You heard that right. HelloFresh - a 5-star meal kit and the leader in delivering delicious ingredients and easy-to-follow recipes to households worldwide - has teamed up with New York Times Bestselling Author and food expert Antoni Porowski. Antoni's Snappy Skillet Shortcuts will make home cooking an even easier and rewarding experience.

If you've seen him onscreen you already know that Antoni is utterly marvelous. And now he's bringing his magic to the kitchen. Life shouldn't be boring, and neither should our food. And it shouldn't be difficult to cook and eat gorgeous dishes that will impress your friends, your family, and, frankly, your very own fabulous self.

"I'm excited to partner with HelloFresh because we have a similar kitchen philosophy: cooking doesn't need to be complicated," Porowski said. "I also love their recipes because they help you whip up a delicious, home-cooked meal in 30 minutes - or less! - while also teaching you something new."

Joined in the kitchen by his four-legged sous chef, Neon, Antoni shares his exclusive tips, tricks, and easy-to-follow cooking hacks known as skillet shortcuts. Fresh, quality ingredients can make or break a dish. Roll a lemon before slicing to make it supah-juicey. Soak your shallots first so they'll play nice with the other HelloFresh ingredients.

HelloFresh
Dinnertime Made Easy
Get 14 Free Meals Across 5 Boxes & Free Shipping On The First Box

Check Out HelloFresh Now!

These and other bits of advice lend an extra bit of ease and pizazz to all your cooking. And besides, things can always get better.

By delivering delicious ingredients and easy-to-follow recipes right to your doorstep, HelloFresh gives home cooks everything they need for a confident, rewarding and satisfying cooking experience. Antoni's tutelage makes it all the more thrilling a process.

HelloFresh offers a variety of flexible meal options, including calorie-smart, oven-ready, family-friendly, veggie, gourmet, 20-minute meals, whatever fits your lifestyle.

Besides Antoni's scrumptious meals, I also adore HelloFresh's vast abundance of simple recipes and unique cultural dishes. How about some Thai Coconut Pork Meatballs, or a Juicy Lucy Burger? There are 25+ featured recipes each week, so you'll never get bored. Promise.

HelloFresh takes all the stress out of cooking - no recipe hunting, grocery lists and grocery runs, over-buying ingredients you toss in the trash. No more hour-long cook times, or excessive clean-up. HelloFresh is delicious, nutritious, convenient, and affordable.

A HelloFresh meal starts at $7.49 a serving and that's before the new customer discount. Honestly, I was terrified about getting locked into a subscription, but HelloFresh is completely flexible. I can pause or adjust my preferences to accommodate any circumstances. I can even opt-out with no hassle.

I don't foresee doing that, though. With so many culinary choices and Antoni's Skillet Shortcuts, HelloFreshis here to stay!

EXCLUSIVE Offer! Follow This Link To Receive 14 Free Meals Across 5 Boxes Including Free Shipping On The First Box!

Like many other people, Jonathan Van Ness closed out 2020 with an emotional Instagram post that highlighted his gratitude for what he has amidst a difficult year.

But this post contained a revelation: The Queer Eye star and one of today's modern day saints has officially tied the knot.

Keep ReadingShow less
TV Features

Binge-watching Challenge: Start a Show at Season 3

It's possible to spare ourselves the slog of shows when they're just starting out.

Quarantine: when jobs have either been lost or relegated to the living room, wherein social functions are limited to Zoom, wherein the 24-hours in a day can really be felt.

With less to physically fill the time, the time remains unfilled. Fortunately, sequestered humans have never had such a bevy of entertainment options available to them. But that kind of freedom can be paralyzing. Never has there been a better time for binge-watching, but what are we to binge? And how?

Since all this free-time demands discipline, here's an unconventional suggestion: Pick one of the all-time great shows, something you've always wanted to watch but couldn't find the motivation nor time to do so, and start not at the beginning, but at season three instead. Whether it's a comedy or a drama or simply something you've put off watching because the plot is too involved or the show is too hyped, ignore the first two seasons entirely, and fall into a world that's already in motion. Using our knowledge of television in general, and by tapping into the cultural conversation of characters and references, we can spare ourselves the slow starts of seasons one and two, and get right to the meat of the matter. Why sit around waiting for a show to find itself? Why settle for less than the best?

First seasons are often uneven or uncertain, anyway. Second seasons are often better and more compelling, but shows that make it to season three emerge with a clear tone and complete characters: two necessities for any show with long-term success.

Examples abound of shows finding themselves in their third seasons. Arguably, the greatest comedies of the 21st century are The Office and Parks and Recreation, though contenders such as It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Curb Your Enthusiasm are important to the discussion, as well. As for dramatic examples, look to the Olympic podium of TV's Golden Era: Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and Mad Men.

Mad Men Season 3 Promo PhotoAMC

A weighted-review aggregation site like Metacritic is not the law, but it is useful. The numbers almost universally favor third seasons and beyond. Parks and Rec improves in score from a 58 in season one to an 83 in season three, a change signifying an ascension from "mixed or average reviews" to "Universal Acclaim," in the critics' words. The Office's highest overall score is season three's 85. Breaking Bad starts solidly with its first two season garnering scores of 73 and 84, but in its final three earns marks of 89, 96, and 99, an unprecedented run of greatness. Game of Thrones' two highest marks of 91 and 94 are for seasons three and four, respectively. Mad Men is the lone outlier of the bunch, as its second season outscores its third by a single point. However, its fourth season, ruled a 92, is the series' high-point. Why? Shows generally hit their strides in season three.

First, character development peaks at season three. First seasons tend to be myopic about their characters, hoping that closeness will lead viewers to love them. Season two is the experimentation room, wherein worlds shift, and season three is the fruit of that labor, with confident characters and expanded worlds.

By season three, the main characters have been poked and prodded for two full seasons, experimented on until their truest selves have been revealed. How? Conflict. Characters are made complete, in mold and mindset, through consistent conflict. They are built through what are essentially a series of thought experiments: How would x react if y? A byproduct of such conflict is a fleshing out of a show's world. Conflict requires fresh subjects to be placed before a character, be they fresh faces, strange circumstances, or unfamiliar situations.

For instance, two of Parks and Rec's most iconic characters, Ben Wyatt and Chris Traeger aren't introduced until the very end of season two, where they immediately begin foiling Amy Poehler and Rashida Jones, the series leads. Breaking Bad's first two seasons lack the series' big bad, Gus Fring, creator of the fictional restaurant, Los Pollos Hermanos, the logo of which adorns the show's most popular merchandise; yet, it's only introduced in concept at the tail-end of the second season. The Office changes dramatically in season three, adding mainstay Andy Dwyer, flirting with a young Rashida Jones, and cementing Jim and Pam's relationship, which was until then a typical will-they-won't-they situation. Once resolved, it formed the literal backbone upon which the show is built.


Once they got together, Jim-and-Pam as a concept burst outside the confines of the show they were in, taking up real-estate in the general pop culture consciousness. The great shows, the all-timers, the ones you really should be watching in this quarantine time, share this Jungian trait. One doesn't need to have watched Seinfeld to understand the terms "shrinkage" or "close-talker." "We were on a break," is just part of our dialect.

Though this principle doesn't inform our viewing of many great shows, it does so with some of our touchstone comedies, like the aforementioned It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Curb your Enthusiasm. Shows of this format don't have one cohesive story pulling them along; it's possible, if not normal, to jump around to the great episodes through seasons, without care for continuity. Once it's known that the characters in Always Sunny are narcissists who work at a bar, it's easy to understand any episode, to jump in without further background. Ditto Curb, where Larry David is culturally understood to be an off-putting schmuck, and that's all one must know for maximum enjoyment.

Because the DNA of these two shows, and their dramatic brethren like Grey's Anatomy and NCIS, is accessible via collective unconscious, we culturally understand that it's unnecessary to sit and watch every single episode in a row. We know enough from our general human wanderings that we can skip the fluff and enjoy the standout performances and pieces, allowing superfluous details to slowly fill themselves in, as they always do.



Which of the truly great shows don't also already exist in our cultural consciousness? Nobody goes in blind to any piece of art nowadays, so it's hard to think of even one. Everyone knows Tony Soprano is a gangster in therapy. Lost takes place on an island post-plane crash. Jon Snow in Game of Thrones is a bastard, and if that isn't abundantly clear, they'll say it five or six times an episode.

No show is ever entered into truly blind. Between our bevy of previous cultural knowledge and the practice we've had in consuming other content en media res, it's possible to spare ourselves the slog of shows when they're just starting out. We've just never strayed from the unimaginative formula that shows are best began at the beginning. But that's clinging to tradition alone. Shows in season three will contain characters at their most compelling, jokes at their most pointed, worlds at their most alive. The show itself will be easier to enjoy, and that enjoyment will come quicker. Is that not the point? Maximum enjoyment, minimum commitment.

And when it's all over, when you love these people desperately and want so bad to live in their world for just a few minutes more, you can rejoice! For there are two more seasons for you to watch, saved, untouched. Their growing pains will seem quaint, their iffy characterizations cute. And the exercise alone will make you feel powerful, able to ground yourself in a world in movement.

TV

Top 8 Celebrity Lip Sync Battles, Ever

Anne Hathaway really did that.

Twitter Queen Chrissy Teigen

Photo by Kristin Callahan-Shutterstock

If you haven't seen clips of Lip Sync Battle, then you probably haven't been down a YouTube rabbit hole at 3 AM while elbow-deep in a family-sized bag of Cheese Nipz.

If that's the case, good for you, you functional member of society. Now follow me to Wonderland, motherf*cker.

Keep ReadingShow less
TV

"Queer Eye" Season 4 Continues to Glorify Late Capitalism

"Queer Eye" acts like a show that makes people's lives better. It actually promotes extremely dangerous ideas.

Queer Eye: Season 4 | Official Trailer | Netflix

Queer Eye is a difficult show to criticize.

This is mostly thanks to its stars, Antoni, Jonathan, Bobby, Karamo, and Tan, each of whom radiate a well-balanced combination of kindness and charisma that makes you want to protect them at all costs. So, Fab Five, if you're reading this: It's not you—it's capitalism.

To be clear, the word capitalism (in this article) doesn't refer to good old-fashioned free market competition. It refers to the mutation that is neoliberal capitalism; which promotes unchecked, limitless accumulation; which revolves around massive, resource-sucking corporations; and which thrives off unsustainable income inequality.

Also known as late capitalism, this phrase "describes the hypocrisy and absurdities of capitalism as it digs its own grave," according to the economist Kimberly Amadeo. In spite of all its sweetness and positivity, Queer Eye is built on the foundation of neoliberal capitalism.

Money Fixes Everything

Queer Eye's entire concept is predicated on the idea that each of the "fixer-uppers" featured in each episode is desperately in need of remedying. And almost always, even though their actions and conversations may seem to imply otherwise, money is the answer.

While Karamo's life-coach role is the least firmly rooted in capitalist values, as he's more focused on internal worlds, each of the other Fab Five's tasks promote the message that redemption and happiness can be achieved with cash, and cash alone. Jonathan Van Ness and Tan France focus on exterior appearances, through hair, grooming, and clothing—all of which, needless to say, require money, and promote capitalist idealization of style and beauty.

Similarly, Bobby's exquisite renovations are probably the most expensive projects on the show. His extraordinary work, though satisfying during the big reveal, promotes illusory expectations as to how a home ought to look and how quickly renovations can happen. A renovation like Bobby's would be immensely complex and stressful for any ordinary working person, especially someone trying to DIY it.

Antoni's recipes, to his credit, are a bit less innocuous. Often, they're accessible projects for the ordinary working person who's not inclined to culinary endeavors. Interestingly, his methods have also faced the most media scrutiny of all, with professional chefs and the Internet alike criticizing him for the "simplicity" of his recipes.

This dislike for Antoni's recipes reveals that not only do viewers buy into Queer Eye's capitalist values. They watch because of them—because of the shiny, glitzy, quick-fix rush. This is because these values align neatly with what we've always been taught, both through subliminal advertising and American culture: that if we just change ourselves enough, if we just whip ourselves into shape enough, we'll somehow "make it."

The catch to this mentality is that there's never an end point. You never do "make it." In capitalism, "making it" requires constant maintenance, plucking, purchasing, and striving; and the more you have, the more there is to do. Capitalism is a cycle of self-loathing, instant gratification, brief happiness, and then self-loathing that re-emerges when the paint on that happiness starts to chip.

But capitalism thrives on that promise of happiness. "When we are constantly bombarded with advertisements tailored for us and pills that can cure our every ailment, it is easy to care for your own happiness and nothing else," writes one contributor to the Vanderbilt Political Review in a post about Queer Eye's emphasis on self-gratification.


Individualism, Just Slightly Less Rugged

A lot of Queer Eye's messages revolve around the idea that individualism and independence are the highest forms of being. Like capitalism, the show encourages individualism while discouraging individuality. It criticizes quirky clothing choices, faded favorite chairs, empty cabinets, and unfashionable hairstyles, promoting beauty standards and glorifying new, unblemished purchases—a progression that automatically produces waste.

Of course, it's more complicated than that. It's not like the Fab Five discourage uniqueness, as they often make the people they visit feel incredibly celebrated for who they are. And it's not all about individualism: The season 4 episode about John Stoner focuses on his relationship with his daughter, not solely on his own self-improvement. Still, though, in the Fab Five's methods, Stoner can only show his love for his daughter through objects, through cooking, dressing nicely for her skating competition, and placing shiny objects in his home in order to make her feel welcome.

All this isn't to say that the Fab Five are anything less than angels, or that Jonathan Van Ness isn't actually Jesus Christ reborn. In fact, a lot of the ways the show treats people is inspiring and, at times, even anticapitalist, in so far as uplifting people who help others but don't get recognized themselves. It's an admirable concept, one that contradicts systems of corporate profit and greed.

To their credit, the Queer Eye team may even temporarily change lives. Still, the thing about makeovers is that they fade away after one shower. The team leaves the people they visit with short-term solutions and blueprints for lives that are probably going to be unaffordable in the end. Plus, the opportunities they offer and the changes they encourage are often unattainable to most ordinary people.

Queer Eye, therefore, is uplifting in the way that a shot of tequila is uplifting. It might make you feel warm and fuzzy for a while, as you watch lives apparently get fixed before your eyes, but then it leaves you with a headache when the glamour fades and you're left to face real life.


Social Justice, Late Capitalism Style

Even Queer Eye's dedication to social justice may be part of a marketing strategy. According to Amadeo, one of the defining characteristics of late capitalism is that it often relies on "the immorality of corporations using social issues to advance their brand."

Queer Eye's fourth season does just this. It emphasizes the show's social justice angle, focusing on an array of extraordinary people who are very much deserving of praise.

Unfortunately, the show uses social justice as a vehicle for its capitalist ideology. This becomes clear when you take a closer look at how the show handles things like disability. A Quartz article called out, "Queer eye demonstrates how we can show disability, but still fail to represent it," essentially making the same arguments as this article but through the specific focus on the disabled community. "Throughout these scenes, we see Wesley and the Fab Five repeatedly discussing [Wesley's] eventual independence," its authors write. "Access to independent living is undeniably an important tenet of disability rights advocacy. But support systems and care networks are a crucial part of this advocacy."

Indeed, Queer Eye's emphasis on individualism and quick-fixes, rather than interdependence and societal adjustment to systemic oppression, may be its central flaw. "The episode's emphasis on personal independence at the expense of interdependence is echoed by its failure to address the fact that individual 'fixes' are only necessary because of a societal failure to address systemic design flaws, and will never be enough to create meaningful access," continues the article.

The show uses queerness in a similar way. Queer people started out as a group rejected by capitalism. Not fitting into the mold of the nuclear family, they were forced to create alternative ways of life. However, after the LGBTQ+ community gained mainstream acceptance, capitalism was quick to commodify them, effectively "selling" them the "straight" life that had previously been inaccessible...all under the guise of compassion.

This is visible in the onslaught of "rainbow capitalism," which has resulted in Pride parades across the world being stained by Citibank floats. It's also been instrumental in the massive success of Queer Eye, which first found its niche by guiding men who struggle with their masculinity towards realms traditionally marketed to women only—like makeup and home improvement. Of course, this merely reinstates old capitalist norms.

"Give a man a makeover and you fix him for a day," writes Laurie Penny in her excellent article, The Queer Art of Failing Better. "Teach a man that masculinity under late capitalism is a toxic pyramid scheme that is slowly killing him just like it's killing the world, and you might just fix a sucking hole in the future."


Taking What We Can Get

While there are so, so many good things about Queer Eye (have you seen the way Antoni looks at Corgis?) the show might be easier to appreciate if it wasn't centered around the very ideals that are on track to destroy the world. After all, late capitalism encourages income inequality, thrives on racial and social divides, and is stalling action on climate change. And if our most beloved media glorifies it, how can we expect to break free from it? How can we, for example, expect to elect politicians who will tax us more, asking us to forgo our newest renovation for food stamp programs and long-term investments in renewable energy? That's why we can't let shows like Queer Eye off the hook, as lovable as their cast may be and as touching as their storylines are. There's a lot it's doing right, but for a show that presents itself like it has humanity's best interests at heart, it could do so much better.

All this being said, Queer Eye is still doing important, meaningful work. It's a vast improvement from, say, The Kardashians, or other forms of reality television. Those shows celebrate synthetic stars and their absurd abuse of wealth, and at least Queer Eye honors real people, and gives voice to their real lives and struggle.

Also, Queer Eye is different because it promotes kindness. People are nice to each other on the show; they respect each others' differences, and encourage vulnerability and connection. While it's important to be critical of Queer Eye's capitalist core, that doesn't mean we can't appreciate its compassionate veneer.

See on Instagram


MUSIC

Taylor Swift Only Sees the Glitter in LGBTQ+

While her intentions are well-meaning, the "You Need to Calm Down" video is a missed opportunity to highlight the narratives represented by the queer icons.

Just when Taylor Swift gives us hope, she lets us down.

Her latest music video features almost every mainstream queer celebrity you could imagine. While her intentions are well-meaning, the video is a missed opportunity to highlight the narratives represented by the queer icons. Instead of throwing a trans flag at Laverne Cox, Swift could center the video on the activist and her perspective rather than on her own.

The Todrick Hall production capitalized solely on the culture of the LGBTQ+ community— celebrating it and taking the song a bit too literally. But uplifting these voices means more than a feature in a video or tagging them on social media.

The music video highlights the visual aesthetic that "signifies" gay culture. There are rainbows and dancing and glitter. We follow a white cis, straight woman parade around with her LGBTQ+ friends. It's a party, a celebration of being yourself, fighting against "barbaric" homophobes with love and positivity. Yet, here, the biggest takeaway from this video is that at last, pop's biggest feud between Taylor Swift and Katy Perry is over. They embrace in the video— which will be sure to cause conversation. It overshadows the video's intent. It's also marketing genius.

The video ends with an image of text advocating for the Equality Act. The Equality Act was passed by the House of Representatives but now sits idle in the Senate. The law would extend civil rights protections to people of any sexual orientation and gender identity. Swift urged supporters to sign her petition asking for Senate support. The petition already has over 200,000 signatures, converting the single's success into political support for LGBTQ+ issues.

While Taylor Swift has contributed to the LGTBQ+ community through donations and recent political support, she's misinterpreted what an ally should be. Leading up to the video's release, Swift addressed a rumor that she would share a kiss with Perry:

"That is ABSOLUTELY false. To be an ally is to understand the difference between advocating and baiting. Anyone trying to twist this positivity into something it isn't needs to calm down. It costs zero dollars to not step on our gowns."

It's difficult to forget the days when Taylor Swift refused to comment on politics, to the point she threatened to sue over white supremacy allegations. Now, she's attempting to be a part of the conversation while lacking the language to be effective. What Swift cannot seem to grasp is that advocating for and offering a platform to the LBGTQ+ community should be greater than featuring them in a music video. Uplifting their stories and normalizing their experiences goes a lot further than a straight woman's celebration of pride. Expecting an immediate embrace from LGBTQ+ members after years of silence and quiet donations is asking for more credit than she deserves. It takes time to earn the trust of queer people, and just maybe, Taylor Swift should take several seats and listen.