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Photo courtesy of Simon Element

What if I told you there was a small business, run out of a family home in Kent, Conn., that saw averages of 300 thousand people a day?

From the rural farmhouse he shares with his husband Brian Dow and small twin sons,  John Kanell is refining being a local business in a small town. On his YouTube channel Preppy Kitchen, he makes weekly cooking tutorials that draw in big view counts thanks to his 3.18 million subscribers.

“It is a bit of lark that I’m able to putter around in my kitchen, upload my videos and they go to a broader audience," he told me.

Few would see Kanell’s videos as “puttering around.” The kitchen, for one, is enormous, think more spacious Ina Garten Hamptons house than the relatable intimacy of Allison Roman’s cluttered Boerum Hill pad. A long row of spotless copper cookware line the shiplap wall, along with an ILVE jade green range with bass trim, and a endless marble island.

Kanell himself is the ideal of a J. Crew catalog model, with perfectly white teeth and an eager, instructive manner. But his videos are also tightly edited and easy to follow. A former middle school math teacher, he puts the lesson ahead of the chit-chat. "Preppy" isn't a WASP allusion (Kanell's parents are Mexican and Greek), it's a pun on being prepared.

His new cookbook however, is opening up some new, in-person experiences. "People on Youtube or Instagram comment and will say, 'My daughter is making this cake for her birthday and she loves watching her channel,'" Kanell said. Written feedback is the way he experiences his audience, but now he'll be seeing some of the real faces who tune in to watch him in his kitchen. "It's one of the reasons I'm so excited about the book tour. I'm out here in rural, beautiful, pastoral Litchfield County, and you just don't see that many people."

John Kanell will discuss his new cookbook in person at House of Books in Kent, Conn., on Oct. 15 at 6 p.m. For more go to www.houseofbooksct.com

Alexander Wilburn

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