One of the big things most people in COVID-19 isolation are wrestling with is what to do with all their spare time. You can’t exactly drink the days away, Tiger King is bonkers but not for everyone, there’s only so much mental and physical improvement you can do before you get bored. However, I think I have a COVID-19 isolation rabbit hole that combines entertainment, food, self-improvement, mental health care, and easy-watching into one digestible YouTube-sized serving: Binging With Babish.
Speaking of COVID-19 isolation, the GOAT team talk about the importance of maintaining connections during these dark times on ‘It’s Been A Big Day For…’ below:
For those who have no clue what Binging With Babish is, it’s a YouTube cooking channel that was started by Andrew Rea back in 2016. Now there are plenty of cooking channels on YouTube, so why should Binging With Babish be the go-to stop for your COVID-19 isolation binging needs?
For what appears to be a mere “YouTube cooking channel,” Binging With Babish is unnaturally accessible and easy to watch. The videos are informative in the same way most good cooking channels are but are entertaining because of Rea’s penchant for sprinkling his instructions with a heap of dry humour (and lots of kosher salt), as well as knowing how to film food porn shots really well.
The recipes are easy to learn as Rea manages to break things down to an easily-digestible form, and there’s a rare curiosity element to it all as almost all the recipes are taken from food and meals we’ve seen in movies, TV shows and video games.
Even when you don’t want to learn about cooking, Binging With Babish is also just a light, low-stakes watch that you can put in the background while doing some other COVID-19 isolation activity as the videos are as relaxing and entertaining as it is informative.
You know you’ve stumbled upon something when Binging With Babish managed to make a cooking video on how to cook the pineapple and olive pizza from Deadpool just as interesting as the film.
While a lot of YouTube cooking channels like to focus on the food or the host, Binging With Babish manages to deftly thread the line between the two.
Despite making some mouthwatering food, Rea stresses that he is a self-taught cook (not chef as he likes to remind everyone) who is learning along with his audience with everything he makes, and that helps make him relatable to people trying to learn about cooking.
Rea also doesn’t really talk much about his personal life in his Binging With Babish videos but he sprinkles just enough tidbits to add some extra personality on top so that he doesn’t come off as a robot cook.
Stuff like the $5 milk shake from Pulp Fiction video where Rea randomly introduces his girlfriend, Jess, to help him drink it, or when he references his friends, business partners or his “inebriated” or “stoned” friends next door, all help to make you just that little bit more invested in Binging With Babish.
Besides Jess and his friends, Rea has also managed to have several high-profile celebrities and other big-name YouTubers make appearances on Binging With Babish, such as like Maisie Williams, Sean Evans from Hot Ones, and Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau. This all adds an extra level of watchability to a show that’s already very accessible to the masses.
If I were to point out one thing wrong with ‘Binging With Babish’, it’s Rea’s insistence on using the Imperial system instead of the metric system as it makes converting ingredient amounts a pain in the arse, but that’s a small thing which can be easily overlooked when the end result is a glorious Bunnicord Pizza from Star Trek: Picard or a Krabby Patty from Spongebob Squarepants.
Always be in the loop with our snackable podcast breaking the biggest story of the day. Subscribe to It’s Been A Big Day For… on your favourite podcast app.