ChefSteps downsizing!

whenric

This may explain some things. Jeez, hope they survive. Love this place

Brandon_Byrd_40557

Well that explains a lot. That is some very sad news, and I hope they are able to keep things going around here; this place was uniquely special, and remains so even if they're just a consumer product company now. If ChefSteps can't live as its original utopian moonshot self, so be it. It had a great run. I have some related thoughts on a Modernist utopian moonshot project not fundamentally dissimilar to the OG ChefSteps. It has a much different approach to to democratizing knowledge about food and cooking, however. Less focused on creating propositional knowledge about cooking ("true beliefs about food") or spreading awareness of knowledge-of-the-hand, and more about democratizing access to capital only available to big industrial players. Chris Young would understand it. I think his angels would understand it too. And if not them, my angels.

The real modernist revolution in cuisine hasn't happened yet. The tools are still locked away in the factories. We need to bring them down from Olympus and give them to the people. Like Joule and like the Spinzall (and like the ChefSteps combi oven that I hear they're working on) but within a larger institutional framework that allows near open access to the toys, and lets everyone play in a community sandbox. Like what Bruno does, but for local farmers and small restaurants and bars instead of giant soul-crushing corporate interests. Because if industry and 3-Stars are the only people with access to the good shit, the modernist revolution hasn't happened yet. Anyway, that's what I'm on about these days. Maybe Chris will hear and want to know more. Maybe not. I have a lot of love for him and Grant and everyone else who made this place what it was. All the best to them, and to this place. At least what ChefSteps once was can stand as a monument -- glorious information frozen in time on the website and on the YouTubes.But that's a sort of ghastly legacy. The knowledge is all there. The techniques are all there. But it remains dormant because access to physical capital (and the relevant intellectual capital to operate it) remains difficult to come by. Maybe there are bigger things to come.

In any event, thanks for everything to everyone at ChefSteps. To the staff, but also to the community of fellow travelers who served as sources of knowledge and inspiration to each other. That's what we were all about at the start, before ChefSteps seemed to know what it was "supposed to be" doing. They started out with some seed money, some corporate sponsors, and a dream. And by God, they built the best damned online cooking school and framework for food community the world has yet to see. Kudos, everyone. You are ballers and legends, at least in the not-so-humble opinion of this philosopher home cook. Sad that it couldn't last in its original form, but boy do I understand why that model wasn't sustainable. It was nevertheless glorious. Thank you for that. Thank you for your vision, everyone. And thanks for all the short ribs. I wouldn't have made them without you.