TBK cooks- Making vlogs for our recipe book

Every month Chester ( the Hooman) uploads the latest TBK cooks recipe vlog to our TBK Blogspot page- above is Gazpacho which was displayed on 1st May. Then on 15th of the month he adds the recipes and the link to download them for free.

Each Vlog is about 5 mins long without a voiceover , and we use copyright free happy music to attract peoples attention to the recipe book. It automatically plays when you open the Blogspot page. Like this:

To make the vlogs is a little harder. We need to buy the food, set up the lighting, camera, microphone, cook and film, edit, upload to YouTube to appear on the first of the relevant month and to another drive for Chester to add to the Blogspot page. ( He set that up and has the access to alter the background, headers, footers etc for me).

                                  Editing the Beer Battered Calamari Vlog

Usually I try and get someone to cook the dish while I film so for May Kevin made the Gazpacho and TJ made the Beer Battered Calamari for the June Calendar. However , and now the truth comes out, we actually filmed that in February! We also filmed both dishes at the same time! This saves setting up all the equipment twice- you just have to be careful when editing not to mix the two Vlogs up so Beer battered Calamari suddenly appears in your Gazpacho!

                         One of the three recipes I decided to cook in May

So in May I decided to record the next three vlogs- Onion Bhaaji for July, Thai Beef Curry for August and Tupa/ Lamb chops for September. The first problem was I could not get anyone to make the food for me as everyone was busy with their internship/ OJT, studying, doing exams etc. Secondly I could not get some of the ingredients ( spring onions, Lamb chops, fresh mint etc ) . Thirdly I let Chester ( the dawg) watch and excited by all the smells from my cooking he jumped up in the middle of the Onion Bhaaji vlog and tripped on the extension lead which bought the vlog lighting crashing down! ( I film the vlogs in my kitchen so the place is a mass of extension leads, lighting, camera on tripod etc )

                                       Noel and Frythy have declared this is their favourite dish!

I did the filming on a Wednesday as Noel, Frythy and Joven were working for me and they love Lamb ( Tupa) so I thought I could film them eating it once I had made it. However that did not happen due to a series of problems that I had to overcome. First Joven was washing the car and asked me to move it so he could get the hose to wash the outside ( I had parked on top of it). I later discovered the wiring that connects to the battery was loose as the car would not start. I texted the guy I rented it from for a new battery but he did not reply, and when I chased him he said he could not get there until 6 pm by which time Joven had gone home and there was insufficient time to get, defrost and cook the lamb by 7 pm when Noel and Frythy left ( as the car was fixed I took them to Jolibee which they loved!) 

Noel and Fry at Jolibee- sadly he got flu after that and missed his Tupa Chops on Monday!

                             This is a picture of the 11 kg Solane LPG cylinder we use

Next the gas ran out ( we use an 11kg Solane cylinder here) so the next day we put the empty cylinder in the car and drove to the place where I buy it from to find they had run out. They recommended somewhere else which I could not find and eventually I went home and dialled the number I had been given for Solane delivery several months previously. I dialled the number but got no reply several times. I went back to the depot but they still had none. They gave me the number and when I said there was no reply, they called it for me and got a reply! I gave them my address and as I left said “when will they deliver” and she said “call them when you get home as they need directions”. The next day I called and eventually they answered, asked me to text the location and a few minutes later arrived. The lady on the lorry said she even remembered delivering to me when I moved in, a year before!

Finally with gas and lighting working we were able to start our Thai Beef Curry Vlog

So, with gas and food, lighting and camera we started on the Thai Beef curry and then the Lamb chops. Later I edited them but, as usual, there was not enough room to save the clips on my laptop so I had to move last year’s files to an external drive to create space for the three new videos. Finally, in between brownouts, managed to upload them to YouTube and to Chester and my shared drive.

        You will be able to see the Thai Beef curry Vlog from 1st July on YouTube

I decided that I had enough information for a blog on the difficulty of making cooking vlogs! Please bear in mind next time you see the 5 minute vlog at the top of the BlogSpot page that it may have taken 2 days to create

  Thanks to Luis for the cartoon we created to advertise our new 2023 recipe book

If you have not already seen our on line recipe book please take a look- we have 6 new recipes cooked by Guest Chefs from around the world added on the 15th of each month. Each recipe can be downloaded for free from the 15th of the month and all the previous months remain on line in case you missed one. So by 15 December there will be 72 recipes for you to select from representing Philippine, British, Indian, Italian, Portuguese, Columbian, Middle Eastern, American , South African, and Macedonian cuisine. Just click on the link below:

https://thebritishkabayan.blogspot.com/p/the-2023-recipe-book.html

                                           Our Guest Chef line up!

As usual Special thanks to all our Guest chefs- from Palawan we have Chef Poochie, Chef Arnel and Sweet Chef Jam. They were ably assisted by our trainee chefs Kevin, Joven, TJ, Fry and Noel and of course, myself ! From Marikina we have the recipe of the best Beef Caldaretta in the world ( I know, I went to taste it!) from Chester's mum, Elizabeth Delos Santos. I even got my gym coach in Dubai, Bazz, to share with us the National dish of Macedonia. The legendary Jeboy, currently working for Cheesecake factory in Dubai showed us how to make his Cheesy cake . From South Africa my ex neighbor from Bahrain, Barbara Tuit Shared her Biltong! Finally my former colleague from Bahrain, Miss Andrea, and her son shared two of their favourite dishes from their native Colombia ( with an O!) .

How can you miss a line up of Chef's like that!

Special thanks also to Phil Gregory who suggested 17 of the 72 dishes we cooked for the recipe book . He , Chester and I themed it by month ( Dog cake in April for Chester's birthday, my favourite British dish - Lamb chops in September for my Birthday , Pumpkin pie in October for Halloween and Pinoy favourite Frozen fruit salad in December.

As you now know 12 of the 72 dishes have their own Vlog and eventually we will share them all with you on YouTube. Some of the dishes also have longer Vlogs which we created before the recipe book. 

For example you will find the video on how to make Bread and Butter pudding on YouTube which appeared in the recipe book back in March.

We have also produced a series of vlog adverts ( reels) to make people aware that the recipe book was about to be launched. This was one of my favourites:

I hope you will enjoy trying some of our recipes, with the vlogs to guide you, and dont forget they are all free to download. As usual we would love your feedback, comments and suggestions to make all our effort worthwhile.

Thank you!

Another of Luis Cartoons featuring Noel and I creating the vlogs for our recipe book!