The Truth About Sohla El-Waylly's New Cooking Show, Stump Sohla
If you have any questions involving cooking popular dishes under circumstances that can either be considered challenging or incredibly bizarre, have we got a new YouTube cooking show for you. There's even a bonus — and that it features one of our favorite cooking stars.
Sohla El-Waylly has been appearing on Saturdays on the Binging with Babish YouTube channel, which has just under 8 million subscribers. She's currently under contract to do 10 episodes for her new show Stump Sohla; the first episode went to air in late September. In case you're wondering what the show looks like, El-Waylly told Deadline that she is "excited for my new show, not only do I get to spin a giant wheel (what!) but no matter where it lands I know we're gonna have a good time! The wheel's got some wild things going on, and I can't wait to try it all — cook one-handed, light stuff on fire, and even try to beat the Babish himself!"
The show's premiere saw El-Waylly try and make very modern mac and cheese a la 18th century — over an open flame and with ingredients you might only have found during the specified time period (via Eater). Some of the other conditions El-Waylly is expected to turn out tasty dishes in include: "make it scary," "make it sad," "astronaut food," and "serve on fire." All of these conditions are spelled out on a giant wheel which El-Waylly needs to spin at the start of her segment (via Insider).
Sohla El-Waylly used social media to expose inequality at Bon Appetit
If you were a fan of Bon Appetit's pre-shake-up YouTube shows, you would have known Sohla El-Waylly as the strategically-placed expert who magically appeared to offer informed opinions and suggestions about cooking and baking experiments that were on the verge of either going right or wrong. We didn't realize anything was even wrong at Bon Appetit until El-Waylly, who was an assistant food editor at the Conde-Nast brand, revealed she had been experiencing racial discrimination at the magazine she had joined in the summer of 2019.
After she was hired for $50,000 a year, she said she had started to get asked to do more work than she had signed up for. "They were asking me to stand in the background of photoshoots and video shoots, which made me super uncomfortable," El-Waylly tells Buzzfeed News. "I was brought on to do this one job, and I've kind of taken on the role of a senior editor, contributing to all of the verticals in print and video." She then asked to be compensated for the videos but was refused until May of this year, after she had complained. She went public with the problem this summer in a series of Instagram posts which also called for the resignation of then editor-in-chief Adam Rappaport (via Buzzfeed).
Bon Appetit is rebooting its video offerings
It's now hoped that all that is in the past. Bon Appetit is in the midst of rebuilding its video offerings, and will revive its YouTube channel with a roster of eight new chefs from diverse backgrounds and three returning hosts: Brad Leone, Chris Morocco, and Andy Baraghani. Bon Appetit will begin filming this month, and will premiere the new shows later in the month. One of its most popular video offerings, "From the Test Kitchen," will be relaunched in 2021 (via Variety).
The new shows are being produced under new management. Bon Appetit is now under the helm of former book publisher Dawn Davis who will start on November 2. Eater's Sonia Chopra has been named executive editor, and award-winning chef Marcus Samuelsson has been named an adviser to the brand. Chopra has told Variety, "What I really want to do is create a place where we are talking about food and culture together. We're building a really inclusive place, where everybody can find stories that resonate with them and also learn something new."