Certain things just feel good. Connecting two pieces of a puzzle, whether it be simple or complex; climbing into a freshly made bed; drinking a cold glass of water on a hot day; hearing a Black Eyed Peas song that you haven’t heard in seven years. They’re the simplest pleasures, yet they put a smile on our faces.
Discovering something new, in any regard, fills me with that same contentment and satisfaction. A few years ago I found a web series called “Raw, Vegan, Not Gross” with chef Laura Miller on Tastemade, a channel on YouTube that hosts videos about all things food related.
I originally fell in love with the program because I’m obsessed with watching cooking videos. In this case, most of the recipes Miller featured would inevitably kill me (vegan cooking typically uses nuts, to which I’m allergic). Nonetheless, I watched. Something about seeing someone perfectly dice an onion is cathartic for me.
After two seasons of concocting raw, plant-based food that Miller claimed was ‘not gross,’ Tastemade gave her the reigns to entertain a completely different kind of show called “With Laura Miller.”
I tuned in because I’m a fan of the foodie: she’s funny, personable, and never misses a chance to throw a pun into the script. What I didn’t realize was how much I would learn from watching the new and improved cooking show.
For starters, the show, although it often focuses on some aspect of food, is no longer a cooking show. Instead, Miller takes us with her as she learns something new as well. One example of this was when Miller learned to make a ceramic bowl with San Fransisco based artist Georgia Hodges. They went through the process of creating the bowl much like how a cooking show would go through the process of making a bolognese sauce.
In a recent episode, Miller discovers foraging, something I had never heard of. Now when I click onto any healthy-lifestyle websites, foraging seems to be trending.
If you didn’t know, foraging is the search for food in the wilderness. Sounds kind of radical and ancient, yet Miller, along with husband-and-wife wilderness experts and chefs, Mia Wasilevich and Pascal Bauder, made the act seem normal, doable, and relevant. They crafted a meal out of plants, nuts, and seeds that they merely found on the forest floor just north of Los Angeles. Neat, right?
Each episode of “With Laura Miller” is roughly six to ten minutes long and the topics range from making tie dye t-shirts to building artisanal cutting boards to cooking homemade dog treats. Some of the subjects Miller explores are foreign at first, but that’s the fun of finding something new.