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1. I loved the testing, mythbusting, and normal person vs. episodes.
2. The perfect steak episodes were rather preachy.
3. The fake chef intro and opening credits.
4. The animations and sense of humor.

1. My favourite episodes were “Perfect steak” and “Normal person versus Nigella”. Generally I prefer videos that impart some knowledge. Covering sous vide and different temperatures was what made “Perfect Steak” interesting to me.

2. My least favourite episodes were the “Fife Diet” ones. I think you could have covered the issue with one simple short episode, explaining what was entailed, how difficult it was to fulfil and the fact that less “food miles” doesn’t necessarily mean less carbon used. For serious cooks there may be good reasons besides being green for using local produce, such as knowing its source and what welfare standards are applied.

3. When I first started watching it was because I was interested in the idea of molecular gastronomy and thought it would be good to see how three “normal people” approached it without the benefit of the resources Heston Blumenthal or other restauranters have. I guess I’d like to see more emphasis on science and how we viewers can get the best out of food without too much expense. I’d therefore like to see more emphasis on the science, good food and how we “normals” can tackle it.

4. I like the simple explanations and the debunking of myths. I also find the videos enjoyable and seems like you are having some fun along the way too, even if there was the occasional suffering.

One idea I think you could tackle in your videos is cooking on a budget. You’ve blogged a bit about student diets. When I was a student I wish I’d known about how to make a decent cheap risotto, which I do regularly now I’m on incapacity benefit. I’d like to see someone do a proper exploration of what can be achieved with little money. Delia’s idea of opening a tin of mince seems way off the mark to me.

1) I liked the Sous-Vide Steak one and any of the Normal Person vs… ones.
2) I think the Fife diet ones were probably my least favorite.
3) You seem to have been recently doing less of the actual “cooking with Science” which is why I started watching in the first place. After all, the title bar does say “three geeks cook. With Science.”
4) When you were doing the science and cooking stuff like with the sous-vide and testing the blenders and stuff, it was really interesting, and I think you do it much better than you do some of the other stuff.

I have to say first up that I loved Season 0, to the extent that my one-man advertising of KK has resulted in you guys having a rather robust Bath-based appreciation society, which is currently considering the best way to invite you all to come south and use us as your ‘normal people’. So take my opinions with a Oliver-esque dash of salt, as I’m obviously a fanboy.

1) The best episode is by far The Perfect Steak and that’s always the one I show people when trying to convert them. I was also a big fan of the Digital Thermometer episode as well, because, quite apart from being funny, it also taught me things I didn’t know. I now own a digital thermometer and it’s made cooking roasts so much easier.

2) The health grill episode was a little bit empty, but that was advertised on the tin with that one. Pre-heating ovens was disappointing, because I was hoping to learn stuff and the experiment was startlingly unscientific, with no exploration as to why pre-heating should/shouldn’t work. Amusing banter though.

3) Not that many weaknesses to be honest (fanboy!). I wouldn’t mind a bit more science and cookery being crammed in where possible though. On the blog, there was an aside as to how to turn leftover into soup, which is a bloody helpful tip that beats everything I’ve ever got from a cookbook. That kind of thing needs to be in the main programme. I love the humour, but the most enduring thing to come out of the season is that my cookery has been improved the fact that I understand digital thermometers and how meat cooking is chemistry. I’d not thought of it like that before. More descriptions and help on how to do things with science would be good.

4) In opposition to the other comments, I’m a fan of the fake chefs and the intro credits. I also like the Zero-Punctuation-style graphics. The two things that make me shop the show to my friends are that you’re all funny and the show is intelligent, without assuming people know everything in the world about cooking.

Looking forward to the new season.

PJW

DO NOT whatever you do feel tempted to clean up, improve or change in ANY WAY the animated cut away ‘science bits’. I’m guessing they take a chunk of time to do, but they’re worth it.

More of these bits please.

I hate to make this harder for your metrics, but overall I actually thought all the episodes had good bits and bad bits, and I liked the variety in them all. If I had to choose though, I think the “celebrity chef vs ordinary people” episodes didn’t work out as well, though the concept was good. I actually thought the other guy who tried to make Gordon Ramsay’s dish worked out better than your episode.

For the bad things in your series: I’d have to say it’s polish. You guys aren’t miked up or lit properly, and you’re presenting in very dark surroundings. Often you’ll have subtitles for a main character (which is fairly jarring). Also, the food you make doesn’t look appealing due to the lighting. I can appreciate the difficulties in trying to light an area like the kitchen, but maybe some fast cuts outdoors or something could help. A lot of your shots seem meaningless. They’re looking at food boiling or something, which, amazingly, is not the point of the show seeing as the boiling bit is going to be explained in the comic parts anyway. Your best bits are when you’re not in the kitchen!

You may also need some presenting help (although you’re actually really good). The “ad-lib” bits can sometimes fall a bit flat, and sometimes you can talk over each other. You’re a bunch of witty guys but maybe you want to go for more obvious jokes so you can riff off each other easier? Anyway, I like the experimentation and you’re all bound to improve with experience. One big downside with you guys is that it looks like you’re college students living in a sharehouse, which (for me, at least) spells unhygenic. For a cooking show this could be a bad thing.

There are a ton of good bits. You guys are smart and witty, and have excellent character which is established really quickly (hell, one of wears a cape, so that gives him something unique to start with). All your character traits really add to the show. The comic bit is a little bit ZP (Yahtzee’s also British, so that doesn’t help), but it’s different enough that it really adds to the show. The ideas for the show (from the Fife Diet through to celebrity chefs) are great. The technical stuff is also great. The shows are just put together nicely and cut to have a nice flow.

Really enjoyed the series. Hope you take the criticism well, and I hope the next series is bigger and better!

I definitely agree with Sunny on the issue of sound and lighting. The intro sequence is noticeably louder than the rest of the show (though never as bad as hashlugradio, which shows up on the Richter scale), and occasionally your sound goes completely to pot and no amount of player amplification makes a damn of difference.

I know how difficult lighting and photographing food is, especially in a kitchen. We’ve been doing it for a year now with still photography and it’s pretty hit-or-miss. At least we have the chance to take many shots and throw most of them away, something which is probably not an option for you guys given that you’ll also have jobs to go to…

As previously mentioned, if you want to film in our kitchen at any point we’d be happy to have you. It’s pretty spacious and has a good amount of afternoon light.

I don’t think the camera shake has ever bothered me, though Robert is right that some people take severe umbrage to the slightest amount of picture wobble. Still, you can always take the Language Log approach and offer them a full refund. ;-)

Hey, Hugh. I hope I’m not too late in on this one with my two cents.

I’m not really “into” blogs, which for me are a somewhat disappointing journey into how most people have pretty much the same things to say about everything. Or, alternately, they’re disheartening attempts at quantification and mass distribution of parts of a lifestyle aesthetic—sorry, Boing Boing.

Anyway, your show is none of these things. That’s why I watch/read it regularly. All three of you guys are obviously completely sincere in your interest in cooking as a scientific exploit—and it shows in spades! It’s both about you three as people and about the science of cooking, and it stands out for it.

Please keep the silly and informative animated cutaways. Keep highlighting the dubious nature of celebrity chefs’ coffee-table recipes. Keep Paul and his cape and the frying pan atop the hill in the beginning. Overall, just keep doing this stuff because you think it’s cool. A lot of us are inclined to agree.

PS: Okay, in the service of constructive criticism, I agree that it’s sometimes hard to see and/or hear you. This can be fixed easily enough. And, truth be told, I would be interested in MOAR SIENCE if you felt so inclined. Don’t hold back; I don’t think you’d lose any audience members in getting a bit more technical.

Favourite episodes were Fife Diet (as a whole) and Blowtorches (for the science)

Leas Favourite, Herbal Teas (hint, watching other people play WoW when you can’t even see the screen is super dull) and pre-heating ovens (for the lack of science and the he-said-she-said humour)

Weaknesses – self-conscious attempts at humour (though I realise that scripting things that might be really funny if said at a party is HARD), occasional unsupported scientific assertions, lighting and sound problems that you already know about.

Strengths – the blogs, the animation (except when it crosses the line into a bit too offensive and I realise YMMV on that), the intro sequence and your clear enthusiasm for the subject.