TURNING UP THE HEAT

LAST SUMMER, WHEN IT WAS TOO HOT TO VENTURE OUTSIDE and far too hot to even consider preparing food that didn’t arrive in a takeout bag, I developed an obsession with Bon Appétit’s YouTube channel. For hours, I’d watch as an eclectic cast of food editors made their favorite pasta dish, tried out survival cooking in the great outdoors, searched for the perfect New York City pizza slice, and reverse-engineered a gourmet version of Twinkies.

I was obsessed, andit’s YouTube channel has more than five million subscribers, with their big franchises (like Claire Saffitz’s ), pulling in over two million views per installment. But my interest in ’s presence on the video streaming platform traced further back than its recent explosion in popularity: I’d actually attempted and executed a recipe for a congee-link chicken soup with sweet potatoes and garlic created by Senior Food Editor Andy Baraghani to delicious results.