In the early days of the pandemic I started a cooking show in my kitchen, “Brooks Cooks.” The premise was straightforward. While our newborn son was napping my wife would film me making lunch or dinner, and I would narrate the steps to a viewer on the other end.
The first viewer was my mother-in-law. That’s why we started. She wanted to know a good way to cook fish. Since we were all stuck in our houses, I made a little video for her and texted it over. It was fish cooked in parchment. The technique overdelivers in every way - it’s delicious, easy, and looks cool. She was effusive in her praise.
Fuck it, I thought. I’ll post it to Instagram, too.
The response was favorable enough to feed my ego a little hit of acceptance from strangers, so I kept making the videos. I was stuck at home, I didn’t have to actually see any of the people who were watching them, and I liked the banter with my wife.
Eventually, feeding the Instagram algorithm paid off. The videos reached more and more people. Over the course of a year my follower count ballooned from 8k to 19k. We were having a lot of fun and I was able to share something I love (cooking at home) with strangers who appreciated it. It was a win-win.
The ethos of the project was always to cook and share simple foods. That delights me. The food world is dripping in preciousness and pretense and I felt like I just wanted to share straightforward tips that might help another person eat well at home with minimal fuss. At one point I even made a video about toast.
When the world opened back up I slowly drifted away from the videos. I got busy at work, my son was napping less, and I wasn’t comfortable sharing so much of myself when I had to see people out in the community again. I was afraid people would think I was full of myself, something my wife has continually reminded me would not be the case. Nevertheless I have my hangups about posting too many selfies or videos.
I have no idea why I wanted to tell you that, but I think my point is that I moved a lot of that questionable culinary advice to this newsletter and I hope you like it.
Today I am filling your inbox to talk about croutons.
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