Better YouTube Cooking Videos

Having been stuck at home now for several weeks, I feel like I'm now a YouTube expert. Here are my quick tips for better YouTube cooking videos.

Maximum length 4 minutes 30 seconds. 7-minute videos? 10- Minute videos? If I had that much time, I would use a cookbook.

Music does not always make it better.

Watch your film at 2x speed. If you look like your doing the hokey pokey.  . . Yeah, that's what it looks like to me too. Stop doing the Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tubeman thing.

If when your video is paused on YouTube and you see 4 or more frames that look much like duplicates in the timeline, the scene is a snoozer.

Download a video editor to improve and edit your video.  Then use it.  

Stop with the zooming in and out already. I'm getting seasick.

Do something with the hair! 

It's OK to be young. Just stop being a total nitwit and all glittery.

Sorry, your kids are cute to you, but not me. If we are doing kids food great. Same for pets.

Take the jewelry off.  

Yes, I know I need to open the package to get the product out.  You don't need to tell me.  

Stop banging utensils on the bowl or pot.  Use a spatula.

If this is your first time making the dish, that's your first mistake, please don't tell me.

Sure, maybe you wear that silk blouse when you make fried chicken. Give me a break.

Guys, wear a regular shirt.  Not a wife beater. No creds for you.

Clean the grease off your pots before videotaping using them. Ever heard of Ez-Off?

Yes, I know how to crack an egg.  I don't need to watch you do it.

If your arms block the shot, move the camera.  Duh.

Young girls, it's not a fashion show or a Facebook update for all your peeps. Cook dam it, NEXT.

Pictures of empty pots on the stove.  Brilliant, does James Cameron know about you?

Either move the knife faster or stop filming you chopping something.  You're killing me.

Chopping onions, seen it, done it, got it, next.

Please stop reading me food labels.

Purchase a decent microphone. What the hell did you just say?

Clean up the kitchen and background.  You're on camera.

If I wanted to listen to off-color language, I would listen to rap. 

Clean the camera lens please.  

FOCUS! FOCUS! Is that a cucumber or a dildo?

You're cooking, you're not a comedian, get on with it.

Turn the annoying background noise off this includes the background music. Yes, that does include the vent hood.

Get rid of the Flys before you start filming. Yes, your introductory story is very interesting, please tell it to someone else off-camera who cares.

Stirring and still more stirring. Got it, keep it short.  

Use a pot big enough to hold everything and with room to stir.  

Oil in a pan getting hot for 40 seconds. Got it, move on already.

I really don't care what store you bought it at. I mean that.  

Please don't eat the food that falls on the floor.  

Get the tools ready BEFORE you start filming or at least know where YOU keep them.  

I don't need to watch you wash your dishes, I have my own and know how.  

If you have a food webpage, advertise it in writing, I might want to go there.  

Best thing in your life you've ever tasted?  Reeeaaaally

Beauty, what is it?

Wikipedia defines beauty as - Beauty is a characteristic of an animal, idea, object, person or place that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure or satisfaction. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, culture, social psychology, philosophy and sociology. 


But when does one actually experience it?  Is it something you can be shown or taught?   Many think so.  Perhaps it dwells in a vision, taste, smell or vibration?  A memory perhaps of some time or place.  



Some would define it by strict lines and angles, while others would have us believe that the abstract view would enhance or bring it in to focus. Still, others would look to the human form to find guidance and pause.  Maybe it's not man made but embedded in the wonder and power of nature or in the structures of our eath its self.  Then again, might it be a logic of no body, existing only in our minds and souls or simply a perspective.



Surely for my time on this planet, I have experienced them all but something was missing and hidden from me.  In reflection: I've stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon and beheld the buffet before me.  I've caressed the softness of a maiden's breast and felt the leather roughness of my father's hand.  I've seen the birth of my children and held a dyings person's hand and watched them travel from life to death.  I've seen the artworks of the masters both old and new.  Smelled the sweet fragrance of honeysuckle, thick in the early morning country air.  I've flown above the clouds and dived below the waters of the sea.  I've listened to man's music and that of nature and the earth.  I've gazed into the endless space above and the depths of my own soul.  These things and more are part of me. 


So did I let beauty pass by me unnoticed?  No, but I failed to drink it in enough, being to busy trying to move forward. Which brings us to a revised definition.

Beauty - that one point in time which may be a fraction of a second or an extended period of time when you and the thing of your attention seem in harmony with all that you are to the point that without thinking about it, you wish it would never end.  It is unique to every being.