soup, salad, and marinades.; (2) How to us your Instant Pot, kitchen knives, and other utensils; (3) Staple ingredients for different cuisines, ingredients that pack a flavor punch, and ingredient combinations that’ll never let you down.
• The Trifecta of Kitchen Organization: Organize by (1) type based on what something is; (2) task based on what something does; and (3) zone based on where something happens (such as the dinnerware zone, the cooking zone, and the prep zone).
• How to meal plan without breaking a sweat: (1) Start with what’s happening in your schedule to determine what days need specific meals; (2) Put easy meals on busy days and celebratory meals on special ones; (3) Use a meal matrix; and (4) Fill in any blanks using your Dinner Queue (a list of meals that work for your season of life).
• Tips for hosting: (1) How to never run out of food at a party; (2) How to feed a crowd; and (3) How to host Thanksgiving.
• How to make space for your kids in the kitchen: (1) Create a Kid Zone for easy access to what they need; and (2) Have easy kitchen tasks for them to do such as press the buttons on the microwave, fill pots with water, unwrap things, etc.
• How to make Adachi’s “Change Your Life Chicken” recipe, which combines the best of her tips for a delicious, crowd-pleasing meal with zero cleanup.

Find all the fun extras at thelazygeniuskitchen.com and more information at www.waterbrookmultnomah.com.

SUGGESTED QUESTIONS
1. What was your inspiration for writing The Lazy Genius Kitchen?
2. You talk about living in your season, especially in the kitchen. What are some practical choices we can make when our season of life impacts how we live in the kitchen?
3. We can so often jump to purchasing a new gadget, tool, or cookbook to improve our kitchen lives. How do we know when that’s actually a good idea?
4. You talk a lot about zones in the kitchen. I’m specifically interested in The Dirty Dishes Zone. Can you explain what zones are and why they’re helpful?
5. How can I tell if a recipe is any good?
6. How can I add freshness to repetitive meals?
7. What do I do for dinner when I don’t have a plan?
8. Can you give me some examples of how you have used The Magic Question in your kitchen this week?
9. How can we include children in the kitchen in an engaging and safe way?
10. What’s one of your own frustrations in the kitchen, and how have you Lazy Geniused it?
11. Can you speak to the tendency many people have to make something pretty before making it work?
12. What’s your favorite meal planning hack?
13. Why do you recommend a monthly meal plan, and what are your tricks to making one quickly?
14. What is your number one piece of advice for someone just moving into their first place and setting up their kitchen?
15. If someone is overwhelmed by their kitchen and has no idea where to start, what would you recommend as the first step?

FOR A REVIEW COPY OR INTERVIEW REQUEST, CONTACT:
Lisa Beech, Associate Director of Publicity
lbeech@penguinrandomhouse.com
(719) 439-9403
Or
Chelsea Woodward, Publicist
cwoodward@penguinrandomhouse.com
(719) 268-1915

Contact Publicist

Lisa Beech, lbeech@penguinrandomhouse.com