We were the “heroes” being saved by the Fab Five this weekend as Netflix gifted us with the highly anticipated fourth season of Queer Eye. Oh how we laughed...and learned...and, no doubt, shed some tears.
On this season, our favorite friends and helpers make an emotional visit to Jonathan’s high school, help a divorced dad learn to "dad" better, teach a drill team coach to soften up a little, and advise a soldier how to make a warm home for his young kids. Along the way, Antoni channels his inner food genius, leaving us with gems of knowledge, technical skills, and sweet little moments. These were TK of our favorite.
Episode 1: Without Further Ado
1. Food puns make great fashion statements.
Thyme and time are on your side, Antoni—and they would be on our side, too, if we had a jacket this badass.
2. Potatoes and cheese are a crowd-pleaser.
Antoni needed a guaranteed hit for the attendees of a school fundraiser. He did a poll and found out that potatoes and cheese is a popular dish. This is science. Antoni Porowski gives the people what they want.
3. It’s okay to take some artistic license with food.
Antoni wants to pay homage to the school’s mascot, the Blue Devil, but there is no such thing as a blue potato. There are, however, purple potatoes, which Antoni says are close enough. We like this attitude, Antoni!
4. A “double boiler” is the secret to melting without burning.
Antoni says when you try to melt something, like cheese for delicious cheese-and-potatoes, in a thin pan, it can just burn. Been there! This handy trick of placing a metal bowl on top of the pot of boiling water allows steam to melt what’s in the bowl without burning it.
5. Never stop seasoning.
As he’s preparing the potatoes with kosher salt and olive oil, Antoni reminds us to “season every step of the way.” Never a bland moment!
6. Keep a towel handy when working with olive oil.
Antoni recommends an “obligatory towel” for wiping all that oil off your hands as you, you know, season every step of the way.
7. $4.00 is a cute price for food.
Antoni helps the students price the cheese-and-potatoes dish to make some money without being too expensive and going over their $4.50 limit. He settles on $4.00, which is “cheap and cheerful” and “cute.” Never looked at the number four like that, but okay!
Episode 2: Disabled But Not Really
8. Food is medicine.
When asking this episode’s disabled hero what he’d like to cook more of, Antoni reminds him that you always want health to be your main focus. He points out that food is medicine and then asks, don’t we feel better when we eat a good healthy meal than when we eat something that puts us in a food coma? To which we’d say...there’s still a time and a place for a food coma every now and then, Antoni.
9. Butter and cheese are Antoni’s weaknesses.
Honestly, same.
10. Peaches smell good.
Judging by this very long, very passionate sniff that Antoni gave a peach in the grocery store, he’d like to remind us that peaches smell great. IMHO, people would stare if you had this kind of moment with any piece of fruit in the supermarket, but a quick whiff could be a great way to pick your produce.
11. A good spice collection keeps your meals from getting boring.
Antoni recommends rounding out your spice collection to avoid the “different day, same meal” doldrums.
12. Rotisserie chickens are versatile.
Sure, rotisserie chickens make for instant dinners. But, as Antoni points out, you can also turn them into different meal options, like a chicken salad.
13. Pounding a garlic clove under a knife is the fastest way to skin it.
Giving your garlic clove a good pound under your knife instantly and effectively frees it from its skin. Bonus: After you chop the clove, you can press your knife down and slide to turn the little pieces of garlic into a garlic paste. Magic!
14. Roasting > baking.
For a crispy-on-the-outside texture, Antoni recommends trying something new and roasting sweet potatoes instead of baking them. He also roasts spaghetti squash brushed with maple syrup for a caramelization factor that sounds pretty dreamy.
Episode 3: Stoner Skates By
15. Corgi paws smell like “pupperoni.”
This food lesson is more for the dogs, admittedly. But look at how much Antoni loves Corgis.
16. Parents should usually be the ones cooking for their kids.
Antoni doesn’t love the idea that this episode’s hero is so kitchen-averse, his 10-year-old daughter does the cooking. He points out that even simple meal preparation is part of being a parent and at least wants this father-daughter duo to have memories of making food together.
17. Almond flour pancakes are better for you than regular flour pancakes.
They’re higher in protein and lower in carbs. You also don’t need to use as much sugar making these pancakes, because almond flour is naturally a little sweet. (Um, @ Antoni, that means we can have more syrup, right?)
18. Be “one with the pan” for the perfect pancake flip.
Fluid, confident movements equal perfectly flipped flapjacks, friends.
19. It’s easy to make pancakes all fancy.
Antoni throws together some butter, chopped apples, brown sugar and cinnamon, a splash of maple syrup and sautées it all to create a restaurant-worthy pancake topper.
Episode 4: How Wanda Got Her Groove Back
20. A few extra steps makes asparagus way more delicious.
Antoni recommends feeling along the asparagus from the bottom up to get to the end of the really hard to bite part and breaking that off. Then, use a peeler to quickly brush away those loose fibers.
21. Oranges and carrots go really well together.
Antoni hand-squeezes oranges into a carrot butter sauce he’s making for some brightness, seriously changing the game for your typical butter topping.
22. Don’t crowd the pan.
Give your scallops some space — if you place them too close together in your pan, the edges won’t get all nice and browned.
23. Cooking with love doesn’t have to mean a lot of work.
After teaching this episode’s hero, Wanda, how to make a meal for her daughters, he notes that it only took 20 minutes. You don’t need a ton of time and you don’t need to be a master chef to make good food from the heart.
Episode 5 — On Golden Kenny
24. Please do not ever microwave a sandwich that has lettuce on it.
This sounds gross, and makes Antoni upset. You don’t want to make Antoni upset, do you? If you must warm up a sandwich, Antoni recommends a panini press for much more pleasant outcome.
25. Risotto is easy to make, but requires patience.
Risotto is basic and only takes about 20 minutes, Antoni advises, but you’ve got to stir it constantly to make sure it doesn’t burn or stick to the pan.
26. Keep your stock hot.
As Antoni adds fish stock to the risotto, he finds a teachable moment: You’ve got to keep your stock hot when you’re adding it to the dish you’re cooking.
27. Bottarga is a gourmet way to add a salty kick.
Antoni uses the risotto for a squid ink dish that he finishes by grating some bottarga (salted, cured fish roe) over it. It’s a fresh and elevated alternative to, say, salt.
28. When hosting, make sure your guests have something to munch on.
Antoni teaches this episode’s hero, Kenny, how to make a meal for his housewarming party, but he stresses the importance of putting out a little spread so people have something to munch on right away. Keeping your guests happy and snacking doesn’t require too much extra effort: Don’t cook, but instead put together a meat, cheese, and cracker platter.
Episode 6: A Tale of Two Cultures
29. It’s NOT crazy to put dairy in guacamole.
When Antoni starts talking guac tips with the Mexican-American family at the center of this episode, he mentions how he puts lime juice and Greek yogurt in his to keep it from browning, though people always give him flack for the dairy addition. When the family says that actually, it’s the best idea, and that they use sour cream, you can feel his joy and vindication. Put dairy in your guacamole, it keeps it green and creamy.
30. Food is at the center of every gathering.
Well, yeah. Why else would we go anywhere?
31. It’s important to learn the dishes of your culture.
Antoni tells our hero here, Deanna, that she should learn to cook some dishes from the Mexican culture she’s so proud of having, because then she has that to pass down to her kids. This, he says, is how we keep cultural dishes alive through the generations—pretty powerful stuff.
32. Even experts can be challenged.
Antoni makes chiles en nogada with Deanna’s mother-in-law and it kiiiinda seems like it almost breaks him. He couldn’t believe how complicated the recipe was or how many components there were—but it all worked in the end. Food pros, they’re just like us!
33. Anyone can learn to cook with a little dedication—and you don’t have to be the world’s best chef, either.
Antoni encourages Deanna by telling her she’ll go from zero cooking to proficient cooking if she just keeps trying; she doesn’t need to master the most complex dishes to feel good about her skills. This is helpful to remember every time we burn, spill, under-cook, over-cook, and just generally flop.
Episode 7: Soldier Returns Home
34. Tomato paste and tomato sauce are VERY. DIFFERENT. THINGS.
Please do not confuse these two. It will ruin your dinner and also give Antoni a panic attack.
35. Egg shells are your best friend when it comes to separating eggs.
Antoni explains how you can use the two halves of a cracked egg shell to rock an egg back and forth and smoothly separate the yoke from the white. It looks easy, but based on this episode’s hero's attempts, it can take some practice.
36. Real Parmigiana-Reggiano does not come in the green container.
That green canister stuff is essentially fake, and while there’s nothing wrong with it, it doesn’t make for an authentic Italian meal.
37. Hold your knife close to the blade.
Hold your knife with a firm but not rigid grip close to the blade instead of extending your index finger along it to balance your grasp. That finger will just get tired soon into your chopping. This grip also gives you more control.
38. Salt the “hell” out of your pasta water.
Be liberal with the salt when you add your pasta to boiling water—Antoni says we want it to “taste like the ocean.”
39. More cheese, please!
Are you sensing a theme? Antoni loves his cheese and proves it’s okay to go a little crazy when sprinkling our carbonara.
Episode 8: Farm to Able
40. Jonathan Van Ness LOVES a pumpkin cookie.
Jonathan nearly exploded when he found out that he was going to get to eat a pumpkin cookie. This isn’t really an educational moment, and it’s not from our resident food pro, but it feels very important. And now you know: If you ever for some reason need to make Jonathan Van Ness happy, this is how to do it.
41. Fresh milk is aces if you don’t think too much about where it just came from.
When this episode’s hero, Matt, provides the Fab Five with fresh milk from his dairy cows, Antoni swoons. He’s says it’s sweet, creamy, and delicious...but then he grosses the gang out by saying, “And it’s so warm, right when it comes out of the teat!” TMI, Antoni, TMI.
42. Farming is important.
Antoni gets pumped about helping Matt throw a farm-to-table dinner to thank the workers on his farm. He says that people kind of forget to care about farming these days, but that it’s what our country was built on.
43. Farm-to-table means taking ingredients from the farm to the table.
This one felt unnecessary to explain, but Antoni is nothing if not thorough.
44. Cube your veggies when roasting them.
This means all the edges will get nice and browned.
45. A generous helping of olive oil goes a long way.
Coating your veggies with a good amount of oil helps them get golden and crispy on the outside.
