​
I've stopped trying to understand how some videos on YouTube can get hundreds of millions of hits, while others languish; but it's not hard to see how this simple video of a man showing a neat trick on shucking corn with minimal effort and without a strand of silk has garnered close to 5 million hits since it was uploaded in September.
More »

​I answer them how I get them folks, so I turn the mic over to Luis:

What's your favorite YouTube food video?

Easy--but it wasn't originally a YouTube video. It came from eBaum's World, my introduction to Internet videos from a looooooong time ago. There is where I saw Afro-Ninja for the first time, where I once saw some teen surfing on a truck, one foot steering while the other was on the roof--until the truck flipped.

And that's where I also saw my favorite food video, one I've used more than a few times on this infernal blog. After the jump!
More »

Flickr user technodad

​As hard as it may be to swallow, the people who cook on TV are occasionally wrong. It's not just pronunciations (it's "broo-SKET-tah", damn it), it's techniques. Some of them are TV tricks using previously prepared food, and some of them are just plain errors.

More »

There's a YouTube documentary for everything. Proof: One day last week, I was nostalgic for the street foods of Indonesia and thought, "Surely, by now, someone's gone around and videotaped a few and put the vids up to share." I was right. A YouTuber named matkiding has done just this. His channel has more than 200 videos of more than 200 different street vendors.

If you think the best part of No Reservations and Bizarre Foods is the food porn, consider these videos as YouPorn instead of Tube8. The editing is sparse, the camera work is kind of sloppy, and the dialogue leaves something to be desired . . . but, oh, the things you'll see!
More »

It's always the kids who didn't listen when their parents said not to play with their food who make the most creative videos as adults. Food Fight by Stefan Nadelman is a stop-action video of American history from World War II to the present day, using food in place of countries: Pearl Harbor as sushi landing on hamburgers, goi cuon chasing off croissants, lox-covered bagels letting kebabs have it--you get the picture. And what better day to view it than today, President's Day?

The mutually assured destruction between the Big Mac and the beef Stroganoff was worth it.

Zankou Chicken, the Armenian-Lebanese rotisserie chicken restaurant with a store in Anaheim's Little Arabia, is widely known for its white garlic sauce. At first glance, it looks like vanilla cake frosting. Taste it, though, and it has a garlic punch that whups you across the face like Randy Couture, as well as a tart lemon sting in its tail. It goes with everything from roasted meats to vegetables to bread; it even improves cold, leftover pizza.

Toum, as it's called in Arabic, is by no means exclusive to Zankou. Other local restaurants--such as Sasoon Chicken in Orange--also make a killer garlic sauce. But with its many stores across Los Angeles and Orange Counties, Zankou is the restaurant that has made it a SoCal favorite.



Today, we have two versions of toum. More after the jump!

More »

Flickr user quevedoports

​

This week's recipe goes out to disgraced ex-Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona, who began serving a five-and-half-year prison sentence yesterday in the minimum-security federal pen in Littleton, Colorado. Since prison will present Carona so much time and so few outlets for cooking, here's something to try once he unpacks the bags and sorts out the sock drawer.

Sure, it's illegal to brew alcohol in prison. But when has "illegal" stopped Carona before?

More »

​Ever wonder what would happen if the Swedish Chef and Slymenstra Hymen had a child together? An angry young man bitter about having to live in a place where the beer is expensive and the days are short?

More »

Flickr user b1nhb00ng

​It's almost time for Tết, which means huge branches of yellow hoa mai flowers will start sprouting all over Little Saigon; red banners reading, "Chúc mừng năm mới" (Happy New Year) will be strung in every shop and restaurant; and food shops everywhere will explode with blocks of sticky rice with pork and mung beans, carefully wrapped in green lá dong or banana leaves and tied with raffia.



More »

Check out Frenchman Vincent Talleu's video tutorial on making croissants and other pastries from laminated dough. It's ten minutes, and thoroughly entertaining. But then, I'm the sort of person that can stand in front of the glassed-off kitchen window at Din Tai Fung for hours and watch the cooks form soup dumplings with lightning speed and precision.

Talleu's got moves. Here's how it's done. [My pick for OC's best croissant after the jump!]

More »