Binging with Babish

July 15, 2019
Rea’s creative, if perplexing, cookbook borrows its premise from his popular YouTube cooking show of the same name to recreate recipes from movies and TV shows. There are several tantalizing recipes, such as Cornish hens with pomegranate sauce inspired by Frasier, chicken shawarma from The Avengers, and confit byaldi–inspired by Ratatouille. However, readers will be surprised to find several recipes that Rea acknowledges are inedible, such as the sugary-sweet pasta Buddy concocts in Elf and the “pretty gross” Dothraki blood pie recreated from Game of Thrones (made with two cups of pig’s blood and heavy cream). There are some recipes that enthusiastic readers will be enticed to try, such as courtesan au chocolat pastries that appeared in The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Szechuan sauce and nuggets from Rick and Morty, but Rea unexpectedly deems them “not worth the time or effort” to make. Several behind-the-scenes facts about Rea’s show (for his episode on making movie theater popcorn, Rea recalls an early job working the Regal Cinemas concession counter) and an in-depth look at his tattoos are entertaining, but they nevertheless feel superfluous. While Rea includes some good ideas here, this cookbook will only be truly appreciated by his most fervent fans. Agent: Eve Atterman, WME.