Air Fryers & Ketchup

Hey folks, it’s Barry here, hope you are well?

Welcome to my 2nd newsletter! I enjoyed writing my first one (that took me ages!) which can be found here … if i’ve done that correctly! The feedback seemed to be that you quite liked the basic format of the layout - mostly because I don’t know how to change too much to be honest and I like a bit of plain old text too!

So what I think i’ll do is share a couple of my favourite things i’ve done and found recently, a sort of quick read and then leave you alone!

FUN WITH THUMBNAILS!

I’ve been getting some help recently with thumbnail designs on videos, in order to sometimes make the videos more interesting for viewers to watch or understand what they are about. It’s fair to say i’ve had mixed results - see below, this is my original photo, pretty basic right although, i’ve made it a bit brighter that’s almost the limit of my capabilities! So folks sent in their versions….

And, well…..

The 'before’ image is from someone that improved an original photo I gave them fantastically and is the one I used, but as I asked a lot of folks to submit their version in the interest of fairness I got some interesting ones back! Including the ‘after’ one where I think I have been turned into a pug?! I have been sharing more things like this on our Patreon Discord but it’s an image that has haunted my for the last few weeks!

WHAT I’VE BEEN MAKING

My favourite videos this recently probably keep to the air fryer topic, experimenting with those. We had the testing the cheapest air fryers in the World where we discovered ‘Hugh’ and then putting it to the test against a ‘Ginja’ version. I have genuinely started to like using them but insist they should be called air ovens! We do actually rarely use the main oven now, even for 4 of us… just treat an air fryer like a baby oven and maybe you’ll be converted too?!

My favourite thing with the expensive ‘Ginja’ version was that half the folks genuinely thought I was calling it a ‘Ginja’ rather than the well known brand ‘Ninja’ & also that cooking chips at 240c is a good idea lol. You obviously get what you pay for but £20 Hugh has been brilliant (so far!) and apparently the brand also make furniture too?!

I’ve also enjoyed doing some weird food combinations that folks sent in via a submission form you could complete. There were so many, it took me a whole day to pick out quirky ones to do, in fact i’ve done 3 videos from that list and i’ll have to send another one out too for those that missed it. All i’ll say is hot dogs in porridge (oatmeal) is definitely a thing.

ATTEMPTING SUBTITLES

In the last few weeks the company I have used to do subtitles on my videos - something i’ve done for Year… and those that use them seem to appreciate, have put their prices up so high that i’ve decided to do them myself… let me tell you YouTube auto detects my voice in quite a quirky way and quite a lot of the time NSFW!!

A clean example though is I said ‘don’t eat it’ which got auto translated (so if I do nothing it stays on the subtitles!) to ‘donkeys treat’ apparently, so i’ve been enjoying typing them out & seeing what it thinks i’m saying!

I also add in the odd bonus comment or two for some added value! On that note, I actually from time to time chuck in very subtle random song lyrics or movie quotes in videos, some of you have picked up on it & it’s become a mini game, you know who you are so keep your ears?! peeled.

RANDOM FIND

Before I head off and wipe my lens no doubt to get rid of some cake batter, I thought i’d share this image…. can you guess what it is? It’s food related….

Got it? Nope? Is it Play-Doh? Is it Smarties?

It’s actually sprinkles that you put on a cake magnified - pretty cool!

ANYTHING TO SHARE?

I intend to answer a regular question in these mails each time, last time was ‘What was my hardest video ever?’. One of the most common ones i’m getting at the moment is ‘what’s next?’, to be honest I wish I could tell you everything that happens on a daily basis, i’m just a small team of … well, me plus some editing support & a pug.

But I do have some very interesting conversations pretty much every day about many different options / routes to take or explore. I think the bottom line is right now, i’m happy, I think the Doughjo Crowdfund cancellation at the time was the right thing, but things seem to be settled now & there is a major craving for something tangible, I love doing what I do and always have and don’t take it for granted, if I ever get bored, i’ll stop, I find it bizarre that content creating is a job, but it’s a great story that i’ve fallen into & ultimately truly enjoy.

One thing I will say though, is look out for a message linking to a survey, perhaps i’ll do it as a mini newsletter too, but certainly on YouTube too so make sure your notifications are turned on and i’ll mention it in some videos. It’ll be a survey to complete, to get your input into my next range of kitchen products & what you would like to see and how you can help shape them and the best route to take for those. Hopefull you’ll enjoy completing in and be as honest as you can.

RIGHT THAT’LL DO…

Thanks for reading, i’m not the greatest writer but enjoy typing out these mini newsletters and try to keep them hopefully informative for you! Cheers, for enjoying the videos, there’s links to most things below and if there’s anything you’d like to see in future newsletters, just let me know.

Barry Lewis

https://linktr.ee/barrylewis | https://barrylewis.net/