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Substack Makeover: New Content, Additions and Pricing 🙌

Oct 14, 2022

If you remember a few weeks ago I put out a number of polls to get feedback on content and subjects that interest you most.

This was incredibly valuable and had a few surprises for me, which is good as I continue to dial in and refine the food and cooking content I write for you.

Poll Results 📊

Surprising, but good to see, Flavor is more important than Time/Speed. Really glad to see this because “30 min meals” or “3 ingredients, 15mins” was never why I started this Substack.

I’m here to show you how to cook the most delicious food possible at home… and we will never need to compromise flavor to save time.

Ironically a fair number of the previous recipes can be done in minimal time, and I always include time saving tips when it fits.

Techniques > Recipes. Another slight surprise. Free recipes are everywhere. Most of them are worth what you paid for them… (yup, exactly).

Seeing that a majority of you value technique over recipes, I will continue putting lots of “why” in the recipe steps and also addressing particular techniques going forward.

The archives now have 95+ top quality recipes and will keep growing.

New Content Interests ranked as follows:

-Food Culture Exploration

-Ingredient Tastings/Reviews

-Wine Education and Pairings

-Restaurant Recommendations/Guide

Upcoming Additions:

Things are going to be going up multiple notches here and I’ve been looking forward to sharing this with you all.

PDF Recipes 📄

This will remove a ton of friction while you’re cooking. Paid subs will get PDF’s of recipes going forward. This will allow you to download and print (if desired) the recipe in a more compact and efficient format.

Look for these to start being added in the next week or so.

🚨 Note: I highly recommend when using this Substack for recipes that you use the Substack app or the web based platform. Why? Even with edits after the substack is published occasionally I have to go back and fix some errors. These errors will not update on the email version. So please use the recommendations above. Also, PDF’s are coming soon. 😉

Photo 📷

I’ve upgraded to a legit camera now and will be working on increasing my photo and editing capabilities to convey the heart, soul and deliciousness that’s going on each plate as we cook.

I spent years making food look delicious and aesthetic on plates… translating that to photos and editing/lighting is a complete different ballgame I’ve found… so I’m working on upping that quality as well. 🙏

Video 🎥

When applicable, I’ll be adding video cooking content that you can view for certain recipes going forward. This will give you some key insights and should be invaluable for you to pick up on any subtle nuances.

UPCOMING CONTENT

“Upgrading Classics” 🍽

Taking old school Americana 🇺🇸, French 🇫🇷, Italian 🇮🇹 dishes and upgrading them to the best versions possible. This isn’t about 3* Michelin cooking, rather most people grew up eating subpar versions of classics.

We are going to re-tool these and bring them up to a level of delicious that made them classic in the first place. 🤌

Offal Recipes & Techniques 🐄

Let’s be honest, most people hate offal because they suck at cooking it and have no clue the best flavors that work.

We are going to fix that.

Masterclasses 👨‍🏫

These will be muli-part drops. a) Highlight an ingredient b) write a guide for sourcing and recommended cooking methods c) build a complete dish with accompanying recipes to make something that rivals the best restaurants.

This will give the best format for in-depth dives on doughs, single ingredients, etc.

Look for Scallops as the first Masterclass coming up.

Global Cuisine 🌍

Traveling is what impacted my cooking in a profound way. We will continue to cook recipes, add culture commentary where applicable, ingredient highlights and more as part of Cooking with Octopod.

Top Lists 🏆

Ingredients, Tools, Beverages are more… I’m going to be putting out more of these lists that will help you avoid a lot of low quality products and brands that are a waste of time.

Trust me… I’ve spent enough time in kitchens, working with equipment/tools and sourcing ingredients to know what to look for and what to avoid. 🤝

Wine 🍷 🍾

Expect seasonal drops on drinking recommendations, pairings and grape varietals. Wine is a huge passion for me and was lucky enough to develop relationships with amazing winemakers and producers all over the world.

Not tapping into that would be a disservice. 🥂

Restaurant Lists ✈️

I get a lot of DM’s from people traveling asking where to eat. After some suggestions from a few of you, I’m going to be adding Octopod Restaurant Recommendations for major cities in the US as well as International.

Paid subs can make requests and I’ll line them up to publish over time. This will most likely be a PDF as well, to make things easy for you while traveling.

As you can see lots of exciting additions coming up… hard not to get excited myself as I re-read this to edit 😂

Pricing

Updated pricing is in effect now.

Monthly subscription is set at $12.99 for now.

For those of you who have been on the fence for joining as a Paid Subscriber, I’m leaving the old annual rate of $50 up for 72 hours.

After 72 hours that price will go to the new annual rate of $99.99.

Cooking with Octopod