Why I left the United States | Q&A

so life update i moved to paris france my kitchen is quite literally in this box um we've got a lot to talk about so let's go inside all right everyone let's get into this so as always for q and a's every question is going to be time stamped down below so feel free to jump around to whatever question you want to see answered but in general we're going to talk about kind of why i moved to paris in the first place then go over your kind of quicker questions around paris like do i speak french um you know the traveling process and all that then we'll do a couple questions kind of non-related um there were a couple questions people asked like about the josh weissman but faster series if i think he like stole the idea short answer no but we'll talk about that kind of at the end of the video but with that being said let's start at the top why did i move to paris france so first and foremost i moved to paris so i could continue creating cooking and food content you know while i'm here but it's going to be shaped around those new experiences that i'm having by being in a new country you know new culture new language new food and just kind of seeing it through a whole new lens by being in a completely new place now as always with me it's all still going to be home cooking content it's all going to be focused on that that's really what i want you know anyone who watches my channel take away is i want them to be trying this stuff i want them to make it i want people to learn how to cook because i think it is one of the most invaluable life skills that everyone should have and you can have it for a million different reasons right like you can cook for fun for creativity you can cook for a job like i do you can cook to be healthy you can cook to save some money so i'm still going to explore all those different reasons of why we cook but just you know we'll do it in paris france it's gonna be a lot of fun and i actually have done something like this before so back right before the pandemic in january 2020 i went down to mexico city for five weeks and made some videos while i was down there just set up with one base for the whole you know five weeks and a great example of that is the poblano con queso taco video so that's a taco i've never heard of never seen before i went down to mexico city and then i promptly fell in love with the thing so when i came back i made a video when i was down there but then i made another video and that's one of the most viewed videos on my channel now um you guys loved it as much as i did so hopefully i'm able to find some of those experiences by being in france and for example just yesterday we were out and i got an idea for one so quiche we out we went out it was probably 4 p.m yesterday we hadn't eaten anything yet just with jet lag the whole like food timing thing is completely off right now um and we got a quiche and there were like a bunch of quiches in the belanger which is like a bakery and i was just like seeing quiche through this whole new lens and i immediately got a video idea like why quiche is the perfect make ahead breakfast lunch or dinner and not only that the quiche itself was amazing but the crust was different from quiches that i've had in the u.s which are much more like a pie crust this one the crust was almost like a almost like a croissant crust it was really hard to describe so i need to do some research into like the different crust types for example but videos like that are things that i'm going to be bringing to all of you guys and loosely this is actually going to be what the channel is kind of going to become over the next 9 to 12 months so my loose kind of big picture goal right now is to do this for about a year so three months in paris you know we'll probably travel in and around um to maybe other cities in paris maybe another country or two but really focused on primarily a home base in paris where i feel like i'm kind of living here a little bit more rather than like feeling like i need to move around to city to city to country to country to see every thing i can see in like the littlest amount of time possible i like that slow travel concept which has kind of been popularized over the past couple years i would say you know i think i remember seeing like nathaniel drew was kind of one of the first people i saw doing this and i think it makes almost the most sense for a cooking channel to be able to do this it's a super unique and very fortunate position that i'm in where you know the content should be more interesting by me being in a country that is new to me and being able to explore all these new foods because all food is kind of a mix match it's all inspired off of each other so i think being in a new country um is just very inspiring and after the three months in paris i want to do another three months um i think japan is kind of what i want to do next that's probably top of the list poland is also up there and then we'll see what happens with other countries i don't really know and it will be an experiment um i'm not gonna lie this is a little bit nervous to be doing something like this um especially coming off i think the biggest month i've ever had on my channel last month to kind of be pivoting like to a completely um you know new concept though a lot of it is the same things right like i kind of make videos and tell stories through my unique lens which has taken me a lot of years to kind of develop but so you're not going to expect like anything wildly wildly different it's still going to be the same kind of concepts the same kind of learnings about food and all of that stuff so don't worry about any of that it's not going to like transform into this completely new channel but for me i think it's going to be a lot more interesting a lot more applicable because i can show exactly where i was inspired from which i think is super cool about food so hopefully you guys enjoy you know kind of this experiment um i'm really excited for this is gonna be just an absolutely amazing time um you know like i think one of people's greatest regrets is always you know i wish i would have traveled more and you know what i was just like yeah like let's just travel let's just do it like if this year like doesn't go as well as i think it will you know whatever it's one year in the grand scheme of things um but yeah i'm super excited to be in paris a week from today should be the first video um in paris so we'll see what it is i might just do my cases kind of the the kitchen the traveling kitchen that i brought because i think that's pretty interesting but yeah hopefully you guys enjoy and uh yeah let's get into some of the questions that you guys sent to me on instagram so i'm gonna combine two questions for this first one um dalem asked what was your moving experience like and then we also got how much did it cost to move your equipment so my moving experience was actually quite seamless and pretty easy luckily i got a short term lease in raleigh back in august after i moved from california so i'd already pared down a lot of my stuff and i knew that i was planning to travel starting in march initially i was going to travel in august but with pandemic and cove it was just a little bit i was just like i don't know if i should do it so i kind of pushed it off for six months so i already had gotten rid of a lot of stuff um so really i just need to clear up my apartment um most of my friends in raleigh luckily have houses and they have space so they took like the beds the desks and like the couple of furniture items i did have then other than that it was just packing everything up and kind of condensing everything down so what i actually brought with me was two check bags a carry-on and a camera backpack and then my brother is also traveling with me he has a backpack as well and a carry-on so but each of our tickets came with one check bag for free so we actually didn't have to pay anything to get any of this stuff over here um both the checked um shell cases both weighed exactly 50 pounds i weighed them out before we got to the airport and all that so we were smooth sailing through there we'd have to pay any extra charges and then getting through customs and all that i was a little nervous because i actually did bring my induction burner no issues with that and then i was a little nervous too about vaccinations like we had all our forms you know with the two uh initial shots and the booster um but like we were asked once about it but never actually had to show it and we literally just cruised through so like that was easy and then once we got here we did get vaccine passes that you can use in france basically you just go to a pharmacy you pay like 36 euros i think give them your vaccine records they look them up and now we have qr codes on our phone so like anywhere if we need to show that we're vaccinated it's just a qr code which is super nice um so yeah the whole moving traveling experience was honestly very easy and yeah it went absolutely seamless which is very rare i feel like so it was pretty great next a lot of you asked this question and will you be doing a collab with alex french guy cooking so we don't have anything set up i haven't reached out to him yet but i'm gonna say yes um a hundred percent i i really do want to i just need to reach out to him and then hopefully we can you know schedule something like i said i'm here for three months so if it doesn't happen like that's on that's on me for not making it happen so yes 100 um alex if you are watching this um i'll probably send you a dm today or tomorrow or something um so if you happen to be watching this let's uh let's get the collab rolling i think it'll be super fun so yes we're gonna make it happen so for the next question again i'm gonna combine a couple here um many of you asked do you speak any french and then hanley also asked how's the language barrier so far so no i don't speak french i just started to take a couple of lessons like on a phone app of talking so i know a couple of phrases like just we met ken is like i'm american and then the phrase that i've been using the most in the first that two days is uh eskivo uh parley anglais which is like do you speak english and most people do so it hasn't been too bad um or at least if they don't they speak enough when we're able to kind of get our way there actually a funny story yesterday we were getting uh set up with like a monthly gym thing and the two guys there didn't really speak any english and we it was a fun experience like us trying to go back and forth it took us like 20 or 30 minutes but eventually we got there we were like using google translate going through the stuff um to get it all set up but it was fun so language barrier hasn't been too bad luckily and and and where we've been able to get by everywhere else so it's been it's been pretty fun so far next question tristan asks how does the food variety compare in different countries to the us is it mostly french yeah so again i've only been here for two days but based on first impressions i would say a little bit less variety especially if i'm comparing it to you know like a new york city chicago la because i mean paris is like kind of that level of city i feel like um so i would say definitely more way more like specifically french food which makes a lot of sense because the us is a massive melting pot of different cultures and people so it makes a lot of sense where like even though you know paris is gonna have a ton of different cultures and you have all these countries around it it still is there's probably a ton of people that are you know have been born and raised in france um that being said the grocery stores i would say have just as much if not more variety than a lot of places because you do have like italy you have spain you've got germany the uk and all that right around here so it's probably very easy to bring in all that stuff so i've been pretty impressed with the grocery stores like they're not very big but they've got a lot of variety in them which is really cool but as far as restaurants go i would say definitely less variety than i would say a typical uh like major u.s city but there still is like i've seen a bunch of thai restaurants um i've seen like an american restaurant with like chicken nuggets and hot dogs like advertised which is pretty funny um but yeah i would say a little bit less variety but definitely since it is a bigger city um there is there is still plenty enough variety next question la pepita asks will you save all your paris recommendations so we can refer to them when we are there be there soon yeah that's definitely something i want to get for you guys i think i'm going to start like a map where i just drop a bunch of pins and like a list with all my places that i've been to drop a little note for you guys and kind of keep that up to date so like if you guys ever want to you know pop down in the description video hopefully it's just a link so i'll kind of figure out what the best way to do that is but yeah i definitely will be saving all my recommendations for you guys next question dr smokehouse which is also my dad asked what was your first meal in paris so the first thing we ate was not all that interesting we just got like some sandwiches on a really nice baguette in a uh bakery but our first like proper meal was later that night we got a little restaurant just down the street from us little french place um i ordered a turbot fish which is like a a filet like a white fish and it had this really nice pan sauce over it with it's like a little like curry sauce or something like it was coconut and it tasted just like a hint of like a thai curry or something and then with the super like decadent smooth mashed potatoes best mashed potatoes like already and again from that meal alone i was like this could already be like three videos video on pan sauces gotta do that um video on the technique they use to make their mashed potatoes gotta do that and then my brother gabe got a veal chop which is also very good it was served like kind of an olive tapenade um yeah so killer first meal um yeah it's gonna be so fun just to be trying all the different foods while we're out here next up uh mikhail asks how are prices in paris compared to the us so if i'm comparing paris to new york city which i feel like is a pretty comparable you know city some things are more expensive some things aren't as expensive both are very expensive cities compared to almost everywhere else i would assume um for example some of the quick and faster foods we got wasn't all that expensive um you know like very good baguettes like espressos and pastries would be like i'm gonna say like five dollars for like a pastry or something here you can get them for like one to two euros uh which is ridiculous but then if you do go out to a restaurant um i think our bill ended up being probably around like 80 euro um and then when you factor in that one euro is like 112 usd it's like a little bit higher than that so and then the groceries i got i did get some groceries yesterday like for example the one like the very small roast chicken by the way compared to the u.s but that's kind of to be expected we kind of do mass-produce things in the u.s so like that chicken was like 22 euros i think compared to in the us like i'm going to say 10 to 12 maybe maybe like 10 to 15 so some things definitely more expensive some things not quite as expensive um but if you're comparing like new york city and paris both are just very expensive cities overall next up uh joshua asked what were the kitchen essentials that you packed again i'm gonna plan to make a video on this but i will tell you a couple so obviously we brought the thermometer we brought our scale i've got a knife roll with a couple of knives in it um i did bring like my induction burner um and things like that but yeah i'm gonna plan to do a whole video on how exactly i packed this up because it's pretty cool but then for you guys i think it'll be interesting for you to see how much that is kind of what i think is essential but it really literally fits in like one hard shell case you don't need a ton of like equipment and gadgets for your kitchen to make amazing food so subscribe if you haven't because that video will probably be one of the first videos coming out from the paris series or whatever we call it so next up is an interesting one um dirk kofi asked what sold are you using now that it's hard to get kosher salt in europe very good question because when i went to the grocery store yesterday to pick up salt this is kind of what i landed on so i don't know how to pronounce this but it is celse geron um i was basically just looking at the size of the granules and i was like this is kind of close enough to kosher salt which is what i'm used to but really the big thing with salt is like understanding how much you're salting things so if you're not doing things by weight you just need to feel it um so it's going to take a little bit of me learning how to use kind of a new size granule salt but this is fun plus this is some like literally some like bougie hand like picked salt from like specific salt mines in france which i didn't even realize when i got it but i don't know it's kind of cool so this is the salt i'm using now to round out the pairs questions before we get to a couple non-paris questions cameron asks have you encountered any gastronomically inclined rats keep an eye out um unfortunately i have not yet though i will definitely keep an eye out so now let's move to a couple non-france and travel questions so um four frogs asks are there any plans to upload more on the second channel yeah so i do have a second channel um that many of you guys may or may not know of i also have like a tick tock um and i do have my instagram which i'm gonna try to start posting more to all three of those i don't know exactly what type of content i want to post on there a lot of it might be kind of travel or just kind of things about maybe the behind the scenes or maybe just things that i find interesting and want to make a video about so i don't know exactly what i can't really promise anything but yes i do plan to start posting more on that second channel i just got to find things that i'm inspired to create i don't want to just do it for the sake of doing it but yes so if you want to follow that second channel i definitely will start posting more on that and hopefully can give you an update in a couple weeks about what that may look like so next up hk fitness asks um do you have any advice for content creators who are just starting out yeah so my main two pieces of advice for anyone starting out were one be consistent so if you start making content keep at it keep a schedule or some sort or whether maybe that's just once a week or maybe if you're doing shorter form content maybe it's a couple times per week but whatever it is just be consistent with it because if you consistently do something you will find ways to make it better you'll find things that work and that don't work and then the second thing that i would really say to ho9 on is why ask yourself why is my content going to be valuable to a viewer to watch are they going to be entertained are they going to learn something are they going to be inspired by something you know that i am creating and i think that's one of the biggest pieces that you need to ask yourself and figure out so for me if you look at the early stages of my video i didn't really have much focus and direction on that i kind of just made any cooking video that i was interested in i was like i'll make a video on this make a video on that and kind of just went through that but then once i started to think about what value am i actually like why do i want to make videos what value do i want to deliver to people and for me i want to inspire more people to cook like that's the basics of it and then there's a million ways that i could do that i could make entertaining videos i can make educated videos i could make you know one of those types and for me i'm more interested in kind of education technique learning um you know science food science and things like that so that's kind of my route that i took to you know inspire more people to cook which is ultimately what i want to do with this channel so that's what i would do is be consistent and ask yourself what value do i deliver to the person watching my content and figure out the best way to deliver that value so let's round out this question with a juicy one um a couple people were asking and i've seen it in comments on a number of videos now but how do you feel about joshua weissman making the butt faster series just a couple of weeks after i originally released uh the faster than fast food series that i've done a couple videos on and i cannot express this enough i literally have zero issue with it i don't think he stole the concept or anything like that and if you look at the videos they're really you know they're completely different approaches to the same concept um and it's not a concept that's new in and of itself um people were sending me uh or i saw it on a comment on one of my videos like hey bon appetit has done this and like tasty on this i've literally never even seen those videos but then i looked it up and sure enough they have like a faster than take out and like a faster than like delivery video so it's not surprising to me that that concept has been made before actually if you look at the first video on my channel my first video on this channel the oldest one is homemade can you make homemade pizza faster than delivery it's like a three minute video but the concept was making pizza in like 25 minutes now not the greatest video i might have to re do that one at some point but again it's not a new concept with food everything's kind of been done under the sun there's not really any true original ideas anymore um so it's it's not surprising that it came out with it and i know his audience has been asking for it too but if you look at take a look at the videos i think they're gonna attract very different audiences um you know his was kind of cut down more um mine is literally just me kind of live cooking um so it's gonna definitely attract a very different audience though there definitely will be some crossover which is probably net positive for me as you know josh is a much bigger creator and yeah i mean josh if you happen to be watching um i mean zero ill will from my side um and if people should just stop commenting about that stuff like he didn't steal anything i didn't steal from him we didn't steal it from like bon appetit it's just like a natural progression it's a very general concept that just like makes a lot of sense to do for food and it's a fun one like i've had that idea for a long time and i've never actually pulled the trigger and i was like you know what let's just do this and we'll do it live and we'll have some fun so zero zero issue with it um but hopefully you guys have enjoyed that's gonna wrap it up for the q a um i know we talked about a lot of stuff in this but i just want to say a huge thank you um to everyone who's watched supported subscribed engaged with my content in any way um it's you know it's just a super fortunate situation that you know i'm able to be in because of all you and be able to grow this audience and you know things should only get better they should get more interesting um so hopefully you guys enjoyed it's been a couple years now but like i feel like i'm just getting started um so yeah i hope you guys enjoyed hope you have a good rest of your day and uh yeah one more video in the old apartment then we'll be on to france content so catch you all in the next one peace y'all

Channel: Ethan Chlebowski

Views: 571,943

Keywords: Ethan Chlebowski, Paris France, living in paris, living in paris as an american, paris tour guide, american in paris, how to move to paris, moving to paris france, moving to france, france, paris, how to live in paris as an american, digital nomad, digital nomad lifestyle

Id: Gq06IXn6K_4

Length: 24min 8sec (1448 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 04 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Cheeetooos]

Seems super cool. Would love to see how other cultures cook at home specifically.