I’ve gotten in the habit of watching food TV while eating breakfast. I have a Samsung TV, and it includes a bunch of streaming channels. Episodes of Carla’s Cooking Show runs from 7AM-9AM (it might start earlier, idk). Man, this lady knows her stuff, and works in the kitchen the same way I do. She cooks, and gives recipes, but at the same time nothing is fixed or strict; she does this thing where she says if you don’t have X you can use A, B, C and it will be fine. She’ll make a mistake and say, “Oops! Well, here’s how to fix that.” She talks about all the things she tried before coming up with her solution. (For crisp zucchini fritters: thinly cut the zucchini instead of shredding it, and add a potato.) This fits with my view: recipes, cookbooks, and tv shows aren’t instruction manuals: they’re idea mines. I read and watch and think: “I can take what I just learned and use that to make THIS from what’s in the refrigerator right now.” I will say she uses A LOT of lemons. Every time I buy lemons, they eventually dry out waiting for me to remember I have them. Same with limes, until I get back on my Southwestern kick again.n
On this morning’s show she gave a tour of her back yard grilling/bbq center, which has a large brick hearth and an XLBGE. She told the story of how she got the XLBGE: She had a Weber Kettle, but when she was working for Bon Appetit they needed a place to film a segment using the XLBGE. Someone said, “Carla has a back yard nearby.” So they filmed the segment there… and nobody ever came back to pick up the XLBGE.
She has a Substack, it’s pretty good. She writes about how she had to stop making the show because she lost money on every episode; the ad returns didn’t even come close to covering production costs, let alone her own labor. There’s lots of good stuff there about cooking, eating, life, and how it’s all one big thing.
Anyhow, there it is. When I watch and read her stuff, it’s like watching and reading Meathead. I would highly recommend the Substack. The cooking shows, and her work on Bon Appetite, are easily found on YouTube, and she has a couple cookbooks that are currently $4.99 for the Kindle version at Amazon. All of those are pretty good idea mines.
On this morning’s show she gave a tour of her back yard grilling/bbq center, which has a large brick hearth and an XLBGE. She told the story of how she got the XLBGE: She had a Weber Kettle, but when she was working for Bon Appetit they needed a place to film a segment using the XLBGE. Someone said, “Carla has a back yard nearby.” So they filmed the segment there… and nobody ever came back to pick up the XLBGE.
She has a Substack, it’s pretty good. She writes about how she had to stop making the show because she lost money on every episode; the ad returns didn’t even come close to covering production costs, let alone her own labor. There’s lots of good stuff there about cooking, eating, life, and how it’s all one big thing.
Anyhow, there it is. When I watch and read her stuff, it’s like watching and reading Meathead. I would highly recommend the Substack. The cooking shows, and her work on Bon Appetite, are easily found on YouTube, and she has a couple cookbooks that are currently $4.99 for the Kindle version at Amazon. All of those are pretty good idea mines.
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