Update: In one of the videos I watched last night, I saw Lisa cry, thinking about the kind subscribers who are like family to her, and that was it. Game over, I’m hooked. All is forgiven, order all the oxtail soup you want.
Don’t get me wrong, Torrance, CA-based food/travel vloggers Bill and Lisa seem like a nice couple, people we could break bread with.
Unlike Amanda and Felix, they also seem supportive and affectionate with each other, and not on the brink of breaking up, bickering over stupid shit.
Plus, my mind doesn’t go there watching them eat.
But, IMHO, they go about their foodie travels all wrong, like 90 percent of the popular vloggers out there, post-Boomers.
I grew up a foodie. As I’ve mentioned before, I was taking pictures of my food since I could pick up my father’s Instamatic. When I became a working editor of the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, I graduated to teaching myself how to take pictures on an Nikon FM2, which I purchased at a camera shop off Kuhio Ave. in Waikiki.
Currently, I’m fond of portrait mode, whether I take a picture of the way the sunlight hits my coffee cup in the morning, or the setting sun just as my dog Bungee photo-bombs the viewfinder, hunting for a rock chuck.
My first exposure to American culture as a second-generation Korean immigrant in the 1960s-‘70s was Graham Kerr’s “Galloping Gourmet,” then Julia Child’s “The French Chef.”
Food Network, PBS, YouTube, Instagram…I watched ‘em all.
Mom would scream at me for doing what the cool kids today do as an online flex: make a big deal over what they’re eating.
As an aside, because I was afraid of a confrontation, I grew to be a people-pleaser and a good eater. I would always try new food, no matter how gross it looked — unlike my brother, who took to vomiting up his canned peas and enduring the beatings from our dad.
In my 50s and especially during the pandemic, all my foodie habits came to fruition.
Seems I wasn’t the only one.
Even mom came around, grudgingly saying, with the kind of awe that made me want to bitch-slap her, “Ooh, other people take pictures of their food, just like you.”
So that makes it okay, now? Okay, mom. Fuck off.
Other people, (young) Tik-Tokers, were also making money doing what I did for free. But, whatever.
What’s even more infuriating is…I find I know about food, food preparation, and different cuisines from all over the globe better than most professional chefs and self-proclaimed professional foodies doing this stuff for a living online.
In the early 2000s, I asked when a Japanese food court vendor at Alderwood Mall, Lynnwood, WA, would be making ramen, in addition to its Benihana stir-fry and udon dishes?
The young guy behind the counter, who was Japanese-American, asked me, “What’s ramen?”
When I mention offhand (to me) commonplace food like beignets, focaccia, and sticky rice, people go, “Huh? What’s that?”
Including chefs.
I’ve suggested to one or two of them how to prepare certain dishes to improve and deepen flavor, only to be met with blank stares. No idea. WTF are culinary schools teaching them?
Maybe they never watched Julia Child prepare a proper French omelette before. Yes, there are differences…
The pandemic inspired me to start sourdough baking, too. I still have a tough time finding people willing to try my weekly loaves (you’d think they’d be beating my door down, but no, I have to go around begging them to try some here in this tiny town in Southern Idaho). I’m a decent baker, who finds baking quite a soothing pastime.
All that said, my problem with the Bill and Lisas of the foodie world is their lack of imagination and willingness to try new things. If you can’t stand cucumbers or raw onions or even a little bit of wasabi spice, then you have no business telling the rest of us what to eat.
Period.
I hate liver and lima beans, but I will try them in a new dish, every time.
It never fails.
Bill and Lisa will film themselves going to the same places and ordering the same things, over and over and over and over again, without any qualms. How does that help viewers who’d like to know what other items are on the menu? How does that broaden their own horizon or palate?
They’ll wait in long lines for the same two bowls of udon, beef and curry, that they’ve had before at Marugame Udon in Waikiki. (Go to the downtown location during business hours.)
If you’re going to eat Loco Moco, oxtail soup, cocoa puffs, and Chantilly cake at Liliha Bakery again, then, go somewhere new for a change!
We’ve seen this before already!
Lisa will inevitably order the last thing I’d ever eat, some boring fish, a BLT (yawn), or coconut shrimp. Bill has no appreciation for spice of any kind, and somehow thinks Japanese curry has several spice levels. He wouldn’t even touch the Chinese mustard sauce at Roy’s.
When they visited Paris — as an afterthought, after hitting Disney Paris, of course — they went for the most boring foods imaginable, except for the Bourguignon Bill bravely tried.
They also think nothing of hopping on a plane at the last minute for a mere two-day affair — in Waikiki!
If you’re going to spend that kind of money and sit on a plane for five-plus hours, stay longer, at least two weeks. Otherwise, what’s the point?
And, wtf’s up with their Disney fetish?
I have never liked Disney much, not even as a kid. The food at those amusement parks are way over-priced and bland. The faux-cheeriness pisses me off to no end, raising my suspicions as to what’s really going on behind the happy, shiny smiles.
Let’s not forget all those nasty conspiracy theories about Disney.
If my husband ever bought me Mickey ears (why? I don’t watch Mickey cartoons or movies) or a sweatshirt with Mickey and Minnie on it, I’d divorce him in a flash.
I’m sorry, but there’s something creepy about adults glomming onto Disney merchandise like it’s the greatest thing ever, especially women. If I never got past the age of seven, I might still be into shave ice in the shape of Mickey ears, or eating tired old waffles and omelettes with costumed Disney characters…
Bill and Lisa are typical of the food vloggers out there, though. Even my beloved Doobydobap has failed me with her obsession for sugary-sweet savory food at Jollibee.
Yeah, I should get into the food vlog game. Except, it’s been done to death and something about joining the crowd grosses me out even more than watching Dooby dive into Korean Gilgeori toast loaded with sugar and rolling her eyes like it’s the best food she ever ate since fish eyeballs simmering in piss sauce.
Never mind… Here’s a picture of a lemon zest sourdough I baked earlier today that nobody wants… I may drop it off at the homeless shelter.
PS. Lisa, Pasta Fagiole doesn’t have lentils. Those are probably beans.