The Bon App Recap: It’s Not Good and Yet It’s Kinda Good
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As if they knew we would all be practicing social distancing this week, the Bon Appétit YouTube channel has come through with some truly necessary and incredibly wholesome content to buoy us through these trying times.
First, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge Carla, the mother I never had, the sister everybody would want, and the friend everybody deserves, for shouting out our recap last week, if only to reinforce her point that you should never arrive at a dinner party on time. I now also need to say that I do love my mother, my sister, and my friends, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to use that Oprah quote.
Second, I did, in fact, make the spatchcocked roast chicken from last week’s recap, and as I suspected it would, it did go absolutely all the way off.
Now, getting down to business, as I said this was an absolutely bang-up week in the Test Kitchen. We got soup! We got Claire! And we only got one “Test Kitchen Talks” video, which didn’t bother me as much as they usually do, so let’s celebrate that, okay!
“From the Test Kitchen”—Andy makes pasta with tomatoes and chickpeas: 5/5 Would Bon
Andy kicks off this episode with a little history lesson about Winona Ryder, which is a great way to begin anything so already we’re off to a great start.
From there Andy dives right into the recipe, which includes a can of whole peeled tomatoes. Usually, I think having a preference for a specific name-brand canned vegetable (or fruit, whatever you consider tomatoes to be!) is pretentious, but after actually trying the brand Andy is raving about, I will concede Bianco DiNapoli is superior. Are you happy BA, I’ve bought into your food elitism. You win!
My main takeaway from this video is that, whether they were intending to or not, BA gave us a great pantry staple recipe that is perfect if you’re looking to cook something cozy while you’re locked up indoors. All the ingredients, minus the garlic, onions, and herbs (which you should have anyway) would last well into a quarantine, and I do think I’ll be getting into this one next week.
“Gourmet Makes”—Claire attempts to make gourmet Bagel Bites: 5/5 Would Bon
This installment of Gourmet Makes starts off with Alex Delaney joking that he would be taking over the show for Claire, and for one moment my heart skipped a beat. Obviously, this is a joke, and obviously no one could or would ever replace Claire, but if someone did I’m just saying we could all use a little more Delaney in our lives. Moving on.
This video is delightful, and I don’t want to spoil it by summarizing it for you here, but wow does it give us the goods. It passes my two “Is This A Good ‘Gourment Makes’ Episode?” tests, which are 1. Does it make Claire happy? and 2. Could I make this at home? Bagel Bites is a yes and a hell-yes, respectively.