Fish, Forage, & Feast
A Cookbook From the Host of ‘Outdoor Chef Life’
by Momo Chang
This article was originally published by Civil Eats.
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?
In college, I didn’t have a TV. All I had was a laptop. So I just watched YouTube videos and a lot of fishing content. But a lot of the cooking was just an afterthought.
That’s when I decided, you know what, maybe people will like videos if you do the fishing and catching, but also put more attention to detail on the cooking. That’s what I had been doing anyway when I went camping. So the first half of the videos would be the catching of the fish or sea urchin or clams or mussels. And then the second half would be focused on cooking, and at a much higher level than anybody else was doing it.
I was helping a friend open an omakase sushi restaurant in San Francisco when I started making YouTube videos. When I had, like, 20 subscribers, I told my boss, ‘Alright, boss, 200,000 subscribers and I’m out of here.’ And he was like, ‘OK, sure, buddy, good luck.’ About a year and a half later, I was up to 160,000 subscribers.
I loved working at the restaurant as a sushi chef; there were just three chefs. We were interacting with the customers, and that’s where I refined my skills. What was missing for me: Even though I loved cooking, I loved being outdoors, too. In that restaurant environment, you’re always inside. I wanted to incorporate the outdoors into my life a bit more.
I decided to quit the sushi restaurant in 2019 and go full time making YouTube videos, and traveled from Hawaii to Japan to Thailand. When we got back, that’s when COVID hit and we did a lot of local stuff. In 2021, I built out my own sprinter van and traveled to Alaska in the van. We had an amazing few months in Alaska.
What’s one thing people have said to you about your videos that stands out?
One of the things they say is they get to watch it with their significant others. So the guy’s gonna be like, “Oh, yeah, this is the only fishing channel my wife or my girlfriend would watch with me, because they know there’s some food in there and some good cooking.” I always thought that was kind of funny. So I get a lot of couples involved in watching the videos.
Your partner, Jocelyn, who’s in a lot of your videos, is sometimes the one who catches the fish, even when you’ve been skunked.
She catches big fish. She has the right energy for the fish. They can sense it, you know?
In your cookbook, you focus mostly on California coastal fishing. What can readers in other parts of the country learn from it?
A lot of the recipes are interchangeable with different types of fish and shellfish. So it’s applicable to anybody that eats seafood.
What’s the overall philosophy behind your recipes and the way you catch and cook?
One of the more important philosophies that I like to highlight is using all the different parts of the fish. There’s a lot that usually goes to waste, even with people who catch their own fish. A lot of the time, you’re only using the fillet. I see it like chicken, when you’re just using the breast and leaving everything else. A fish is kind of similar. You have the head, which has a ton of meat, the collars, which still have meat, and you have the entire skeleton, which has a ton of flavor. Boil it down to make a little fish stock, just like making a chicken stock.
I can make miso soup just by making a fish stock, straining it, incorporating dashi, and mixing in some miso paste. It’s a pretty simple thing to make, and you can add in mushrooms, tofu, or seaweed. You get multiple meals out of [a whole fish].
I have recipes in the cookbook where I use tuna stomach to make menudo. There’s a recipe using fish head to make birria tacos. Those are some of the more delicious pieces. Once you get used to cooking them, it’s a no brainer. Why would you ever waste that or throw it away?
What’s your go-to way of cooking a whole fish?
My go-to is not cooking it, since I’m a sushi chef (laughs).
If it’s a fish that’s suitable for sashimi, I’ll portion off [the fillet]. And then with the rest of [the fish], I’ll take the collars off. Depending on how many fish I have, I smoke or grill them. It’s a really delicious way to add a bit of smokiness and an easy way to cook them. [The fish] just falls off the bone.
You talk a lot about sustainability, local food, and knowing as much as we can where food comes from. What does the ideal future of food look like to you?
That’s it: local ingredients. It’s the most inspiring, as well. You let the seasons dictate what you cook, rather than your cravings. Going with the seasons, getting to enjoy what is available at the moment in the area—ideally, that’s what we’d do.
Catch the fish and sell it locally. It’s not the way the world works, but ideally catch it and sell it locally. Right now, a lot of the fish being caught in Alaska and even here in California gets shipped to Asia, processed, and shipped back here to sell as frozen fillets. It’s a lot of traveling that our food is doing, and that’s not the most eco-friendly way of getting seafood.
In the world we live in today, it’s almost impossible to trace where your seafood comes from, or even your meat. Gathering your own food connects you to the environment and makes you realize that these are important parts of our ecosystem that need to be taken care of. Otherwise, if we’re just wasting all these fish for nothing, they’re going to be gone sooner rather than later. It makes you understand the preservation of it and appreciate the bounty that we have in the moment—and to hopefully keep that same bounty as we move into the future.
Okonomiyaki
from Catch and Cook
Excerpted from Coastal Harvest and reprinted by permission of DK, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2025 by Taku Kondo.
serves 4-6 | prep 10 minutes | cook 20 minutes
Okonomiyaki is a savory Japanese pancake that’s famous as street food in Osaka, which is where I was born and spent the first half of my childhood. Okonomi translates to “as you like,” meaning there are infinite ways to customize it to your preference. It’s a great dish to clean out the fridge and use up any ingredients that need to go.
INGREDIENTS
For the okonomi sauce:
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1⁄2 cup ketchup
1⁄2 cup oyster sauce
For the okonomiyaki
1 lb. green cabbage, finely chopped (or use 1⁄2 lb. each of green and red cabbage)
2 bunches green onion, thinly sliced
11⁄4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. cornstarch
1⁄2 tbsp. hondashi powder
4 eggs
2 tsp. salt
2 lb. raw squid, cleaned and cut into pieces (or substitute sliced pork, beef, bacon, or thinly sliced mushrooms)
Kewpie mayo or regular mayo, to serve
Katsuobushi (bonito flakes), to serve
INSTRUCTIONS
To make the sauce, in a medium bowl, combine the Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, and oyster sauce. Mix well to combine, then set aside until ready to serve. In a large bowl, combine the cabbage, green onions, flour, cornstarch, hondashi, eggs, salt, and 2 cups cold water. Mix well so that the consistency is like pancake batter. Heat a skillet over medium heat. When hot, ladle in the batter to create a pancake roughly 6 inches in diameter. Place several pieces of raw squid on top. Cook for 8 minutes on one side, then flip it over and cook for another 6 to 8 minutes with the squid fully touching the hot skillet. To check if the okonomiyaki is cooked, push down on it occasionally; if you hear more of a sizzle, the pancake is still raw. When fully cooked, flip the okonomiyaki onto a plate. Repeat with the rest of the batter (or use a second skillet to cook both pancakes at the same time). To serve, top each pancake with drizzles of the okonomi sauce and Kewpie mayo, plus a sprinkling of katsuobushi.
Originally published by Civil Eats:
civileats.com/2025/03/18/a-cookbook-from-the-host-of-outdoor-chef-life-entices-us-to-fish-forage-and-feast
To follow along and learn more, visit outdoorcheflife.com.
Insta: @outdoorcheflife
Momo Chang is a Senior Editor at Civil Eats. She is the former Co-Director of Oakland Voices, a community journalism program of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. She has written for many publications such as the San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, Wired, and other outlets.