Bon Appetit

Bon Appetit’s Website | YouTube

Bon Appétit is a highly opinionated food brand that wants everyone to love cooking and eating as much as we do. We believe in seasonal produce, properly salted pasta water, and developing recipes that anyone can make at home.

I recently started watching Bon Appetit’s YouTube after seeing people mention it a lot a month or so ago, and have been really enjoing it. I’ve mainly been watching Gourmet Makes, but I started going through the Back to Back Chef series (one of the chefs has a celebrity guest star who they give instructions to while they have their backs to each other), Reverse Engineering (one of the chefs recreates preselected dishes from taste and touch alone), and the scavenger hunt-ish series Molly does lol.

I think what’s drawn me to it is how nice it is to see their problem solving process behind dishes and actually make mistakes. There’s more of a human element to it, and helps me to appreciate the end cooking product more. The chefs are also pretty hilarious, and I enjoy the kitchen dynamics (everyone needs a Gabby & Rhoda in their lives tbh).

Bon Appetit is great! I also got into it after hearing the buzz (mostly about Gourmet Makes).

I highly recommend their Making Perfect Pizza series as an entryway into their channel because it exposes you to some of their more prominent personalities. I personally really love Brad and Carla; Brad is obviously on a ton of a content, but Carla is a little more elusive.

I watched the Gourmet Makes Starburst video the other day and it was devastating.

Literally saw this thumbnail checking YouTube and clicked so fast lmao. This is probably going to break them and be absolute comedy gold.

(would luv to see claire’s reaction lol)

There’s been a lot of mess coming in about the corporate culture and pay disaparity at Bon Appetit/Conde Nast. I thought this podcast was a great summary of what’s going on (and has been going on). It includes an interview with Sohla: http://www.sporkful.com/a-reckoning-at-bon-appetit/

I do recommend the full write up on Business Insider if you have time to read it: https://www.businessinsider.com/bon-appetit-adam-rapoport-toxic-racism-culture-2020-6

I’m not totally done listening but there doesn’t seem to be any mention of Alex Delaney on it so far, who has handled this whole thing so poorly and (imo) should lose his job.

So much respect for Sohla and everyone else who came forward about this. It’s repulsive to hear that they haven’t been compensated for the video appearances (especially with how many & how often Sohla is asked for help throughout them!).

100% Agree. I know he’s apologized regarding the cake, but there’s been nothing regarding the vine & those twitter posts people shared (at least that I’ve seen so far). Not to mention, people have been pointing out he doesn’t actually have food industry experience (per his LinkedIn) & just has web design stuff in his background, yet somehow ended up the Drinks Editor???

I get where some people online are coming from with him having grown up and what not, but if he wants to really show solidarity he would resign and give that space to someone who actually has the relevant experience & qualifications and actually fight for that.

Absolutely. To just go absolutely radio silent says “I don’t have anything to say about my past actions.” That doesn’t exactly make me think he’s grown as a person. It just furthers the narrative that he’s a white dude who was able to fall upward in a company that prioritizes whiteness above things like technical (or even relevant) experience. I’ve seen some folks go after the woman who dug up the dirt on him because (I believe?) she’s a drinks editor at another food outlet; they’re trying to write some narrative about her just being jealous that she was looked over for the job or something. I don’t know her or much about her, but I can say that I’ve seen many men given opportunities that they don’t deserve and don’t put in the work for just because they fit in with the bro culture of the rest of the organization. They’re unwilling to rock the boat.

And like, the cake and the Vine I guess were before he was at BA (iirc) and before he was an internet celebrity. OK. But the tweets were about his female coworkers at Conde/BA. I would be uncomfortable as hell working with someone who was publicly tweeting about ogling women just a few years ago.

He’s in his late 20s. How long do we permit white men to perpetuate toxicity and bigotry with defenses of “oh, he was just a kid”? Accept your responsibility and complicity and culpability and do something about it. Don’t just delete your Twitter and hope everyone forgets you and just lets Rapo be the boogeyman scapegoat.

Sorry for the double post but Conde has suspended Matt Hunziker, presumably for his posts critical of the company since the Rapo picture/Sohla speaking out: https://www.businessinsider.com/conde-nast-suspends-bon-appetit-video-editor-2020-6

Disgusting.