Cooking with Ben

Cooking with Ben is a cooking show built around a learner rather than an expert. Ben, who mentions being in high school, picks a recipe, gathers what he needs and works through it out loud, and the episodes keep the hesitations, the fixes and the verdicts. The cold opens share a shape: a greeting, a preview of how the episode went, a mention of the 'quick little ad', then a return that sometimes comes with news about where he has been. More than once, that return acknowledges a gap. He is open about things running sporadically and, in one episode, unsure whether the season will continue. The cooking itself is the draw. He talks through the small decisions: whether bell pepper needs a food processor or just patient chopping, how thin to slice garlic, when the pasta water has come to a boil. For donut holes he watches the oil, explaining that too hot means burnt and too cool means soggy, and he notes the moment the kitchen starts to smell like a fair. For a fruit crumble he reaches for butter knives in place of a pastry cutter, a tool he likens to brass knuckles for baking, then gives up on both and uses his hands. Not everything lands. A lava cookie gets too much chocolate, fudge starts escaping from the ends, and he patches the holes with more dough while predicting a leak anyway. Titles also tie dishes to shows, films and names. 'Meatloaf from Roseanne' promises some talk about the TV show, while 'Pasta Aglio e Olio from Chef!' includes a recap of the film that he tries to keep spoiler-free, credit to Jon Favreau and a suggestion to find it on Netflix. Then there is 'Beverly Goldberg's Shrimp Parmesan!', where he decides frying the shrimp was the right call. Life outside the kitchen runs through the conversation. He mentions a personal record and the end of cross country season, looks ahead to indoor and outdoor track, and offers a simple lesson about taking what you can get and having fun. Sometimes the seams show: a note from 'future Ben' explains that a segment was cut because he was crushing saltines right in front of the mic. His verdicts are frank about his own taste, with the meatloaf scored four out of ten and baking, he admits, only growing on him a little. A good first pick is 'Desserts: Donut Holes!' for the frying play-by-play, or 'Pasta Aglio e Olio from Chef!' for a recipe that arrives with a movie recommendation. It suits a listener who would rather hear a recipe figured out than recited.