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Would you watch me on YouTube?
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Would you watch me on YouTube?

Hi everyone,

Jonny from GVH here. I am back after a few months of absence since my LET/LEB interview thread, here to ask the community for its input on a topic in which my market is .. random people on the Internet!

Since finishing my time, I re-enrolled in college for cybersecurity & computer science while working in restaurants to make a living. Well, since then, I have worked my way up in restaurants (from McDonald's to a mom and pop family style restaurant, to upscale dining), and now have a new chef career working in an upscale restaurant! I have found enjoyment and fulfillment in cooking, so much that I am considering temporarily setting my technology ambitions aside and pursuing a culinary career.

I've set up a YouTube channel where I'm planning to kind of create a hybrid between a "show" and "how-to" series videos. I learned culinary skills and knowledge quite quickly, and almost naturally, picking up some tricks along the way and some recipes that I've tweaked a bit to make them my own.

I'm thinking I could do an entertaining video series of taking popular fast food menu items and making fancy versions of them. And instead of using fancy $300-400+ kitchen sets, $300 knives, commercial equipment, etc., I'll be doing it from my kitchen in my own apartment.

And a separate how-to series on culinary essentials such as knife skills, flavor profiles, food sanitation/safety, food presentation, temperature/heat control, basic gastronomy .. in like a fun and entertaining way.

What do you guys think, should I go for it? Would you watch it? Do you think others would?

I'm also open to any suggestions!

Jonny

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Comments

  • OnlyFans.

    Thanked by 1dahartigan
  • DPDP Administrator, The Domain Guy

    If you can pull a Martin Yan, sure.

    I started watching his shows ever since I was a kid.

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    @Chuck said:
    OnlyFans.

    First videos gotta be about home made chicken nuggets.

    Take the meme back, man. Own it.

    Francisco

  • FatGrizzlyFatGrizzly Member, Host Rep
    edited October 2022

    @Francisco said:

    @Chuck said:
    OnlyFans.

    First videos gotta be about home made chicken nuggets.

    Take the meme back, man. Own it.

    Francisco

    Second video should be a cooking in a bath tub video.

  • HalfEatenPieHalfEatenPie Veteran
    edited October 2022

    Straight up. Not gonna lie. I love J. Kenji Lopez Alt and his style of cooking/videography/just nerding out about food in a structured scientific manner.

    I'd give it a shot. But I'd focus on what you really want to target first and how you want to grow the channel. I'm not in the culinary arts but I'm a home cook that enjoys adding a few 'pizzazz' here and there. Here's my list of people on youtube that I absolutely enjoy and follow:

    1. Andrew Reas (Binging with Babish) focuses on 'going fancy' on his dishes (with his inspiration based on food you see in media) (his background as a former gfx artist helps him with shot framing, videography, and the intended colors of his shots). He's a home cook that just made it big with such a great format, but since his show taking off he's learned a ton and I think has significantly improved his cooking skills (and creativity) since then. Like the guy has absolutely bloomed if you compare what he does now to what he used to do early on in his like first or second video.
    2. Ethan Chlebowski focuses on practical methods and dishes for the "everyday busy person". His "pita pizzas" and his obsession on pickled red onions really shows the practicality of his cooking and how we optimizes for healthy (and delicious) cooking. I've used a few of his recipes before and they're pretty great.
    3. Joshua Weissman went to culinary school and focuses on easy and highly effective ways to really push your cooking forward (he tires to target this within his "but better" series). I think he's a little out-of-touch when it comes to what a "regular person" wants (Ethan does a better job on this) and his "but cheaper" series is just unrealistic calculations... but I do see where one may get a ton of inspiration from just experience working at those restaurants and the culinary schools he went to.
    4. J. Kenji Lopez Alt... Oh man this guy. He's the 10/10, the top of the top person who I'll live by. His career has been nothing but phenomenal and his approach to cooking (and videography) is different, in that he's the most casual one out there. However, he's the author of The Food Lab and The Wok and approaches cooking in a very methodical and scientific way, explaining through his methodology and intended reason behind every step, ingredient, and purpose. His walkthrough of Wursthall (J Kenji Lopez's restuarant) and a chat with his head sausage maker is really an interesting video. His menemen recipe is fairly straightforward and great. His videos about making egg fried rice on various cooktops also shows the impact of your cooking medium and heat intensity on a dish that's so sensitive to that effect of thermodynamics/heat transfer.

    I'm all about it. I'm all about cooking youtube/videos.

    Honorable mentions are the First We Feast guys and their various shows. The Burger Show is alright (although not really my cup of tea) but introduces an interesting perspective on the history and development of a dish that... well I didn't know had such a rich history. I also really used to love their Food Skills series.

    Also America's Test Kitchen has a great cult following due to, again, their scientific approach to cooking and how they have their own stress-testing setup.

    Cook's Illustrated and "What's Eating Dan?" is a pretty great/decent series that I wish had more love and care. But Dan does a great job putting his episodes together with history, story, and then the actual science behind it. Packaging up a complex (and specialized) knowledge into easy-to-digest bits.

    Basically, if you offer something new, unique, and different from all that then I'm all in, and I think that area is still very new and has tons of potential/opportunities for growth.

    Basically. Do it and I'd be keen to watch.

    Like some topics I'm personally working on in my own kitchen:

    • Improved knife handling (I'm pretty fast and decent but I'm sure there's other tips and tricks to really grow)
    • What you should look for in a cutting board (types of wood, impact on knife's edge, what the cheaper cutting boards you may find at ikea vs some of the more expensive wooden boards, etc.) (or even why restaurants use plastic boards with various colors (meats, vegies, or mixed use)... I know some people say "I'd rather eat wood than plastic which is why I use a wooden cutting board"... does this logic hold water?)
    • Order of operation and the frameworks in cooking (what gets cooked first and why? I mean the goal is to have everything done at the same time, so show that logic but also how some cooking methods focuses on flavoring the oil)
    Thanked by 2bikegremlin scooke
  • nuggetsnuggets Member
    edited October 2022

    @HalfEatenPie said:
    Basically, if you offer something new, unique, and different from all that then I'm all in, and I think that area is still very new and has tons of potential/opportunities for growth.

    Basically. Do it and I'd be keen to watch.

    I agree and do definitely think that there's still room to carve out a niche! And thank you! :smile:

    Some of my thoughts on those topics which I might expand on in some future videos:

    Like some topics I'm personally working on in my own kitchen:

    • Improved knife handling (I'm pretty fast and decent but I'm sure there's other tips and tricks to really grow)

    You may already know this, but the pinch grip/chef's grip is the only proper way to hold a knife. Sometimes chefs will, on some occasions, use a variation of the pinch grip where they have their pointer finger on the spine of the blade if they're trying to get a "straighter cuts". Holding your knife solely by the handle is a great way to make inaccurate cuts or lose control of the blade.

    The type and quality of knife that you use matters a huge deal. As well as regular maintenance of that knife's edge using a steel or ceramic honing rod. My every day personal kitchen knife is the Zwilling JA Henkels 8" Pro Chef's Knife.
    . It's a great mid-tier knife for every day use, is made from good quality steel that is hard enough but not brittle, has good edge retention, and is very comfortable to hold.

    Different chefs/cooks have different knife preferences, and it's very common for pros to bring their own knives to work in upscale restaurants.

    • What you should look for in a cutting board (types of wood, impact on knife's edge, what the cheaper cutting boards you may find at ikea vs some of the more expensive wooden boards, etc.) (or even why restaurants use plastic boards with various colors (meats, vegies, or mixed use)... I know some people say "I'd rather eat wood than plastic which is why I use a wooden cutting board"... does this logic hold water?)

    In all the restaurants I've worked in, we've used different color plastic cutting boards interchangeably. Cutting boards are washed in high-heat commercial dishwashers countless times a day which plastic can withstand very well but wood cannot in the same way. We would use wooden cutting boards for things like prime rib with a heat lamp over it.

    Plastic cutting boards can last a long time but can start to chip easier when they get old. That's when it's time to toss it and get a new one. But if your plastic/polyethylene cutting board is still relatively new, practically you don't really have to worry about plastic chipping off.

    At home I use both wooden and plastic cutting boards interchangeably. The differences don't really matter to me that much. In my videos I'll use the wooden boards though because they're more aesthetically pleasing.

    On many cooking shows/videos you'll see chefs use the blade of their knife to scape food together or push it away on/from their cutting board. They're using expensive knives with better edge retention and new cutting boards. To preserve the longevity of your knife and equipment, you should flip your knife over and use the knife's spine to push food.

    • Order of operation and the frameworks in cooking (what gets cooked first and why? I mean the goal is to have everything done at the same time, so show that logic but also how some cooking methods focuses on flavoring the oil)

    I think "flavoring the oil" is probably a more simplified way of explaining it. Some cooking methods focus heavily on bringing out the flavor from what you are cooking in the oil. An excellent example is onions, which can be slow cooked for literally hours. When you dice an onion, you're breaking down the onion's "cell walls" .. the thinner and finer you cut/dice your onion, the quicker it's flavor will be released when you cook it. The same goes for garlic, and both are in the Allium family of plants.

    If you're cooking something where you really want to bring out the flavor of onion, you would most likely start slow cooking that first.

    If you're looking for better flavor out of the oil itself, I personally recommend two things: truffle-infused oil (these can get expensive!) or as very commonly done in restaurants, make your own "blended oil" using your choice of soybean oil/canola oil and melted butter. Butter has a smoke point of 302 degrees F, meaning that's when it will burn. Soybean oil has a smoke point of 453 degrees F. When you combine the two, you're getting enhanced flavor from the butter while the soybean oil will raise the temperature that it takes for the combined oil to burn.

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  • How to scam 101

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  • The type and quality of knife that you use matters a huge deal. As well as regular maintenance of that knife's edge using a steel or ceramic honing rod. My every day personal kitchen knife is the Zwilling Pro 8" Pro Chef's Knife.

    Hey I use the same chef knife daily. Zwilling is 10/10 great. I don't like the Henckels International brand but that's just because it's their entry level knives and I don't like their shoddy build quality.

    @organicallyblue said: I think "flavoring the oil" is probably a more simplified way of explaining it. Some cooking methods focus heavily on bringing out the flavor from what you are cooking in the oil. An excellent example is onions, which can be slow cooked for literally hours. When you dice an onion, you're breaking down the onion's "cell walls" .. the thinner and finer you cut/dice your onion, the quicker it's flavor will be released when you cook it. The same goes for garlic, and both are in the Allium family of plants.

    Haha see this gets more interesting.

    Basically, I think the opportunity is there. Wishing the best in this.

    Thanked by 1nuggets
  • I don't like the Henckels International brand but that's just because it's their entry level knives and I don't like their shoddy build quality.

    JA Henkels, (commonly sold at Target), Cuisinart, and Cutco knives are some of the biggest scams out there. Many of these knives are built to be completely held from the handle (if you use the proper pinch grip, it would be really uncomfortable), with shitty, weak ass steal that can barely cut through anything and wears down really quickly. :D

  • @DP said:
    If you can pull a Martin Yan, sure.

    I started watching his shows ever since I was a kid.

    I've never heard the Martin part before but knew who you meant with "Yan" only. He's etched in my brain as "Wok with Yan".

  • @FatGrizzly said:

    @Francisco said:

    @Chuck said:
    OnlyFans.

    First videos gotta be about home made chicken nuggets.

    Take the meme back, man. Own it.

    Francisco

    Second video should be a cooking in a bath tub video.

    Is that a meth reference?

    Thanked by 1dahartigan
  • FatGrizzlyFatGrizzly Member, Host Rep

    @TimboJones said:

    @FatGrizzly said:

    @Francisco said:

    @Chuck said:
    OnlyFans.

    First videos gotta be about home made chicken nuggets.

    Take the meme back, man. Own it.

    Francisco

    Second video should be a cooking in a bath tub video.

    Is that a meth reference?

    Fran reference

  • Fran cooking meth in the bathtub with JN on onlyfans. I'd pay $12 for that.

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