You Suck At Cooking

September 28, 2015 3:57 AM

A cooking channel with a twist...

Some sample favourites:

Episode 9 - Seven Ways To Chop an Onion

Episode 5 - Breakfast Sandwich

Episode 6 - Deluxe Cheese and Crackers

posted by ellieBOA (30 comments total)

I liked the minimalism of Egg in a Hole. Wish he had more videos like that one.
posted by ymgve at 4:16 AM on September 28, 2015 [5 favorites]

Who knew you could summon the Dark Forces to help you cook yams?
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 4:32 AM on September 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

Re: episode 9 Nickelback makes my head explode too.
posted by headnsouth at 4:51 AM on September 28, 2015

Is this by the same guy who did You Suck at Photoshop?
posted by ardgedee at 5:10 AM on September 28, 2015 [4 favorites]

Re: the yams "The cool thing about the caterpillar is that it denotes freshness." This is actually true.
posted by Bob Regular at 5:17 AM on September 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

I realize it's not the point but that guy's knife skills are driving me nuts to the point that I can barely watch. Pinch grip! Left hand claw! He's gonna chop his thumb off.
posted by dis_integration at 5:36 AM on September 28, 2015 [5 favorites]

Hot peppers and green onion in *Guacamole*? Ugh, no thank you. I bet this guy puts celery in potato salad too.
posted by sydnius at 5:41 AM on September 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

I love this channel and I hope he keeps cranking them out.
posted by bshort at 5:50 AM on September 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

I bet this guy puts celery in potato salad too

*side eye*

I this guy should collaborate with this guy
posted by device55 at 5:58 AM on September 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

This is quite humorous and I approve of its inclusion on the internet.
posted by fungible at 6:01 AM on September 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

> I liked the minimalism of Egg in a Hole . Wish he had more videos like that one.

Except a) he forgot to fry the hole and b) he forgot to butter the other side. That's how you get "mmm" to the last bite. I say forgot because otherwise I'd have to assume he totally sucked at cooking.
posted by funkiwan at 7:28 AM on September 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

I was expecting this to be "l1fe hackz!!" and it was not, it was wonderful instead. Thank you for sharing.
posted by maryr at 7:47 AM on September 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

When I was younger I would just fry bread in butter and call it breakfast.
posted by Splunge at 8:04 AM on September 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is real great and did everybody see the bean dip one? There's a dog part at the end that has a song.
posted by Don Pepino at 8:11 AM on September 28, 2015

OMG the Breakfast Sandwich.... "John and Douglas." I may never look at eggs the same way again.
posted by dnash at 8:26 AM on September 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is the more sardonic and sensible cousin of the bros from Epic Meal Time. (He probably shops at FreshCo, or maybe Sobeys when he's feeling flush.)
posted by maudlin at 8:54 AM on September 28, 2015

Watched the guacamole one... I put a bit olive oil, garlic, shallots and lemon juice in mine but heh, too each his own... what's he really doing wrong is using a fork, this takes WAY TOO LONG! Use a dough blender, your guac will be done in no time.
posted by coust at 9:56 AM on September 28, 2015

The breakfast sandwich ran long. If they stopped at the Doug/John credits, it would have been a masterpiece. Always leave 'em wanting more.
posted by Jesse the K at 9:58 AM on September 28, 2015

In a similar genre don't miss Katering.
posted by XMLicious at 12:25 PM on September 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

There's something sociologically interesting in channels like this -- a hyper-masculine, science-oriented approach to cooking (and I'm not alone in thinking this). Epic Meal Time is another good example, as is Thug Kitchen (which adds a dash of racial appropriation via gratuitous use of Black English). They seem to target predominantly white, predominantly tech-y men who want frugal alternatives to going out, providing a culturally aligned approach they view as subversive to accepted mild-mannered soft-spoken cooking shows (e.g. every single YouTube cooking video that begins with "Hey guys, today I'm going to show you how to...", and traditional Julia Childs or Martha Stewart-esque shows). Instead, they're violent, they throw ingredients around, they chuck empty cans on the counter because they don't give a fuck, because men don't care about things like that. They care about meat, bacon, and filling your pie hole with manly foods.

This channel's Gregg Bean Dip video is prototypical of this phenomenon. Within the first 20 seconds, there's some physical threat of violence ("If you fuck with his recipe, he will show up at your house and he will scream at the top of his lungs"), with follow-through added at the end. There's appeals to masculine authority ("Gregg says dice an onion, we're going to dice an onion"). There's a science joke relating beans to ferromagnetic fluids with a penis joke thrown in for good measure. The dad voicemail is a spot-on appeal to young tech people, making fun of his use of the term "The Google." He even verbatim says "but you know what, to be honest, it's complete like this, you don't need to be all fancy and shove this in an oven and pretend you're Martha Stewart."

I'm sort of torn on the situation -- these videos enforce unhealthy stereotypes and are built on denigrating cooking as a feminine role, reworking it into an over-compensating masculine act (which, to be fair, are at least part parody). I understand that it makes cooking more accessible to people who may otherwise avoid a kitchen; however, there is also something uncomfortable about how these men are taking something traditionally associated with and owned by women and demonstrating how cooking should be done, how a man handles cooking. And that worries me.
posted by Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra at 12:33 PM on September 28, 2015 [7 favorites]

I realize it's not the point but that guy's knife skills are driving me nuts to the point that I can barely watch. Pinch grip! Left hand claw! He's gonna chop his thumb off.

my hands were actually twitching when I watched that
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:44 PM on September 28, 2015 [2 favorites]

In a similar genre don't miss Katering.

I love this so much.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 3:02 PM on September 28, 2015

Has Katering not been on the blue yet? I can barely believe that with my brain, I felt for sure it would have been. I will do it if somebody doesn't beat me to it.

Also I really like this too. I learned a fun thing about either eggs or onions the other day. I forget which, but it was really good. Really changed my approach to whichever of those things it was.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:27 PM on September 28, 2015 [1 favorite]

My link above goes to a post on the blue.
posted by XMLicious at 3:59 PM on September 28, 2015

So it does!
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:07 PM on September 28, 2015

I kinda can't deal with the serious cookery discussion responses to a post where the first video involves a man turning an onion into beans by hitting it with a pan. Like, this comment is seriously interesting and I want to talk about it, but, but, the guy is controlling his oven with an onion.
posted by lucidium at 6:07 PM on September 28, 2015 [3 favorites]

This is great, I never knew that about onions!
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:05 PM on September 28, 2015

I kinda can't deal with the serious cookery discussion responses to a post where the first video involves a man turning an onion into beans by hitting it with a pan.

Yeah, it's humour. And at the same time, the way he handles a knife is actually dangerous, and those of us who know how to handle them properly cringe at that crap--it's vaguely similar to watching an actor mime playing a musical instrument really, really badly. Or someone bashing away at their keyboard and then going "and now we enhance the picture."
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:03 PM on September 28, 2015

Why is the intro to this the best thing ever? I replayed it like 30 times laughing my ass off.
posted by emptythought at 2:47 AM on September 29, 2015

I'm sort of torn on the situation -- these videos enforce unhealthy stereotypes and are built on denigrating cooking as a feminine role, reworking it into an over-compensating masculine act (which, to be fair, are at least part parody). I understand that it makes cooking more accessible to people who may otherwise avoid a kitchen; however, there is also something uncomfortable about how these men are taking something traditionally associated with and owned by women and demonstrating how cooking should be done, how a man handles cooking. And that worries me.

Here's the thing though, a lot of women are fucking sick of Martha Stewart and Giada DeLaurentiis too. At my very best I manage to cook half as well as the YSAC guy and I probably swear more and throw more shit out of frustration, too. Shows like YSAC and My Drunk Kitchen are like oxygen to me, especially when my social media feeds are crammed with foodie friends who make their own lines of sriracha and routinely use fondant in their daily lives. I watch stuff like this and think, Oh my god, I could actually not care more about cooking than about anything else on earth 24/7 and still be a human! A human woman even! Glorious.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:54 AM on September 29, 2015 [3 favorites]