In that past few years, the culinary world has become a bit of a congested mess, with chefs turning into household names and Hollywood-caliber personalities bursting from the kitchen into the limelight. Fledgling epicurean operations have resorted to gimmickry and "shticks" in order to stand out in this oft-confusing sea. To what degree these entities reach success is debatable and, quite frankly, a bit early to understand with any degree of clarity.
But one recipe-dispensing, healthy-living website that has managed to stand out in this fracas is the acerbic, witty, and downright lexically violent entity known as Thug Kitchen.
In a balanced use of crisp photography, meme-styled text-wrapping, an affinity for gangsta rap, and a devil-may-care, we-don't-give-a-fuck attitude, Thug Kitchen has turned the droll exercise of internet recipe-reading into a chuckle-inducing visual feast.
It also helps that early on, the site caught Gwyneth Paltrow's eye, and she simply couldn't shut the fuck up about it.
See also: When Celebrities Cook: Gwyneth Paltrow
So was it really a big surprise that the until-now-jealously-guarded identities of the creators of the site have been outed and that Michelle Davis and Matt Holloway have published a book to go with their popular site? Or as this Epicurious piece shows, the pair are easy-going collaborators who've had great luck with their potty mouths.
From Davis' apartment, the duo has been working together since 2012. Neither comes from a background in the culinary arts, with Holloway having experience as a regular photographer.
In fact, their foodie credentials --- beyond running an extremely popular cooking site for the past few years -- are limited to Davis' time working at a grocery store where she was able to meet private chefs and slowly became involved in culinary efforts as support staff at pop-ups and private events.
Noticing that most "personal" styled food blogs and websites initially serve as ego platforms for the creators and secondarily as recipe dissemination centers, the pair took a motherly approach toward their readership but with a far more vulgar vocabulary in their arsenal.
Hey, maybe if all our mothers had told us to "shut the fuck up and eat your liver like a good fucking boy," we wouldn't be so initially adverse to it today. The world may never know.
But it is not just the humor of the cheeky vulgarity of the site that makes it excel, though it certainly is the net with which it snags you. Rather, it's the recipes themselves; healthy, easy to prepare, seasonally conscious, and seriously tasty without having to drop serious cash into specialty food shopping.
Easy favorites like Late Summer Tomato Nectarine Pasta that you "can bet your ass" has nectarines in it because it's "crazy, crazy fucking delicious" and Smokey Bean and Spinach Sliders, a "healthy hand grenade" for combating burger apologists prove the versatility of the creators.
There are also tasty alcoholic beverages like their popular gin and tonic summer varieties with this type of advice:
"Tell your problems to wait until normal business hours for bullshit because YOU NEED A FUCKING DAY OFF. But don't ruin a good time by using tonic that has fucking corn syrup. That sweet syrupy shit will ruin the taste and your waist."
The cookbook is available from Amazon.com, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Powell's Books, Books-A-Million, and IndieBound.org.
For information on the book, related events, and even more recipes for you to look fly as fuck, visit thugkitchen.com and eat like you give a fuck.
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