What the hell is up with Andrew Rea, a.k.a. Babish of the Binging with Babish YouTube channel? Rea is perfectly heterosexual and has a smoking-hot girlfriend, but when you pair him up with a loud, dominating personality like Brad Leone from Bon Appétit, Rea shrivels and takes on the role of the submissive bitch. By contrast, if you pair him up with young baker extraordinaire Joshua Weissman, Rea turns into a creepy, slinky, gay Svengali. It's weird and cringe-inducing to watch the awkward flirtation (which I don't think Weissman wanted to engage in), but the video does showcase some interesting sourdough-making techniques:
Only my buddy Charles might be interested in the above video for what it has to say about baking; he's tolerant enough to look past the weird doe-eyes and subtext-filled banter. I'm no homophobe myself, but even I have to wonder what's going on when a confirmed hetero engages in some decidedly weird and awkward role play with a younger guy. People leaving comments under the video seem to agree.
I've put that on my "watch later" list.
ReplyDeleteSourdough has always fascinated and tempted me. One day I will make the leap, but that day will have to be when I have a lot more free time to make bread than I do now. Maybe when I've finally had enough of the BS and decide to leave it all behind. One can always dream.
As interesting as the sourdough vid was, I have to say that sourdough isn't one of my favorite breads. I'll eat it if you put it in front of me, but given a choice between sourdough and some other bread, I'll almost always reach for the other bread.
ReplyDeletePardon me for sort-of repeating myself; we've talked sourdough in relation to pancakes before. I had blogged about how I wasn't a fan of the yeasty pancakes at The Original Pancake House, and you responded that those were sourdough pancakes.
Oh, yeah, that's right. I had forgotten about that. Repeating yourself isn't always a bad thing when your interlocutor has a memory like a sieve.
ReplyDeleteWell, as you know, I am a fan of sourdough. I just watched the video, and damn did that bread look good. As for the homoeroticism... eh, it didn't really bother me, to be honest. Not saying that I didn't notice, or that it wasn't a little weird, but food YouTubers are a weird bunch anyway, and for some reason all food programs have to be "food porn" these days. It's not a trend I am enthusiastic about, but that's the way it is. I wouldn't read too much into the video other than that.
I will say that I watched the video on 1.5x speed (I watch a lot of videos at higher speeds, actually), and it is possible that this made the weirdness a little more bearable, as it doesn't last nearly as long.
Anyway, yeah, this confirms for me that I do eventually want to try sourdough some day. The problem, as you probably know, is that you kind of have to make bread regularly or you're going to end up wasting a lot of ingredients keeping the starter alive (incidentally, Weissman calls this a "levain," but as far as I know a levain is usually a stiff pre-ferment; maybe he's just using it in the general sense). These days I'm so busy (or just lazy) that I might make bread a couple times a month. If I have a little extra time, I might do a pre-ferment with baker's yeast and a long, low-temp ferment, but full on sourdough is not practical for me right now.