Dinner: The Movie

Amid the rise in instructional cooking videos, the ability to entertain still rules.

- Brad Japhe

Zoom fatigue is palpable—researchers at Stanford have even found it to be a condition that can be clinically diagnosed.

But it’s much less tiring when you’re using the platform to watch the duo behind Dos Hombres mezcal, Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, describe the almost mystical way in which their Oaxacan distiller arrives at the liquor’s 84 proof designation. After some technical talk on heat cycles and ABV percentage, Cranston steals the famous line from his Breaking Bad co-star and yells out, “It’s science, bitches!”

An entire industry of virtual, interactive cooking sessions and wine tastings is in full bloom on Zoom, but after testing out a range of relevant services, the most rewarding examples are the ones that—surprise!—are also highly entertaining. We used to go to dinner and a show. Now dinner is the show.

One of the best I’ve seen so far is Bollywood Kitchen. Billed as live culinary theater, it’s basically a one-man play formed as a collaboration between filmmaker and cookbook author Sri Rao and the Geffen Playhouse. What would otherwise be a straightforward 90-minute kitchen demo—an Americanized