#i get that lasting longer is kinda the appeal of sandwich bread

[yume-fanfare]

the sandwich post just has me wondering what kind of bread u guys eat

[missguomeiyun]

❆ SEATTLE (ep23): Pike Place Market pt.3 .. the eats!

Now for the most exciting part of our trip to Pike Place Market .. the eats!

Glad to see some of the places being open, you know?

It was early afternoon & we were still kinda fill from dimsum so we went for a light-ish meal & got some desserts.

This was where we had our main meal: michou. They have been on several dining guides since its opening in 2001, & have also made it onto a list of “Seattle’s best take-out” at some point!

Let’s head in!

The deli was long & narrow, with a line of wall-seating. I loved the vibe so much when I entered. It smelled great & the interior design felt welcoming & relaxing.

Starting from the point of entry once you walk thru the door, you’re greeted by this display of sandwiches & paninis.

Everything just looked so good!

Some add-in sides options.

Sweets

Salads & many types of baked potatoes :D

Fancyyyyy

They have a fridge for the grab-&-go customers.

More sweets

They’re so cute, aren’t they?!

A closer look at the salads~

So many options! If you don’t wanna dine in, you can get it heated up & packed up.

*not in photo: they had a heated station with diff types of soups. It was self-serve, so you grab a container & scoop the soup yourself. A few diff sizes available.

DL & I dined in but it was slightly confusing haha so we scooped the soup, & took it over to the cashier to order our other 2 items & pay. They actually took our soup (???) & brought the same soup back to us with our warmed up sandwich. Like the system was kinda weird. .. Anyway, we got the poblano beef sandwich & Thai chicken rice soup.

The Thai chicken rice soup was sooooooo pale in colour we didn’t think it’d have much flavour; however, the reason why we ordered was bcos we wanted to try a hot soup & this one was most appealing to us. Turned out the soup was very flavourful! There were some small chicken breast cubes in there as well as rice, but the rice was like ... not really soaked/cooked through. Nothing like congee, you know what I mean? Not to say the soup was watery but basically the soup & the contents were 2 distinct parts.

The sandwich was great though! I loved the bread & the ratio with the ingredients :) It was a hearty sandwich. My only dissatisfaction was the softened greens upon the heating. I prefer my greens to be crunchy & raw. White this greens here were still ‘raw’, it became really soft. That’s all.

Tuscan chicken baked potato. They had many options. .. but we like chicken haha So yum! Very flavourful :D

Next, we stopped by Piroshiki, Piroshiky for some Russian pastries. I’m not familiar with the Russian pastries, like at all. But this was one of the popular spots here at the Market so we chose a few.

Here’s the inside of the small pastry shop. 

They have savoury & sweet options; both with steep menu prices IMHO. Having it in USD doesn’t make it better... $6.85 with tax, then conversion to CAD, & then the exchange rate fee.... it was close to $10. 

While I don’t particular think they look ‘good’, the pastries have a home-ly appearance.

& that’s bcos they make everything in their open kitchen right behind the counter. You get to see them making pastries from scratch. 

*DL & I got 2 sweet pastries: the cherry white chocolate pastry & the marionberry pastry. Pictures will be in another post bcos we got both items to-go, & we took it out at our hotel.

The walk thru the Market continues. The fruits looked so fresh :O

I have never seen these purple things before o.O

^ $49.50 per lb for morels *gasp*

They’re so cute!

Entering another section in the Market. This one seemed to be quite deep but again, I’d say many booths were closed due to the weather.

These crab legs were so long!!

Here’s a comparison with my hand lol I swear the longest crab leg here was close to or longer than my leg.

So freshhhh! Wished I could eat some of these.

Last stop before we headed out of the Market: Ellenos.

One of my coworkers recommended this place to me. She said the texture of the Greek yogurt was very dense & smooth, & that I’d probably like it. So we stopped here.

They give small spoon samples if you ask / before you commit so don’t be afraid to try a few!

Guess which flavour I got haha so predictable - “latte”. DL got the passionfruit, which I ended up liking more after trying hers. It was very tart & refreshing. You know when you drink lemonade & that tartness kinda hits you? Her passionfruit Greek yogurt was like that. Totally unexpected. My latte flavour.. . it was very plain & not much coffee flavour. It also wasn’t very sweet either; just overall, quite bland. So I was a little disappointed. However the texture! Hard to describe. .. It’s like the Greek yogurt that you get in grocery stores yogurt section but has a denser/ice cream texture. A little grainy too. It was interesting! Worth a try!

[latoyajkelson70506]

TikTok Is the Food Platform of the People

Tway Nguyen, also known as @twaydabae, isn't totally sure why a video of her cooking fried rice on TikTok blew up to 5.5 million views, but her guess is that it's because she cracked two eggs at the same time. She thinks that's why TikTok's algorithm pushed it onto the For You page, the assortment of recommended videos you see when you open the app. Though she used to post dancing videos and makeup tips with no real rhyme or reason, Nguyen has used TikTok exclusively for cooking ever since, picking up millions of views and gaining a following of over 282,000 users.

Since that video on March 22, TikTok has been a fast-growing space for Nguyen, who decided to take her kitchen experience online after finishing culinary school last year. She'd initially planned to work on the line in a kitchen, but now, social media is her full-time job. Though she's been making food content on YouTube and Instagram for longer, her following on those platforms has grown slower. "A really good thing about TikTok is it's still in the beginning stages where we're still getting a lot of genuine and original personalities rather than just a lot of people copying each other," Nguyen told VICE. "Right now is like the golden time."

@twaydabae

Quick and easy #friedrice #recipe #easyrecipe #foodie #food #homecook #howto #howtocook

♬ original sound - twaydabae

If you want to make food videos in 2020, and all you have is a phone, your home kitchen, and not much of an online following, where do you start? For people at the beginning of their path in food, TikTok is increasingly the answer. There, there's still a chance to become a food star.

In the food world, TikTok is the anti-YouTube. At 15 years old, YouTube now feels like the old guard, while TikTok, which was released worldwide in 2018, has been called the "wild west." On YouTube, food videos are like TV shows—Bon Appétit's now push the 30-minute mark—but TikTok videos max out at one minute. As YouTube has become another product for influencer chefs and media publications like this one, the expectations for content and production are high. TikTok, meanwhile, has the DIY appeal of a new platform.

There's a lo-fi, unpolished quality to TikTok's food world, where videos are often taken by a person holding the phone in one hand and cooking with the other. Sometimes, the kitchens are dirty, the shots are blurry, and the omelettes flip imperfectly, but that doesn't stop the views; the popular user @blockboyjmomey posts cooking videos made in a cell at a California prison. "A good phone, a good mic, a tripod, and some window light—that's what I use. There's nothing fancy about my kitchen. It's just simple, relatable," Nguyen said. Everything feels like you could do it too, without a production crew, a test kitchen, or even high-end cookware.

@twaydabae

so easy it doesn’t require chopping! Full written recipe & directions on my IG @ TWAYDABAE #howto #easyrecipe #homecook #cookathome #asianrecipe

♬ original sound - twaydabae

The style of overhead shots and floating hands pioneered by Tasty became the norm on other platforms, but there isn't a formula for a TikTok food video yet. Some clips on the platform are narrated in quick hits of instructions; others are set to popular audio clips, which allows food creators to ride on the buzz of songs backing viral dance trends or memes.

Only so much can be explained in one minute or shown in a meaningful way through un-narrated clips, so TikTok food videos focus on quick techniques, replications of well-known dishes, and "hacks." The effect of this is that the food is simple, and one of Nguyen's early goals was to show young Asian Americans how easy their cultural foods are.

TikTok food is best explained by its big trends: the viral one-pan breakfast sandwich showed a lifehack for a common meal; the three-ingredient dalgona coffee can be made by anyone who can vigorously whisk; the tiny pancakes are just regular pancakes but small. Consider the Hot Cheetos-crusted mozzarella sticks, the Oreo cake, and the bread pizza, and it's clear that TikTok foods draw on familiar, easy-to-recreate elements instead of introducing people to entirely new concepts.

@twincoast

VEGAN strawberry smoothie! 🍓 no bananas 🍌 #vegan #veganfood #smoothie #smoothiebowl #veganrecipe #healthysmoothie #vitamixlife #vitamix

♬ SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK - Joji

Sisters Ashley and Taylor Johnston have made it big on TikTok by making nothing but smoothies. As @twincoast, their feed is a rainbow grid of Vitamix containers full of blended fruit. They uploaded their first smoothie video on TikTok in November 2019 and "it went pretty much viral overnight with over 500,000 views," the sisters told VICE in an email. Today, that video has over 1 million views.

"We think that our smoothies have been popular on TikTok because it is different from the other content being uploaded," the Johnston sisters said. On YouTube, where they've had an account since 2012 and occasionally post food tutorials, they have a following of 61,000, but on TikTok, they've gained over 757,000 followers since last November. Their audience is excited to watch videos that show little more than a smoothie being scooped and smoothed with a spoon. There's a market for that though, the sisters said: "Our followers have grown to know what our smoothies look like and the exact spoon we use for our scoop videos."

@spurweezy

Making Filipino Chicken adobo with Mom #filipino #cooking #fyp #foryourpage

♬ Wii store - .

Mike Spurlock, who posts videos on TikTok as @spurweezy, sees TikTok as a space to be realistic about home cooking. An event planner by trade, Spurlock previously shared his home-cooked meals in private group chats, but last July, he began cooking on TikTok to show a long-distance romantic partner what he was up to in the kitchen. Even after the relationship ended, he stayed on the platform, where his videos have gained him 62,000 followers. "People like to know that you don't have to be a world-star chef with world-star equipment to make a great meal," he told VICE.

Users who've found followings primarily on TikTok attribute their success to "the algorithm." As Instagram influencers and YouTubers see their view counts slide, they see "the algorithm" as something to be blamed, but on TikTok, the algorithm offers promise. Creating good, grabby content is king, both Nguyen and Spurlock acknowledged, but the algorithm—which dictates what ends up on the For You page—is necessary for being discovered.

"The way the TikTok algorithm works is you can not have any followers and overnight, your video can go crazy because of just... something," Spurlock said. The first video of his that got the algorithm's attention was one of him cooking bratwurst, because people in the comments began arguing over whether or not he'd burnt them, he said. Despite all the videos and articles offering ways to "hack" the TikTok algorithm, there's still a sense that no one really knows how it works—after all, if these tutorials really nailed it, wouldn't everyone be a TikTok star? When you look at it that way, "the algorithm" is another way of saying "luck."

@spurweezy

♬ original sound - Auzzy4

No matter how the algorithm works, home cooking has worked for Spurlock on TikTok, though it hasn't been the same on other platforms. On Instagram, his follower count hovers under 1,000; one day, he wants to make the jump to YouTube. "I think [TikTok] users are a little bit more forgiving of, I guess, more home-styled content. The professional stuff is out there, but when I check on the OG TikTok chefs, what kinda brought everybody together was that we're all just focused on home cooking," Spurlock said. "On Instagram, it feels a little bit more commercial. Yes, you can have your own style, but it's way more curated. TikTok just feels more authentic."

That perception of authenticity could explain why big food brands haven't quite cracked TikTok, even if they've found monumental success on YouTube and Instagram. Perhaps the best example is Bon Appétit's absence from the platform, despite its huge YouTube presence. Though accounts with the handles @bonappetit and @bonappetitmag exist, they're blank and don't carry the magazine's branding.

With 1.2 million followers, Tasty runs one of the largest accounts in the TikTok food space, but its content appears to be cut from existing videos. First We Feast's page is similarly popular, though it mostly reposts random TikTok users. Thrillist, with 581,000 followers on YouTube, has just over 46,000 on TikTok; though its videos are more in line with TikTok's style, they rarely break 2,000 views.

Part of that, according to Alessandro Bogliari, CEO and co-founder of the Influencer Marketing Factory, is likely because of who runs media companies. "It's management that is definitely older. They might not understand what TikTok is," he told VICE. TikTok might seem too new to invest resources into, and the platform can change faster than companies might strategize around it. "It's relatively new, and the rules are changing every single day and every week. I think that a lot of brands are usually slower in decision making."

@spurweezy

Whats your favorite #chicken sandwich, Popeyes🐔 or Chick-fil-A🐄? S/o to @nishcooks #foryoupage #fyp #cooking #food #popeyes #chickfila #烹饪 #duet

♬ Cheryl - yung gravy

To Nguyen, part of the appeal of social media is that she controls the whole process. "I don't have to go through a boss to say, 'Okay, you can post your video,'" Nguyen said. With conventional food media catching well-earned criticism for gatekeeping, breaking into the field through traditional means can feel like an uphill climb. Jobs are scarce and landing them can be a mix of luck and connections. On TikTok, meanwhile, you don't need to worry about that: Anyone can hit record, publish, and have a similar shot at getting swept into the algorithm.

"On YouTube and Instagram, I feel like you almost have this pedigree," Spurlock said. "You know, just like the picture-perfect everything. TikTok is a little bit more open to everyday people."

Follow Bettina Makalintal on Twitter.

via VICE US - undefined US VICE US - undefined US via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[deborahaphillips54303]

TikTok Is the Food Platform of the People

Tway Nguyen, also known as @twaydabae, isn't totally sure why a video of her cooking fried rice on TikTok blew up to 5.5 million views, but her guess is that it's because she cracked two eggs at the same time. She thinks that's why TikTok's algorithm pushed it onto the For You page, the assortment of recommended videos you see when you open the app. Though she used to post dancing videos and makeup tips with no real rhyme or reason, Nguyen has used TikTok exclusively for cooking ever since, picking up millions of views and gaining a following of over 282,000 users.

Since that video on March 22, TikTok has been a fast-growing space for Nguyen, who decided to take her kitchen experience online after finishing culinary school last year. She'd initially planned to work on the line in a kitchen, but now, social media is her full-time job. Though she's been making food content on YouTube and Instagram for longer, her following on those platforms has grown slower. "A really good thing about TikTok is it's still in the beginning stages where we're still getting a lot of genuine and original personalities rather than just a lot of people copying each other," Nguyen told VICE. "Right now is like the golden time."

@twaydabae

Quick and easy #friedrice #recipe #easyrecipe #foodie #food #homecook #howto #howtocook

♬ original sound - twaydabae

If you want to make food videos in 2020, and all you have is a phone, your home kitchen, and not much of an online following, where do you start? For people at the beginning of their path in food, TikTok is increasingly the answer. There, there's still a chance to become a food star.

In the food world, TikTok is the anti-YouTube. At 15 years old, YouTube now feels like the old guard, while TikTok, which was released worldwide in 2018, has been called the "wild west." On YouTube, food videos are like TV shows—Bon Appétit's now push the 30-minute mark—but TikTok videos max out at one minute. As YouTube has become another product for influencer chefs and media publications like this one, the expectations for content and production are high. TikTok, meanwhile, has the DIY appeal of a new platform.

There's a lo-fi, unpolished quality to TikTok's food world, where videos are often taken by a person holding the phone in one hand and cooking with the other. Sometimes, the kitchens are dirty, the shots are blurry, and the omelettes flip imperfectly, but that doesn't stop the views; the popular user @blockboyjmomey posts cooking videos made in a cell at a California prison. "A good phone, a good mic, a tripod, and some window light—that's what I use. There's nothing fancy about my kitchen. It's just simple, relatable," Nguyen said. Everything feels like you could do it too, without a production crew, a test kitchen, or even high-end cookware.

@twaydabae

so easy it doesn’t require chopping! Full written recipe & directions on my IG @ TWAYDABAE #howto #easyrecipe #homecook #cookathome #asianrecipe

♬ original sound - twaydabae

The style of overhead shots and floating hands pioneered by Tasty became the norm on other platforms, but there isn't a formula for a TikTok food video yet. Some clips on the platform are narrated in quick hits of instructions; others are set to popular audio clips, which allows food creators to ride on the buzz of songs backing viral dance trends or memes.

Only so much can be explained in one minute or shown in a meaningful way through un-narrated clips, so TikTok food videos focus on quick techniques, replications of well-known dishes, and "hacks." The effect of this is that the food is simple, and one of Nguyen's early goals was to show young Asian Americans how easy their cultural foods are.

TikTok food is best explained by its big trends: the viral one-pan breakfast sandwich showed a lifehack for a common meal; the three-ingredient dalgona coffee can be made by anyone who can vigorously whisk; the tiny pancakes are just regular pancakes but small. Consider the Hot Cheetos-crusted mozzarella sticks, the Oreo cake, and the bread pizza, and it's clear that TikTok foods draw on familiar, easy-to-recreate elements instead of introducing people to entirely new concepts.

@twincoast

VEGAN strawberry smoothie! 🍓 no bananas 🍌 #vegan #veganfood #smoothie #smoothiebowl #veganrecipe #healthysmoothie #vitamixlife #vitamix

♬ SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK - Joji

Sisters Ashley and Taylor Johnston have made it big on TikTok by making nothing but smoothies. As @twincoast, their feed is a rainbow grid of Vitamix containers full of blended fruit. They uploaded their first smoothie video on TikTok in November 2019 and "it went pretty much viral overnight with over 500,000 views," the sisters told VICE in an email. Today, that video has over 1 million views.

"We think that our smoothies have been popular on TikTok because it is different from the other content being uploaded," the Johnston sisters said. On YouTube, where they've had an account since 2012 and occasionally post food tutorials, they have a following of 61,000, but on TikTok, they've gained over 757,000 followers since last November. Their audience is excited to watch videos that show little more than a smoothie being scooped and smoothed with a spoon. There's a market for that though, the sisters said: "Our followers have grown to know what our smoothies look like and the exact spoon we use for our scoop videos."

@spurweezy

Making Filipino Chicken adobo with Mom #filipino #cooking #fyp #foryourpage

♬ Wii store - .

Mike Spurlock, who posts videos on TikTok as @spurweezy, sees TikTok as a space to be realistic about home cooking. An event planner by trade, Spurlock previously shared his home-cooked meals in private group chats, but last July, he began cooking on TikTok to show a long-distance romantic partner what he was up to in the kitchen. Even after the relationship ended, he stayed on the platform, where his videos have gained him 62,000 followers. "People like to know that you don't have to be a world-star chef with world-star equipment to make a great meal," he told VICE.

Users who've found followings primarily on TikTok attribute their success to "the algorithm." As Instagram influencers and YouTubers see their view counts slide, they see "the algorithm" as something to be blamed, but on TikTok, the algorithm offers promise. Creating good, grabby content is king, both Nguyen and Spurlock acknowledged, but the algorithm—which dictates what ends up on the For You page—is necessary for being discovered.

"The way the TikTok algorithm works is you can not have any followers and overnight, your video can go crazy because of just... something," Spurlock said. The first video of his that got the algorithm's attention was one of him cooking bratwurst, because people in the comments began arguing over whether or not he'd burnt them, he said. Despite all the videos and articles offering ways to "hack" the TikTok algorithm, there's still a sense that no one really knows how it works—after all, if these tutorials really nailed it, wouldn't everyone be a TikTok star? When you look at it that way, "the algorithm" is another way of saying "luck."

@spurweezy

♬ original sound - Auzzy4

No matter how the algorithm works, home cooking has worked for Spurlock on TikTok, though it hasn't been the same on other platforms. On Instagram, his follower count hovers under 1,000; one day, he wants to make the jump to YouTube. "I think [TikTok] users are a little bit more forgiving of, I guess, more home-styled content. The professional stuff is out there, but when I check on the OG TikTok chefs, what kinda brought everybody together was that we're all just focused on home cooking," Spurlock said. "On Instagram, it feels a little bit more commercial. Yes, you can have your own style, but it's way more curated. TikTok just feels more authentic."

That perception of authenticity could explain why big food brands haven't quite cracked TikTok, even if they've found monumental success on YouTube and Instagram. Perhaps the best example is Bon Appétit's absence from the platform, despite its huge YouTube presence. Though accounts with the handles @bonappetit and @bonappetitmag exist, they're blank and don't carry the magazine's branding.

With 1.2 million followers, Tasty runs one of the largest accounts in the TikTok food space, but its content appears to be cut from existing videos. First We Feast's page is similarly popular, though it mostly reposts random TikTok users. Thrillist, with 581,000 followers on YouTube, has just over 46,000 on TikTok; though its videos are more in line with TikTok's style, they rarely break 2,000 views.

Part of that, according to Alessandro Bogliari, CEO and co-founder of the Influencer Marketing Factory, is likely because of who runs media companies. "It's management that is definitely older. They might not understand what TikTok is," he told VICE. TikTok might seem too new to invest resources into, and the platform can change faster than companies might strategize around it. "It's relatively new, and the rules are changing every single day and every week. I think that a lot of brands are usually slower in decision making."

@spurweezy

Whats your favorite #chicken sandwich, Popeyes🐔 or Chick-fil-A🐄? S/o to @nishcooks #foryoupage #fyp #cooking #food #popeyes #chickfila #烹饪 #duet

♬ Cheryl - yung gravy

To Nguyen, part of the appeal of social media is that she controls the whole process. "I don't have to go through a boss to say, 'Okay, you can post your video,'" Nguyen said. With conventional food media catching well-earned criticism for gatekeeping, breaking into the field through traditional means can feel like an uphill climb. Jobs are scarce and landing them can be a mix of luck and connections. On TikTok, meanwhile, you don't need to worry about that: Anyone can hit record, publish, and have a similar shot at getting swept into the algorithm.

"On YouTube and Instagram, I feel like you almost have this pedigree," Spurlock said. "You know, just like the picture-perfect everything. TikTok is a little bit more open to everyday people."

Follow Bettina Makalintal on Twitter.

via VICE US - undefined US VICE US - undefined US via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[cyberpoetryballoon]

TikTok Is the Food Platform of the People

Tway Nguyen, also known as @twaydabae, isn't totally sure why a video of her cooking fried rice on TikTok blew up to 5.5 million views, but her guess is that it's because she cracked two eggs at the same time. She thinks that's why TikTok's algorithm pushed it onto the For You page, the assortment of recommended videos you see when you open the app. Though she used to post dancing videos and makeup tips with no real rhyme or reason, Nguyen has used TikTok exclusively for cooking ever since, picking up millions of views and gaining a following of over 282,000 users.

Since that video on March 22, TikTok has been a fast-growing space for Nguyen, who decided to take her kitchen experience online after finishing culinary school last year. She'd initially planned to work on the line in a kitchen, but now, social media is her full-time job. Though she's been making food content on YouTube and Instagram for longer, her following on those platforms has grown slower. "A really good thing about TikTok is it's still in the beginning stages where we're still getting a lot of genuine and original personalities rather than just a lot of people copying each other," Nguyen told VICE. "Right now is like the golden time."

@twaydabae

Quick and easy #friedrice #recipe #easyrecipe #foodie #food #homecook #howto #howtocook

♬ original sound - twaydabae

If you want to make food videos in 2020, and all you have is a phone, your home kitchen, and not much of an online following, where do you start? For people at the beginning of their path in food, TikTok is increasingly the answer. There, there's still a chance to become a food star.

In the food world, TikTok is the anti-YouTube. At 15 years old, YouTube now feels like the old guard, while TikTok, which was released worldwide in 2018, has been called the "wild west." On YouTube, food videos are like TV shows—Bon Appétit's now push the 30-minute mark—but TikTok videos max out at one minute. As YouTube has become another product for influencer chefs and media publications like this one, the expectations for content and production are high. TikTok, meanwhile, has the DIY appeal of a new platform.

There's a lo-fi, unpolished quality to TikTok's food world, where videos are often taken by a person holding the phone in one hand and cooking with the other. Sometimes, the kitchens are dirty, the shots are blurry, and the omelettes flip imperfectly, but that doesn't stop the views; the popular user @blockboyjmomey posts cooking videos made in a cell at a California prison. "A good phone, a good mic, a tripod, and some window light—that's what I use. There's nothing fancy about my kitchen. It's just simple, relatable," Nguyen said. Everything feels like you could do it too, without a production crew, a test kitchen, or even high-end cookware.

@twaydabae

so easy it doesn’t require chopping! Full written recipe & directions on my IG @ TWAYDABAE #howto #easyrecipe #homecook #cookathome #asianrecipe

♬ original sound - twaydabae

The style of overhead shots and floating hands pioneered by Tasty became the norm on other platforms, but there isn't a formula for a TikTok food video yet. Some clips on the platform are narrated in quick hits of instructions; others are set to popular audio clips, which allows food creators to ride on the buzz of songs backing viral dance trends or memes.

Only so much can be explained in one minute or shown in a meaningful way through un-narrated clips, so TikTok food videos focus on quick techniques, replications of well-known dishes, and "hacks." The effect of this is that the food is simple, and one of Nguyen's early goals was to show young Asian Americans how easy their cultural foods are.

TikTok food is best explained by its big trends: the viral one-pan breakfast sandwich showed a lifehack for a common meal; the three-ingredient dalgona coffee can be made by anyone who can vigorously whisk; the tiny pancakes are just regular pancakes but small. Consider the Hot Cheetos-crusted mozzarella sticks, the Oreo cake, and the bread pizza, and it's clear that TikTok foods draw on familiar, easy-to-recreate elements instead of introducing people to entirely new concepts.

@twincoast

VEGAN strawberry smoothie! 🍓 no bananas 🍌 #vegan #veganfood #smoothie #smoothiebowl #veganrecipe #healthysmoothie #vitamixlife #vitamix

♬ SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK - Joji

Sisters Ashley and Taylor Johnston have made it big on TikTok by making nothing but smoothies. As @twincoast, their feed is a rainbow grid of Vitamix containers full of blended fruit. They uploaded their first smoothie video on TikTok in November 2019 and "it went pretty much viral overnight with over 500,000 views," the sisters told VICE in an email. Today, that video has over 1 million views.

"We think that our smoothies have been popular on TikTok because it is different from the other content being uploaded," the Johnston sisters said. On YouTube, where they've had an account since 2012 and occasionally post food tutorials, they have a following of 61,000, but on TikTok, they've gained over 757,000 followers since last November. Their audience is excited to watch videos that show little more than a smoothie being scooped and smoothed with a spoon. There's a market for that though, the sisters said: "Our followers have grown to know what our smoothies look like and the exact spoon we use for our scoop videos."

@spurweezy

Making Filipino Chicken adobo with Mom #filipino #cooking #fyp #foryourpage

♬ Wii store - .

Mike Spurlock, who posts videos on TikTok as @spurweezy, sees TikTok as a space to be realistic about home cooking. An event planner by trade, Spurlock previously shared his home-cooked meals in private group chats, but last July, he began cooking on TikTok to show a long-distance romantic partner what he was up to in the kitchen. Even after the relationship ended, he stayed on the platform, where his videos have gained him 62,000 followers. "People like to know that you don't have to be a world-star chef with world-star equipment to make a great meal," he told VICE.

Users who've found followings primarily on TikTok attribute their success to "the algorithm." As Instagram influencers and YouTubers see their view counts slide, they see "the algorithm" as something to be blamed, but on TikTok, the algorithm offers promise. Creating good, grabby content is king, both Nguyen and Spurlock acknowledged, but the algorithm—which dictates what ends up on the For You page—is necessary for being discovered.

"The way the TikTok algorithm works is you can not have any followers and overnight, your video can go crazy because of just... something," Spurlock said. The first video of his that got the algorithm's attention was one of him cooking bratwurst, because people in the comments began arguing over whether or not he'd burnt them, he said. Despite all the videos and articles offering ways to "hack" the TikTok algorithm, there's still a sense that no one really knows how it works—after all, if these tutorials really nailed it, wouldn't everyone be a TikTok star? When you look at it that way, "the algorithm" is another way of saying "luck."

@spurweezy

♬ original sound - Auzzy4

No matter how the algorithm works, home cooking has worked for Spurlock on TikTok, though it hasn't been the same on other platforms. On Instagram, his follower count hovers under 1,000; one day, he wants to make the jump to YouTube. "I think [TikTok] users are a little bit more forgiving of, I guess, more home-styled content. The professional stuff is out there, but when I check on the OG TikTok chefs, what kinda brought everybody together was that we're all just focused on home cooking," Spurlock said. "On Instagram, it feels a little bit more commercial. Yes, you can have your own style, but it's way more curated. TikTok just feels more authentic."

That perception of authenticity could explain why big food brands haven't quite cracked TikTok, even if they've found monumental success on YouTube and Instagram. Perhaps the best example is Bon Appétit's absence from the platform, despite its huge YouTube presence. Though accounts with the handles @bonappetit and @bonappetitmag exist, they're blank and don't carry the magazine's branding.

With 1.2 million followers, Tasty runs one of the largest accounts in the TikTok food space, but its content appears to be cut from existing videos. First We Feast's page is similarly popular, though it mostly reposts random TikTok users. Thrillist, with 581,000 followers on YouTube, has just over 46,000 on TikTok; though its videos are more in line with TikTok's style, they rarely break 2,000 views.

Part of that, according to Alessandro Bogliari, CEO and co-founder of the Influencer Marketing Factory, is likely because of who runs media companies. "It's management that is definitely older. They might not understand what TikTok is," he told VICE. TikTok might seem too new to invest resources into, and the platform can change faster than companies might strategize around it. "It's relatively new, and the rules are changing every single day and every week. I think that a lot of brands are usually slower in decision making."

@spurweezy

Whats your favorite #chicken sandwich, Popeyes🐔 or Chick-fil-A🐄? S/o to @nishcooks #foryoupage #fyp #cooking #food #popeyes #chickfila #烹饪 #duet

♬ Cheryl - yung gravy

To Nguyen, part of the appeal of social media is that she controls the whole process. "I don't have to go through a boss to say, 'Okay, you can post your video,'" Nguyen said. With conventional food media catching well-earned criticism for gatekeeping, breaking into the field through traditional means can feel like an uphill climb. Jobs are scarce and landing them can be a mix of luck and connections. On TikTok, meanwhile, you don't need to worry about that: Anyone can hit record, publish, and have a similar shot at getting swept into the algorithm.

"On YouTube and Instagram, I feel like you almost have this pedigree," Spurlock said. "You know, just like the picture-perfect everything. TikTok is a little bit more open to everyday people."

Follow Bettina Makalintal on Twitter.

via VICE US - undefined US VICE US - undefined US via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[carolrhackett85282]

TikTok Is the Food Platform of the People

Tway Nguyen, also known as @twaydabae, isn't totally sure why a video of her cooking fried rice on TikTok blew up to 5.5 million views, but her guess is that it's because she cracked two eggs at the same time. She thinks that's why TikTok's algorithm pushed it onto the For You page, the assortment of recommended videos you see when you open the app. Though she used to post dancing videos and makeup tips with no real rhyme or reason, Nguyen has used TikTok exclusively for cooking ever since, picking up millions of views and gaining a following of over 282,000 users.

Since that video on March 22, TikTok has been a fast-growing space for Nguyen, who decided to take her kitchen experience online after finishing culinary school last year. She'd initially planned to work on the line in a kitchen, but now, social media is her full-time job. Though she's been making food content on YouTube and Instagram for longer, her following on those platforms has grown slower. "A really good thing about TikTok is it's still in the beginning stages where we're still getting a lot of genuine and original personalities rather than just a lot of people copying each other," Nguyen told VICE. "Right now is like the golden time."

@twaydabae

Quick and easy #friedrice #recipe #easyrecipe #foodie #food #homecook #howto #howtocook

♬ original sound - twaydabae

If you want to make food videos in 2020, and all you have is a phone, your home kitchen, and not much of an online following, where do you start? For people at the beginning of their path in food, TikTok is increasingly the answer. There, there's still a chance to become a food star.

In the food world, TikTok is the anti-YouTube. At 15 years old, YouTube now feels like the old guard, while TikTok, which was released worldwide in 2018, has been called the "wild west." On YouTube, food videos are like TV shows—Bon Appétit's now push the 30-minute mark—but TikTok videos max out at one minute. As YouTube has become another product for influencer chefs and media publications like this one, the expectations for content and production are high. TikTok, meanwhile, has the DIY appeal of a new platform.

There's a lo-fi, unpolished quality to TikTok's food world, where videos are often taken by a person holding the phone in one hand and cooking with the other. Sometimes, the kitchens are dirty, the shots are blurry, and the omelettes flip imperfectly, but that doesn't stop the views; the popular user @blockboyjmomey posts cooking videos made in a cell at a California prison. "A good phone, a good mic, a tripod, and some window light—that's what I use. There's nothing fancy about my kitchen. It's just simple, relatable," Nguyen said. Everything feels like you could do it too, without a production crew, a test kitchen, or even high-end cookware.

@twaydabae

so easy it doesn’t require chopping! Full written recipe & directions on my IG @ TWAYDABAE #howto #easyrecipe #homecook #cookathome #asianrecipe

♬ original sound - twaydabae

The style of overhead shots and floating hands pioneered by Tasty became the norm on other platforms, but there isn't a formula for a TikTok food video yet. Some clips on the platform are narrated in quick hits of instructions; others are set to popular audio clips, which allows food creators to ride on the buzz of songs backing viral dance trends or memes.

Only so much can be explained in one minute or shown in a meaningful way through un-narrated clips, so TikTok food videos focus on quick techniques, replications of well-known dishes, and "hacks." The effect of this is that the food is simple, and one of Nguyen's early goals was to show young Asian Americans how easy their cultural foods are.

TikTok food is best explained by its big trends: the viral one-pan breakfast sandwich showed a lifehack for a common meal; the three-ingredient dalgona coffee can be made by anyone who can vigorously whisk; the tiny pancakes are just regular pancakes but small. Consider the Hot Cheetos-crusted mozzarella sticks, the Oreo cake, and the bread pizza, and it's clear that TikTok foods draw on familiar, easy-to-recreate elements instead of introducing people to entirely new concepts.

@twincoast

VEGAN strawberry smoothie! 🍓 no bananas 🍌 #vegan #veganfood #smoothie #smoothiebowl #veganrecipe #healthysmoothie #vitamixlife #vitamix

♬ SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK - Joji

Sisters Ashley and Taylor Johnston have made it big on TikTok by making nothing but smoothies. As @twincoast, their feed is a rainbow grid of Vitamix containers full of blended fruit. They uploaded their first smoothie video on TikTok in November 2019 and "it went pretty much viral overnight with over 500,000 views," the sisters told VICE in an email. Today, that video has over 1 million views.

"We think that our smoothies have been popular on TikTok because it is different from the other content being uploaded," the Johnston sisters said. On YouTube, where they've had an account since 2012 and occasionally post food tutorials, they have a following of 61,000, but on TikTok, they've gained over 757,000 followers since last November. Their audience is excited to watch videos that show little more than a smoothie being scooped and smoothed with a spoon. There's a market for that though, the sisters said: "Our followers have grown to know what our smoothies look like and the exact spoon we use for our scoop videos."

@spurweezy

Making Filipino Chicken adobo with Mom #filipino #cooking #fyp #foryourpage

♬ Wii store - .

Mike Spurlock, who posts videos on TikTok as @spurweezy, sees TikTok as a space to be realistic about home cooking. An event planner by trade, Spurlock previously shared his home-cooked meals in private group chats, but last July, he began cooking on TikTok to show a long-distance romantic partner what he was up to in the kitchen. Even after the relationship ended, he stayed on the platform, where his videos have gained him 62,000 followers. "People like to know that you don't have to be a world-star chef with world-star equipment to make a great meal," he told VICE.

Users who've found followings primarily on TikTok attribute their success to "the algorithm." As Instagram influencers and YouTubers see their view counts slide, they see "the algorithm" as something to be blamed, but on TikTok, the algorithm offers promise. Creating good, grabby content is king, both Nguyen and Spurlock acknowledged, but the algorithm—which dictates what ends up on the For You page—is necessary for being discovered.

"The way the TikTok algorithm works is you can not have any followers and overnight, your video can go crazy because of just... something," Spurlock said. The first video of his that got the algorithm's attention was one of him cooking bratwurst, because people in the comments began arguing over whether or not he'd burnt them, he said. Despite all the videos and articles offering ways to "hack" the TikTok algorithm, there's still a sense that no one really knows how it works—after all, if these tutorials really nailed it, wouldn't everyone be a TikTok star? When you look at it that way, "the algorithm" is another way of saying "luck."

@spurweezy

♬ original sound - Auzzy4

No matter how the algorithm works, home cooking has worked for Spurlock on TikTok, though it hasn't been the same on other platforms. On Instagram, his follower count hovers under 1,000; one day, he wants to make the jump to YouTube. "I think [TikTok] users are a little bit more forgiving of, I guess, more home-styled content. The professional stuff is out there, but when I check on the OG TikTok chefs, what kinda brought everybody together was that we're all just focused on home cooking," Spurlock said. "On Instagram, it feels a little bit more commercial. Yes, you can have your own style, but it's way more curated. TikTok just feels more authentic."

That perception of authenticity could explain why big food brands haven't quite cracked TikTok, even if they've found monumental success on YouTube and Instagram. Perhaps the best example is Bon Appétit's absence from the platform, despite its huge YouTube presence. Though accounts with the handles @bonappetit and @bonappetitmag exist, they're blank and don't carry the magazine's branding.

With 1.2 million followers, Tasty runs one of the largest accounts in the TikTok food space, but its content appears to be cut from existing videos. First We Feast's page is similarly popular, though it mostly reposts random TikTok users. Thrillist, with 581,000 followers on YouTube, has just over 46,000 on TikTok; though its videos are more in line with TikTok's style, they rarely break 2,000 views.

Part of that, according to Alessandro Bogliari, CEO and co-founder of the Influencer Marketing Factory, is likely because of who runs media companies. "It's management that is definitely older. They might not understand what TikTok is," he told VICE. TikTok might seem too new to invest resources into, and the platform can change faster than companies might strategize around it. "It's relatively new, and the rules are changing every single day and every week. I think that a lot of brands are usually slower in decision making."

@spurweezy

Whats your favorite #chicken sandwich, Popeyes🐔 or Chick-fil-A🐄? S/o to @nishcooks #foryoupage #fyp #cooking #food #popeyes #chickfila #烹饪 #duet

♬ Cheryl - yung gravy

To Nguyen, part of the appeal of social media is that she controls the whole process. "I don't have to go through a boss to say, 'Okay, you can post your video,'" Nguyen said. With conventional food media catching well-earned criticism for gatekeeping, breaking into the field through traditional means can feel like an uphill climb. Jobs are scarce and landing them can be a mix of luck and connections. On TikTok, meanwhile, you don't need to worry about that: Anyone can hit record, publish, and have a similar shot at getting swept into the algorithm.

"On YouTube and Instagram, I feel like you almost have this pedigree," Spurlock said. "You know, just like the picture-perfect everything. TikTok is a little bit more open to everyday people."

Follow Bettina Makalintal on Twitter.

via VICE US - undefined US VICE US - undefined US via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[melodymgill49801]

TikTok Is the Food Platform of the People

Tway Nguyen, also known as @twaydabae, isn't totally sure why a video of her cooking fried rice on TikTok blew up to 5.5 million views, but her guess is that it's because she cracked two eggs at the same time. She thinks that's why TikTok's algorithm pushed it onto the For You page, the assortment of recommended videos you see when you open the app. Though she used to post dancing videos and makeup tips with no real rhyme or reason, Nguyen has used TikTok exclusively for cooking ever since, picking up millions of views and gaining a following of over 282,000 users.

Since that video on March 22, TikTok has been a fast-growing space for Nguyen, who decided to take her kitchen experience online after finishing culinary school last year. She'd initially planned to work on the line in a kitchen, but now, social media is her full-time job. Though she's been making food content on YouTube and Instagram for longer, her following on those platforms has grown slower. "A really good thing about TikTok is it's still in the beginning stages where we're still getting a lot of genuine and original personalities rather than just a lot of people copying each other," Nguyen told VICE. "Right now is like the golden time."

@twaydabae

Quick and easy #friedrice #recipe #easyrecipe #foodie #food #homecook #howto #howtocook

♬ original sound - twaydabae

If you want to make food videos in 2020, and all you have is a phone, your home kitchen, and not much of an online following, where do you start? For people at the beginning of their path in food, TikTok is increasingly the answer. There, there's still a chance to become a food star.

In the food world, TikTok is the anti-YouTube. At 15 years old, YouTube now feels like the old guard, while TikTok, which was released worldwide in 2018, has been called the "wild west." On YouTube, food videos are like TV shows—Bon Appétit's now push the 30-minute mark—but TikTok videos max out at one minute. As YouTube has become another product for influencer chefs and media publications like this one, the expectations for content and production are high. TikTok, meanwhile, has the DIY appeal of a new platform.

There's a lo-fi, unpolished quality to TikTok's food world, where videos are often taken by a person holding the phone in one hand and cooking with the other. Sometimes, the kitchens are dirty, the shots are blurry, and the omelettes flip imperfectly, but that doesn't stop the views; the popular user @blockboyjmomey posts cooking videos made in a cell at a California prison. "A good phone, a good mic, a tripod, and some window light—that's what I use. There's nothing fancy about my kitchen. It's just simple, relatable," Nguyen said. Everything feels like you could do it too, without a production crew, a test kitchen, or even high-end cookware.

@twaydabae

so easy it doesn’t require chopping! Full written recipe & directions on my IG @ TWAYDABAE #howto #easyrecipe #homecook #cookathome #asianrecipe

♬ original sound - twaydabae

The style of overhead shots and floating hands pioneered by Tasty became the norm on other platforms, but there isn't a formula for a TikTok food video yet. Some clips on the platform are narrated in quick hits of instructions; others are set to popular audio clips, which allows food creators to ride on the buzz of songs backing viral dance trends or memes.

Only so much can be explained in one minute or shown in a meaningful way through un-narrated clips, so TikTok food videos focus on quick techniques, replications of well-known dishes, and "hacks." The effect of this is that the food is simple, and one of Nguyen's early goals was to show young Asian Americans how easy their cultural foods are.

TikTok food is best explained by its big trends: the viral one-pan breakfast sandwich showed a lifehack for a common meal; the three-ingredient dalgona coffee can be made by anyone who can vigorously whisk; the tiny pancakes are just regular pancakes but small. Consider the Hot Cheetos-crusted mozzarella sticks, the Oreo cake, and the bread pizza, and it's clear that TikTok foods draw on familiar, easy-to-recreate elements instead of introducing people to entirely new concepts.

@twincoast

VEGAN strawberry smoothie! 🍓 no bananas 🍌 #vegan #veganfood #smoothie #smoothiebowl #veganrecipe #healthysmoothie #vitamixlife #vitamix

♬ SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK - Joji

Sisters Ashley and Taylor Johnston have made it big on TikTok by making nothing but smoothies. As @twincoast, their feed is a rainbow grid of Vitamix containers full of blended fruit. They uploaded their first smoothie video on TikTok in November 2019 and "it went pretty much viral overnight with over 500,000 views," the sisters told VICE in an email. Today, that video has over 1 million views.

"We think that our smoothies have been popular on TikTok because it is different from the other content being uploaded," the Johnston sisters said. On YouTube, where they've had an account since 2012 and occasionally post food tutorials, they have a following of 61,000, but on TikTok, they've gained over 757,000 followers since last November. Their audience is excited to watch videos that show little more than a smoothie being scooped and smoothed with a spoon. There's a market for that though, the sisters said: "Our followers have grown to know what our smoothies look like and the exact spoon we use for our scoop videos."

@spurweezy

Making Filipino Chicken adobo with Mom #filipino #cooking #fyp #foryourpage

♬ Wii store - .

Mike Spurlock, who posts videos on TikTok as @spurweezy, sees TikTok as a space to be realistic about home cooking. An event planner by trade, Spurlock previously shared his home-cooked meals in private group chats, but last July, he began cooking on TikTok to show a long-distance romantic partner what he was up to in the kitchen. Even after the relationship ended, he stayed on the platform, where his videos have gained him 62,000 followers. "People like to know that you don't have to be a world-star chef with world-star equipment to make a great meal," he told VICE.

Users who've found followings primarily on TikTok attribute their success to "the algorithm." As Instagram influencers and YouTubers see their view counts slide, they see "the algorithm" as something to be blamed, but on TikTok, the algorithm offers promise. Creating good, grabby content is king, both Nguyen and Spurlock acknowledged, but the algorithm—which dictates what ends up on the For You page—is necessary for being discovered.

"The way the TikTok algorithm works is you can not have any followers and overnight, your video can go crazy because of just... something," Spurlock said. The first video of his that got the algorithm's attention was one of him cooking bratwurst, because people in the comments began arguing over whether or not he'd burnt them, he said. Despite all the videos and articles offering ways to "hack" the TikTok algorithm, there's still a sense that no one really knows how it works—after all, if these tutorials really nailed it, wouldn't everyone be a TikTok star? When you look at it that way, "the algorithm" is another way of saying "luck."

@spurweezy

♬ original sound - Auzzy4

No matter how the algorithm works, home cooking has worked for Spurlock on TikTok, though it hasn't been the same on other platforms. On Instagram, his follower count hovers under 1,000; one day, he wants to make the jump to YouTube. "I think [TikTok] users are a little bit more forgiving of, I guess, more home-styled content. The professional stuff is out there, but when I check on the OG TikTok chefs, what kinda brought everybody together was that we're all just focused on home cooking," Spurlock said. "On Instagram, it feels a little bit more commercial. Yes, you can have your own style, but it's way more curated. TikTok just feels more authentic."

That perception of authenticity could explain why big food brands haven't quite cracked TikTok, even if they've found monumental success on YouTube and Instagram. Perhaps the best example is Bon Appétit's absence from the platform, despite its huge YouTube presence. Though accounts with the handles @bonappetit and @bonappetitmag exist, they're blank and don't carry the magazine's branding.

With 1.2 million followers, Tasty runs one of the largest accounts in the TikTok food space, but its content appears to be cut from existing videos. First We Feast's page is similarly popular, though it mostly reposts random TikTok users. Thrillist, with 581,000 followers on YouTube, has just over 46,000 on TikTok; though its videos are more in line with TikTok's style, they rarely break 2,000 views.

Part of that, according to Alessandro Bogliari, CEO and co-founder of the Influencer Marketing Factory, is likely because of who runs media companies. "It's management that is definitely older. They might not understand what TikTok is," he told VICE. TikTok might seem too new to invest resources into, and the platform can change faster than companies might strategize around it. "It's relatively new, and the rules are changing every single day and every week. I think that a lot of brands are usually slower in decision making."

@spurweezy

Whats your favorite #chicken sandwich, Popeyes🐔 or Chick-fil-A🐄? S/o to @nishcooks #foryoupage #fyp #cooking #food #popeyes #chickfila #烹饪 #duet

♬ Cheryl - yung gravy

To Nguyen, part of the appeal of social media is that she controls the whole process. "I don't have to go through a boss to say, 'Okay, you can post your video,'" Nguyen said. With conventional food media catching well-earned criticism for gatekeeping, breaking into the field through traditional means can feel like an uphill climb. Jobs are scarce and landing them can be a mix of luck and connections. On TikTok, meanwhile, you don't need to worry about that: Anyone can hit record, publish, and have a similar shot at getting swept into the algorithm.

"On YouTube and Instagram, I feel like you almost have this pedigree," Spurlock said. "You know, just like the picture-perfect everything. TikTok is a little bit more open to everyday people."

Follow Bettina Makalintal on Twitter.

via VICE US - undefined US VICE US - undefined US via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[carolinechanson97838]

TikTok Is the Food Platform of the People

Tway Nguyen, also known as @twaydabae, isn't totally sure why a video of her cooking fried rice on TikTok blew up to 5.5 million views, but her guess is that it's because she cracked two eggs at the same time. She thinks that's why TikTok's algorithm pushed it onto the For You page, the assortment of recommended videos you see when you open the app. Though she used to post dancing videos and makeup tips with no real rhyme or reason, Nguyen has used TikTok exclusively for cooking ever since, picking up millions of views and gaining a following of over 282,000 users.

Since that video on March 22, TikTok has been a fast-growing space for Nguyen, who decided to take her kitchen experience online after finishing culinary school last year. She'd initially planned to work on the line in a kitchen, but now, social media is her full-time job. Though she's been making food content on YouTube and Instagram for longer, her following on those platforms has grown slower. "A really good thing about TikTok is it's still in the beginning stages where we're still getting a lot of genuine and original personalities rather than just a lot of people copying each other," Nguyen told VICE. "Right now is like the golden time."

@twaydabae

Quick and easy #friedrice #recipe #easyrecipe #foodie #food #homecook #howto #howtocook

♬ original sound - twaydabae

If you want to make food videos in 2020, and all you have is a phone, your home kitchen, and not much of an online following, where do you start? For people at the beginning of their path in food, TikTok is increasingly the answer. There, there's still a chance to become a food star.

In the food world, TikTok is the anti-YouTube. At 15 years old, YouTube now feels like the old guard, while TikTok, which was released worldwide in 2018, has been called the "wild west." On YouTube, food videos are like TV shows—Bon Appétit's now push the 30-minute mark—but TikTok videos max out at one minute. As YouTube has become another product for influencer chefs and media publications like this one, the expectations for content and production are high. TikTok, meanwhile, has the DIY appeal of a new platform.

There's a lo-fi, unpolished quality to TikTok's food world, where videos are often taken by a person holding the phone in one hand and cooking with the other. Sometimes, the kitchens are dirty, the shots are blurry, and the omelettes flip imperfectly, but that doesn't stop the views; the popular user @blockboyjmomey posts cooking videos made in a cell at a California prison. "A good phone, a good mic, a tripod, and some window light—that's what I use. There's nothing fancy about my kitchen. It's just simple, relatable," Nguyen said. Everything feels like you could do it too, without a production crew, a test kitchen, or even high-end cookware.

@twaydabae

so easy it doesn’t require chopping! Full written recipe & directions on my IG @ TWAYDABAE #howto #easyrecipe #homecook #cookathome #asianrecipe

♬ original sound - twaydabae

The style of overhead shots and floating hands pioneered by Tasty became the norm on other platforms, but there isn't a formula for a TikTok food video yet. Some clips on the platform are narrated in quick hits of instructions; others are set to popular audio clips, which allows food creators to ride on the buzz of songs backing viral dance trends or memes.

Only so much can be explained in one minute or shown in a meaningful way through un-narrated clips, so TikTok food videos focus on quick techniques, replications of well-known dishes, and "hacks." The effect of this is that the food is simple, and one of Nguyen's early goals was to show young Asian Americans how easy their cultural foods are.

TikTok food is best explained by its big trends: the viral one-pan breakfast sandwich showed a lifehack for a common meal; the three-ingredient dalgona coffee can be made by anyone who can vigorously whisk; the tiny pancakes are just regular pancakes but small. Consider the Hot Cheetos-crusted mozzarella sticks, the Oreo cake, and the bread pizza, and it's clear that TikTok foods draw on familiar, easy-to-recreate elements instead of introducing people to entirely new concepts.

@twincoast

VEGAN strawberry smoothie! 🍓 no bananas 🍌 #vegan #veganfood #smoothie #smoothiebowl #veganrecipe #healthysmoothie #vitamixlife #vitamix

♬ SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK - Joji

Sisters Ashley and Taylor Johnston have made it big on TikTok by making nothing but smoothies. As @twincoast, their feed is a rainbow grid of Vitamix containers full of blended fruit. They uploaded their first smoothie video on TikTok in November 2019 and "it went pretty much viral overnight with over 500,000 views," the sisters told VICE in an email. Today, that video has over 1 million views.

"We think that our smoothies have been popular on TikTok because it is different from the other content being uploaded," the Johnston sisters said. On YouTube, where they've had an account since 2012 and occasionally post food tutorials, they have a following of 61,000, but on TikTok, they've gained over 757,000 followers since last November. Their audience is excited to watch videos that show little more than a smoothie being scooped and smoothed with a spoon. There's a market for that though, the sisters said: "Our followers have grown to know what our smoothies look like and the exact spoon we use for our scoop videos."

@spurweezy

Making Filipino Chicken adobo with Mom #filipino #cooking #fyp #foryourpage

♬ Wii store - .

Mike Spurlock, who posts videos on TikTok as @spurweezy, sees TikTok as a space to be realistic about home cooking. An event planner by trade, Spurlock previously shared his home-cooked meals in private group chats, but last July, he began cooking on TikTok to show a long-distance romantic partner what he was up to in the kitchen. Even after the relationship ended, he stayed on the platform, where his videos have gained him 62,000 followers. "People like to know that you don't have to be a world-star chef with world-star equipment to make a great meal," he told VICE.

Users who've found followings primarily on TikTok attribute their success to "the algorithm." As Instagram influencers and YouTubers see their view counts slide, they see "the algorithm" as something to be blamed, but on TikTok, the algorithm offers promise. Creating good, grabby content is king, both Nguyen and Spurlock acknowledged, but the algorithm—which dictates what ends up on the For You page—is necessary for being discovered.

"The way the TikTok algorithm works is you can not have any followers and overnight, your video can go crazy because of just... something," Spurlock said. The first video of his that got the algorithm's attention was one of him cooking bratwurst, because people in the comments began arguing over whether or not he'd burnt them, he said. Despite all the videos and articles offering ways to "hack" the TikTok algorithm, there's still a sense that no one really knows how it works—after all, if these tutorials really nailed it, wouldn't everyone be a TikTok star? When you look at it that way, "the algorithm" is another way of saying "luck."

@spurweezy

♬ original sound - Auzzy4

No matter how the algorithm works, home cooking has worked for Spurlock on TikTok, though it hasn't been the same on other platforms. On Instagram, his follower count hovers under 1,000; one day, he wants to make the jump to YouTube. "I think [TikTok] users are a little bit more forgiving of, I guess, more home-styled content. The professional stuff is out there, but when I check on the OG TikTok chefs, what kinda brought everybody together was that we're all just focused on home cooking," Spurlock said. "On Instagram, it feels a little bit more commercial. Yes, you can have your own style, but it's way more curated. TikTok just feels more authentic."

That perception of authenticity could explain why big food brands haven't quite cracked TikTok, even if they've found monumental success on YouTube and Instagram. Perhaps the best example is Bon Appétit's absence from the platform, despite its huge YouTube presence. Though accounts with the handles @bonappetit and @bonappetitmag exist, they're blank and don't carry the magazine's branding.

With 1.2 million followers, Tasty runs one of the largest accounts in the TikTok food space, but its content appears to be cut from existing videos. First We Feast's page is similarly popular, though it mostly reposts random TikTok users. Thrillist, with 581,000 followers on YouTube, has just over 46,000 on TikTok; though its videos are more in line with TikTok's style, they rarely break 2,000 views.

Part of that, according to Alessandro Bogliari, CEO and co-founder of the Influencer Marketing Factory, is likely because of who runs media companies. "It's management that is definitely older. They might not understand what TikTok is," he told VICE. TikTok might seem too new to invest resources into, and the platform can change faster than companies might strategize around it. "It's relatively new, and the rules are changing every single day and every week. I think that a lot of brands are usually slower in decision making."

@spurweezy

Whats your favorite #chicken sandwich, Popeyes🐔 or Chick-fil-A🐄? S/o to @nishcooks #foryoupage #fyp #cooking #food #popeyes #chickfila #烹饪 #duet

♬ Cheryl - yung gravy

To Nguyen, part of the appeal of social media is that she controls the whole process. "I don't have to go through a boss to say, 'Okay, you can post your video,'" Nguyen said. With conventional food media catching well-earned criticism for gatekeeping, breaking into the field through traditional means can feel like an uphill climb. Jobs are scarce and landing them can be a mix of luck and connections. On TikTok, meanwhile, you don't need to worry about that: Anyone can hit record, publish, and have a similar shot at getting swept into the algorithm.

"On YouTube and Instagram, I feel like you almost have this pedigree," Spurlock said. "You know, just like the picture-perfect everything. TikTok is a little bit more open to everyday people."

Follow Bettina Makalintal on Twitter.

via VICE US - undefined US VICE US - undefined US via Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network Mom's Kitchen Recipe Network

[opepin]

july: week two

10: my body was so sore when i woke up. i was also just so tired and a bit sad. :/ kevin went to work and i slowly started doing work. i did some personal errands and organization but then got into uploading all of the new videos and notifying sultan and phil. i knew i wasn’t feeling too good so i skipped working out today and i didn’t even wear my fitbit because i’ve been so frustrated with my decline in my fitness health so i took a break. i watched some ff-x and then showered before kevin got back home. we ordered fat cat for dinner because i was already hungry at like 6 pm. i ordered their twin filet medallions with fingerling potatoes and asparagus. kevin got their lobster mac. we picked it up and then went back home to eat. my meal was delicious. their bernaise butter is sooo goood. the potatoes and asparagus didn’t look too appealing but they were yummy as well. kevin’s mac didn’t have a lot of cheese in it so i ate a bit too. we food coma’d right into hollow knight and decided not to go grocery shopping until tomorrow.

i just watched kevin play for the rest of the night. i got really snack-y so i ate the rest of the mochi ice cream and two chicken tenders at like 10 pm :/ idk what’s wrong with my body. it’s so out of whack. before sleeping, i did my pt stretches and iced my feet and massaged my legs. my quads, shins, and calves are super sore for some reason. i guess i really shouldn’t wear flats for an extended period of time anymore along with drinking too much. x_x; my body, ugh. kevin i stayed up until like 2 or 3 am. we’re the type of people who definitely need alone time to unwind and couple time to readjust after weekend trips like this one and seeing friends and family again. i don’t know when i’ll get out of this slump. i just feel so lost, uncreative, and uninspired really...

11: my legs were still sore but i planned to work out anyway. i need to get back on my grind or at least ease back into it a bit. we had soup dumplings and zong zi for breakfast. then kevin left for work and i went to look at what i should do for work. i still have a bit more to do but other than that, i will have to catch up with phil tomorrow. it’s rainy for the rest of the week so idk how i will be feeling. i know i need to kick myself in the ass and push myself but i’m just bleh. well, i started finishing up my project and then put chicken in to bake. i ate two thighs because i didn’t make rice LOL and also steamed veggies. mmm. after work, i watched some ff-x and did 30 minutes of intense cardio with jumping. my feet just feel a little stiff but i think i can do jumps again :) ! i made rice right before kevin came back and then we went grocery shopping. it was a quick run. we got back home and unpacked and then ate dinner. i put in more thighs to bake for tomorrow but i ate leftover food for dinner instead. kevin ate a chicken thigh, veggies, and some instant noodles for dinner. 

we looked up where to find a chase bank and at this point, we’re just gonna exchange in stockholm because the only bank closest to MA is in connecticut or new york... kevin went to play dota after digesting. i went to do 30 minutes of abs. i also did laundry kinda late today so i had to wait for our towels to dry until i could shower...which was at like 12 am. i also decided to get off facebook and now i’m looking into just being on instagram solely, but i still have bad feelings about it. hmmm. i was really tired when i was done showering and folding clothes. i went to sleep right away and kevin stayed up playing pubg with peter.

12: every time i wake up and then go back to sleep, i always have weird dreams. hmm. i got up and then ate breakfast and sent kevin off to work. then i tidied up the last bits and pieces of my project while watching some ff-x. today i feel better about myself. i’m trying to get back on track with doing 30 minutes of cardio in the morning and 30 of strength in the afternoon, but it’s weird with working from home and all of that. i’ll figure it out! i feel better than yesterday for sure. i did a bit more work while watching ‘world of dance’ and then after work, i went right into cardio and then took a 10 minute break before i went into doing back workouts. i’ll need to split these up more (morning and evening) but i’m getting there! i showered after my workout and then read my botm in bed until kevin came back from climbing. i also got hungry so i ate english muffins with peanut butter and a chicken tender LOL. i was surprisingly full after a while. then i prepped the ingredients for thai basil beef bowls, mmmm. i ate a bit of that for “real” dinner and then i continued reading for the rest of the night. i iced my feet while finishing up the book, which turned out to be really interesting! i also managed to do my stretches right before sleeping. kevin and i ended up staying up until 1 am. well, it was late for me and not for him yet. i think he stayed up a bit longer working on some code and/or gaming, ahha.

13: i got out of bed and then made hot water and breakfast. then i started work right away because i had a physical therapy appointment today and i wanted to get work done. plus, we moved up standup to 12 pm. after kevin left for work, i did a bit of thinking and research. then i fit in an exercise session before standup. i did a hiit workout today and it made me sweat so much. my feet didn’t feel terrible but i’m still not 100% for jumping daily. we had a quick stand up and then i did a bit more work before showering and heading out to my physical therapy appointment. it was a cooler day in boston. my physical therapy went very well and it was fun picking up marbles with my toes again ahah. bryan said next session is my last and it seems like i’m pretty much all better. before leaving, he said he will have a graduation thing for me? lulz. i also met matt, the co-op, who helped me do some of the exercises. the train took 10 minutes to get there and kept stopping, so i got home later than expected.

i ate right away because i was sooo hungry. then i worked on templates and found a bunch of issues with our thinking :/ ugh. it was frustrating. what made it more frustrating was that masterchef on fox, kept buffering and stopping and telling me that my adobe token pass was expired... so i rq’d and found another stream for the latest episode. i finished a template and then stopped working  because there are issues we need to address before i move on to making more templates... kevin got back home earlier than usual :O we just chilled together until kevin started cooking this blue apron sweet and savory korean rice cake recipe! i did 30 minutes of obliques before cooling off (there was a lot of sweat here too) and looking up the best equipment to take travel photos. i looked into a selfie stick, which i don’t want anymore. i looked into phone lens accessories, which took a while but i’m probably going to buy a telephoto and wide angle lens...but i’m not sure which one yet. i basically researched this until i went to sleep... haha.

the rice cakes were super saucy and delicious. it was a bit too saucy for my taste, and kevin kind of overcooked the rice cakes, but it was still a great first attempt. we’ll definitely be making this again. we cleaned up, showered, and then kevin played hollow knight while i continued researching. i got sleepy at 11 pm tbh, but went to sleep at 12:30 am because i started playing with retrica and snapseed to see how i much editing i could do to a photo to make it “insta-worthy” in my opinion. i think i did a pretty good job! it was getting late so i just put away my phone and went to sleep while kevin gamed in the background, hhaa.

14: kevin made soft-boiled eggs for breakfast today! i had one along with my regular breakfast. mmm. while he was making them, i hopped on the computer and did some prepping for the meeting i was sort of leading today. then i noticed some work i had to backtrack on that i did yesterday -__-” lol i really need to talk to phil at this point. we didn’t get to talk before the meeting but it went pretty well. i explained how i re-created their map and some elements of ux360 and then phil took the reigns and explained more. i did have a few brain farts because i haven’t been using ux360 regularly / normally due to the tutorials and the one pagers. after the meeting, i grabbed some food and then talked to phil about the template challenges i have been experiencing. we got on stand up right after and then we were supposed to loop back, but phil had to talk to a few others on the team and because he’s in california and i’m in boston, he got back to be at 5:30 pm and said we would catch up on monday. lol. well, after stand up, i did work while watching the latest episode of love connection and also catching a good shiny tapu koko with hidden power ice. woot! i took a real quick nap after because i got dizzy from looking back and forth from multiple screens.

i woke up and forced myself to work out LOL. kevin was full when he came back because he ate a lot at happy hour at fitbit. i took my time working out and then showered. i was pretty full still because i had a late lunch. i eventually ate leftover thai basil beef bowl for dinner and just chilled while watching kevin continue completing hollow knight. he’s has almost completed the game! i was going to sleep early but that didn’t happen, haha. i managed to do my pt exercises before sleeping at like 1 am?

15: i think we got out of bed at like 11 am or 12 pm... well, we slept in for sure. haha. while we ate breakfast, we had a small argument about what bonchon location we planned for today. lol, i thought we were driving and he said we agreed on taking the ‘t’ yesterday night...but i don’t remember agreeing on that. LOL. we figured it out and we took the ‘t’ for one stop (there were buses taking us to the quincy center train stop this weekend) and then took it back home because kevin said he would drive instead with the traffic and all LOL. we also wanted to return the baking dishes we got from sur la table. so we went back and got bb and found street parking kind of near copley place... except that i put in copley square in the gps and that is NOT copley place... luckily, it was like a 5 minute walk away. eh heh heh... i also realized we did say we would take the train earlier so i apologized :P we returned the dishes, looked around, and then headed to prudential mall.

we stopped by num pang, a cambodian sandwich place, for a quick snack. their sandwiches are very much like banh mi. it was still delicioussss. we went to warby parker after and i ended up getting the one everyone said i should get. the checkout / ordering process was super quick, and i was out in like 10-15 minutes or so. kevin went to throw out our lemonade and disappeared into eataly when he was supposed to come back to warby parker, lols. i knew that he would stray there though so i knew where to find him after i was done. we explored eataly together tasting bread samples, getting their ninsola dessert, and a cannoli. everything was delicious. we ended up getting a prosciutto baked loaf and nommed on that on our walk back to the car. we didn’t have time for me to get a library card so we skipped that. oh well. later on in the day, i found out that i would need another library card for quincy if i got one in boston. hmmm. so i need to think on that more...

we drove to the bonchon in cambridge. for some reason, harvard square was still poppin’ and we had to circle a bit to find a parking spot. we could only find one for 30 minutes so we ordered our fried chicken to go. kevin went back to the car when time was about up and right after he left, i got the chicken. so we met at the car and then we drove to oh my tea to get some refreshing drinks to go with our fried chicken and seafood tteok bokki. :D we ate while watching the most recent season of ‘izombie’! yay, back to watching tv again~ the spicy wings were spicy af and apparently, the tteok bokki had heat that build. everything was really yummy though~ we had to get up and move around to digest and not fall into a food coma afterward. then we cleaned up and headed to star market to do a bit of grocery shopping.

we bought some meat and fruit because we had a ton of leftover veggies and we would be celebrating kevin’s birthday so we wouldn’t be cooking a lot this week. i restocked on dark chocolate too~ we decided that star market wasn’t as good as roche so we won’t be going there anymore unless there is a good sale ;P we got back, unpacked, and while watching another episode of ‘izombie’, the power went out in the area...LOL. it was a bit creepy. i lit all of my candles and put them in different rooms. we walked around and bummed until the lights went back on. we showered and then finished the episode and went to bed. i think i went to sleep at like 12:30 am? i think i had kevin take off my ice packs for me because i ko’d while they were still on my feet. hehe, thank you. it was a great day spent out with the bear <3 thank you again :)))))

16: i got up at 9am or so and then ate breakfast. i was going to exercise but i felt too tired. i initially woke up because i felt like i needed to get started on cleaning for some reason?? haha. i didn’t do either and instead, i started reading the journey mapping book dave gave me on the first day of work. :O i read two chapters while kevin woke up and brushed his teeth. then we ate leftovers while watching the most recent season of ‘izombie.’ lol we watched for a while. i think we stopped at around 2 pm. then i did an hour of cardio kickboxing and i was sweating sooo much x_x kevin went to game during that time and also shower. i cooled off, went to shower, and then started doing laundry. kevin and i ate more leftovers and watched two more episodes before i started cleaning while he talked to his parents on the phone. we both did our chores at the same time and got them done fairly quickly. i was still cleaning the bathroom while kevin started cooking dinner though, haha. i iced my feet and watched some youtube videos while kevin ate and made guac. i did some hip stretches and my pt exercises before packing for work and then making the bed and going to sleep. i went to sleep at around 11:45 pm. it wasn’t even hard going to sleep because that hour long workout tired me out.