The Stuck-At-Home Collection

Why hello there, and welcome back to Kitchen Catastrophes, where I have to apologize, folks. Normally on a day like today, we’d leave the kitchen of creating dishes for the study of our Quick Tips, and discuss more academic aspects of cooking. Unfortunately, the study is a little cramped today, as my brother has been working from home, and I’ve decided to use this time to renovate a little to help you all.

That extended metaphor is to explain that today’s post is going to be a little content-sparse, because I’m trying to work on some other stuff for the site. Namely, I’m going to be working on our Tags system. What is that, and why do it now? Good questions. Let’s dive in.

“Why do we have to put a label on things?” is a worrying question, both in Relationships, and in Restaurant Kitchens

Jumping over all the web design aspects, the short story is: Squarespace has a system that lets me add tags to posts. Which makes them sortable and searchable by those tags. Things like “Gluten-Free”, “Easy”, and “Catastrophic Review”, basically whatever label I want to slap on a post, it lets me. And to date, we’ve been…inconsistent with doing so. Firstly, about a third of our content just straight up doesn’t have them, because it was written on a previous framework, and those posts were just ported over without much fiddling.

So why does it matter? Well, I know that shopping is more stressful now than most times, and I know that plenty of families are struggling to make ends meet. I am fortunate that my family is secure financially, and has deep reserves of food options at our home, but I also know others are not so lucky. So I wanted to make it easier for our readers and supporters to find and use our recipes that are simple and enjoyable. I wanted to make it easier to check out our opinions of streaming shows about food if you need something to pass the time. And while I’ll link several of these things here, I wanted to give you windows and ways to get there faster in the future.

So…yeah, basically I’m foregoing writing too much about a topic to instead spend the day on getting the site organized so you all can quickly find our “fast” recipes, our “easy” ones, and more. I’m still learning how to do it, so it’ll probably take me most of the day.

However, because I also feel bad that this is, essentially, a day spent making up for my previous failures (we COULD have reworked our archival system, or tag-sorting earlier), and because I want to try and provide more resources for those struggling, I also wanted to do a bit of a “if you need something to do other than read my stuff, go watch these people” list, so this is mainly going to be a series of links from here on out.

Stuff the Site has covered that’s still Good

Samurai Gourmet – This remains my number one recommendation for a food show to watch on Netflix. If you’ve finished Tiger King, and want something that is basically the complete OPPOSITE tone (or so I understand, I have yet to watch it), check it out.

SORTEDFood – Since I posted about their Pass it On series, I have continued burning through their content, AND made a recipe based solely on good it looked when they did (and because it’s got a fun name) which we’ll post about in a couple weeks.

Making Perfect – We covered their Pizza series, and touched on ONE of their episodes in the Thanksgiving series. Still fine.

Worth It – Made quite a few episodes since I covered them last.

Burger Show – I’m not going to lie, I’ve grown to like Burger show more since our first review of it. But I will state that it is SLIGHTLY a shame that George Motz is not the actual host. Alvin’s great, I’ve grown to like his energy as he’s become more confident, but George is just “chef’s kiss”, as the kids said a couple months ago, and therefore probably don’t anymore.

Somebody Feed Phil – My most commented on post! And only one of the comments was personally attacking me! Show’s still fine, particularly for an older/more sheltered crowd. Most of the people who complained about it did so from a place of greater cultural experience.

Ugly Delicious – I still recommend the first season, will try and make watching the second season a priority.

If you find that you’re not in the mood for THOSE, then let’s get a little more personal  

My digital recommendations/What’s Jon Watching?

The answer to the second question is…a mess of stuff. Mainly, I watch at least an hour or two of Youtube videos every day. I’m subscribed to 66 channels, which predominantly fall into 4 groups:

 
1. Cooking/Food Channels, such as

Bon Appetit, -the video arm of Bon Appetit Magazine. Yes, I plugged them just last week, but it would be rude to not mention them now. Also, today’s video is a crossover with Binging with Babish, who we will see in a minute.

How to Drink  -Imagine a cooler, mildly more responsible and better produced version of what we do here, just focused on cocktails.

SORTED – I mean, I literally JUST told you this.

Binging with Babish – Andrew Rea has an amazing voice, and does great work.  

Townsends – A channel focused on the food and lifestyle of the 1700s and 1800’s.

Food Wishes – Chef John makes solid, short little videos, with a very interesting vocal pattern that did briefly drive site Otaku Joe Seguin insane.

 and I’ve just started watching J. Kenji Lopez-Alt videos today. He’s a cookbook author and restaurant owner, seems like a real cool dude. Only seen like,3 videos so far, but I like what he’s selling.  

2. Video Game Channels

I like video games, but for several years, I have been relatively broke, running off of wi-fi, and using a wireless mouse and keyboard, all of which reduce the amount of gaming I can reliably do. And some games that I like are team games that my friends are no longer interested in. So I watch channels like:

Jacksepticeye – AkA the loudest motherfucker on Youtube. Real nice guy, super energetic, does a ton of charity stuff, did Karaoke with Emilia Clarke for charity. Friend of other huge gaming channels like Markiplier and PewdiePie.

Let’sPlay – The gaming arm of the RoosterTeeth Production company, another big name in the business. RoosterTeeth made RWBY and Red versus Blue, they do a lot of cool stuff. I’m a fan mainly of their TTT series, Minecraft stuff, and their Let’s Roll subsidiary, where the team members will play board games.

 FollowGrubby – Dutch streamer, former professional player of Warcraft 3. I got into him because I was real

 and Nubkeks – Another Irish streamer, formerly big on Heroes of the Storm, now tends to cover a variety of smaller games. I’m really digging his playthrough of Iratus right now (an early access Mirror of Darkest Dungeon (meaning, if you don’t know those words: “the game is not fully completed yet, but you can buy it and play it, so the developers can your your money to afford to finish the game/use you as a de facto playtesters, and the game is like the game Darkest Dungeon, but from the opposing side: instead of adventurers digging deeper into a dungeon, you are an undead horde working your way OUT of one.”

3.Video Essayists.

Oh BOY is this a big category for me. Literally a third of my subscriptions are to critics, podcasters, reviewers, and other people whose primary job is ‘convey thoughts about a specific product or idea’. Several of them are former Channel Awesome members (if you don’t know what that means, just know that it DOES mean something, it’s honestly far too much to unpack) such as

Lindsay Ellis – Primary focus is on film criticism, with a subfocus on Disney productions, though she was nominated for a Hugo award for her three-part analysis of the Hobbit films and how they ended up such a clusterfuck.

Linkara – Reviews comic books, discusses big comic storylines, character origins, bad storylines, etc. Has a meta-plot that I am not fully tuned into (meaning that he puts sections of varying size before/after and sometimes during reviews describing a fictional storyline that he is part of as a character)

Todd in the Shadows  - Reviews Pop music. with recurring discussion of current hits, as well as historical retrospectives of bands known for a single song and what preceded and followed that singular hit as wekk as a series that discusses albums that killed bands’ careers.

Kyle Kallgren  - AKA “Brows Held High”, discusses Shakespeare and Art films.

Rap Critic – I mean, the name kind of spells out the purpose, here.

Folding Ideas  - Aka Dan Olsen, another film critic, with a greater eye on the technical components of film, such as editing and shot framing, and what they add or change about films. Has a well-watched series of “A Lukewarm Defense of Fifty Shades”, where he defends the Fifty Shades MOVIES, since, he argues, the majority of the issues with them are rooted in the bad source material.

and Dominic Noble – Reviews specifically adaptations of books into films. Has a very popular and well-viewed series of covering Fifty Shades of Grey, where he comes to roughly the same conclusion as Folding Ideas from the other direction: he spends at least 20 minutes PER BOOK explaining all the ways it’s fucked up, and then finds himself having to say “this movie isn’t a very ACCURATE adaptation of the book, but that’s kind of a good thing”

Some are members of “Breadtube” (A term used to describe a group of left-wing Youtubers who challenge right-wing narratives from speakers such as Steve Bannon and Ben Shapiro. The “bread” is a reference to a famous anarchist treatise from 19th century France), and thus I would warn you that their content is explicitly political, and frequently explicit

Philosophy Tube – aka Olly Thorn, a professional actor with a master’s in philosophy. The last 18 months are the more theatrical videos, before that he was just…explaining philosophical concepts as a sort of “free master’s course in Philosophy”, since college tuition had just been dramatically raised in England. Starting with his Elon Musk video, there’s a greater reliance on visuals to convey philosophical parallels and/or provide entertainment to what might otherwise be somewhat dry material.

Hbomberguy – A sometimes game reviewer, and much sharper-edged critic of right-wing speakers and conspiracy theorists Famous for pointing out the logical impossibility of a statement by Ben Shapiro. (Shown Here) Something of the Diogenes to Olly’s Plato: much more aggressive, dismissive, and absurd, but that occasionally works to drive home his point more viscerally.

Some More News – Cody Johnston, a former performer and writer for Cracked.com, slowly goes insane reporting the news. The only source for your need-to-know information about the growing Boar menace.

But many others are not, such as

Patrick H Willems – Film reviewer, essayist, and film maker. Essays mostly concern trends in blockbuster films or the work of blockbuster directors, or older movies that he feels are underappreciated.

Nando v Movies – Discusses primarily comic book movies, with a signature “one small change” motif for most videos, where he suggests one small change to a film that he thinks would have improved it. (“This character should do action X”/“this speech should be changed”/”this character should have been this other character”, etc)  Essentially a script-doctor by hindsight.

Maggie Mae Fish – Another former Cracked writer, Maggie has a very eclectic series of essays. Her most recent one is a discussion of the fact that T.S. Eliot was, essentially, a fascist for the monarchy, and how that influences the characters and themes of CATS, and two videos about Kirk Cameron Christian movies. Also she has one about Jaclyn Hill and drama going on in…make-up Youtube?

Hello Future Me – A New Zealander who discusses worldbuilding in fiction, often using the Lord of the Rings, Avatar the Last Airbender, and other prominent series as examples.

Moviebob – Boston Movie reviewer with a weekly show discussing a broader criticism or analysis of film, discussing the historical import of X character being suggested for a new Marvel movie. (Bit of a wobbly one, since a lot of his content is under the Escapist label: He does Escape to the Movies and The Big Picture)

CGP Grey – Video essayist predominantly covering the functions and history of government (often with a focus on English and American). Has a great series illustrating the issues American voting system, . (ie, “the problems that arise purely because of how we resolve we have people vote, and how we resolve elections.”) and alternate systems we COULD use and their relative pros and cons.

and

PushingUpRoses – Covers old point and click adventure games, and Murder She Wrote episodes.

 Then there’s all the late night shows I watch on Youtube rather than tune in via TV, such as Last Week Tonight, Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, etc.

So… if any of those sound interesting, check them out while I work on this technical stuff, yeah? And try not to let the knowledge that I am a left-wing hyper-nerd impact your opinion of me too much. Or do.