I'm going to stop watching how-to-cook videos. Lately, the ones I've seen have all involved a lot more kitchen equipment than I will ever possess, especially items that a professional chef (like the one making the video) might use several times a week and which I might use one or twice a year. My last few bottles of Worcestershire sauce all expired before I'd used up a tenth of the bottle. About ten years ago, I bought a potato-ricer and so far, I've used it to rice a grand total of two potatoes — one Russet, one Yukon Gold.
A lot of the videos go to elaborate lengths to make things that I'm not going to make and which I have a hard time believing anybody is going to make. I watched a few by a friendly gent named Brian Lagerstrom who seems to really know what he's doing in the kitchen but, for example, in a video about how to prepare a Chicago-style hot dog, he spent most of the video telling us how to bake hot dog buns. Counting the time I'd have to wait for my dough to proof or rise, it looks like it would take me about five hours.
I can understand how someone might think of this as a fun challenge like doing a crossword puzzle…or how someone who cooks a lot might factor hot dog bun baking into a full day of making many things in the kitchen. But I'd be very surprised if the hot dog buns that I'd make would be even half as good as the ones I can pick up cheap while I'm at the market. They sure wouldn't be so much better I'd be glad I spent the five hours.
Also, every chef lately I see talks about adding in red pepper flakes or cayenne or hot sauce to give the meal "a little heat." I don't like "heat" of the Tabasco variety and neither does my stomach. So I find myself thinking, "This chef's idea of what's pleasing to eat is very different from mine." It doesn't matter how orgasmic they look when they eat their own cooking at the end of the video.
I'm not knocking these people. Given the number of viewings some of them notch, they obviously have huge followings who enjoy their every concoction. I'm just coming to the much-too-late realization that they ain't cooking for folks like me with limited kitchens and even more limited palates. I'm going to save a lot of time by not watching cooking videos and I'll save even more by not baking my own hot dog buns.