'Cooking with Paris' is now available on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. Photo / YouTube
'Cooking with Paris' is now available on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. Photo / YouTube
REVIEW
Paris is back and she's got a cooking show on YouTube so, tools down, stop whatever you're doing right now and take 16 minutes to watch her triumphant return to a moderate degree of relevance.
Now listen, I am no Michelin star chef but I do have about 500hours of Come Dine With Me viewing under my belt so I know a good cooking show when I see one.
And a good cooking show this is not. But boy is it a hilarious one!
In the first of what I hope to be many, many episodes, Paris takes us on a true culinary journey to the depths of #ParisLasagna.
Paris Lasagna, if you don't have time to watch the full video, is lasagne with enough ricotta to give anyone lactose intolerance and more salt than it is deemed safe for human (or animal) consumption.
Nevertheless, she persists.
"As you all know - well, maybe not all of you know. But the people who do know know that I'm an amazing cook," Paris says, confidently, holding her miniature dog, who is of course wearing a Chanel chef's outfit.
It is poetry in motion and if you don't appreciate it then I'm afraid you don't deserve an internet connection.
Wearing what appear to be weight-lifting gloves, Paris begins the excruciating process of creating lasagne while forgetting half of the ingredients and mucking up the ones she does use.
In a kitchen with more tea towels than a person could possibly need, she narrates her whole process so you can both see and hear the gastronomic disaster as it unfolds.
"Be delicate, because these break really easily," she says as she throws the lasagna sheets into the pan.
From then on, it only gets worse. And by "worse", I of course mean "better".
Paris realises she didn't buy shredded cheese so will have to grate her own. She does not let this minor detail derail her quest for cookery success.
"Whatever, life could be worse," she says.
She's got what she describes as her "sliving" gloves on so I hit pause and grab my phone to Google what the hell she is on about. Turns out, I need not worry about not knowing what "sliving" means - it's a Paris Hilton word. Urban Dictionary defines it as a word "invented by our Queen Paris Hilton. It's slaying mixed with living my best life."
Armed with this newfound knowledge, I hit "play" again. I am fully committed, I can feel my blood pressure rising with every lashing of salt she violently throws at the mince. I'm all in.
So far, my notes show all of Paris' advice is advice on what not to do: don't buy the pasta she bought, don't buy the cheese she bought. Got it. Moving on.
The list of ingredients briefly flashed on the screen but there were no measurements and Paris doesn't provide any either. She just seems to have too much of everything on the benchtop, which is nothing if not some deep criticism of capitalism.
(Okay, I'm joking. Don't email me about this previous sentence.)
The only attempt at providing a measurement is a whimsical "11" grindings of pepper "because I love 11:11 so it's good luck". We're going with "luck", friends. This is an emotional rollercoaster I'm not sure we're tall enough to ride on.
The other exact measurement we get is zero: zero onion and zero garlic because Paris forgot to dice them and now can't be bothered to go back and do it.
Honestly, I'm beginning to feel like Paris is one of us commoners. Ok, except for the Chanel dog outfit and the fact that she "tans" the mince while us paupers brown it.
She admits she doesn't really know what a spatula is and she describes spoons as brutal. I'm beginning to wonder whether she's ever been in a kitchen before but she assured me at the start of the video she had - but then why is she trying to remove excess salt from her mince using a wet paper towel? No, Paris, no.
Stop it, Paris. Photo / YouTube
Look, things are obviously not going that great in Paris' kitchen but who hasn't had an angry cooking session after a stressful day? Paris admits at one point she's had "a long day", which is probably why she's taking it out on the mince.
And let's be real, lasagne can be tricky. Sure, it's no Consommé Devilish dish (you bet I've just got my phone out to Google "hardest recipe in the world") but it's got multiple layers (and would have more if she'd remembered the bloody onions).
"It's a lot of steps compared to making toast or something," she says, at one point.
