Barry Lewis (cook)

Barry Lewis
Born Barry Conrad Lewis
(1982-07-15) 15 July 1982
Bristol, England
Occupation Cook, author
Spouse(s) Rebecca Lewis (née Gardner) (2014-present)
Children Phoebe Jane Lewis
Chloe Anne Lewis
Website MyVirginKitchen.com

Barry Lewis (born 15 July 1982) is a British cook, author and founder of the YouTube channel, My Virgin Kitchen, which, as of April 2018, has over 700K subscribers, which he runs with his wife, Rebecca "Becky" Lewis, who he affectionately nicknamed Mrs Barry.

Lewis is also part of the channel, Barshens, a joint account run with Stuart Ashen, where the two play games and do vlog style videos.

A self-taught cook, Lewis began filming recipe attempts online from his home in Weston Super Mare in 2010 when he saw Jamie Oliver on a television show. After being signed up by Oliver to appear on his YouTube channel [1] Lewis attracted media coverage. His cookbook, entitled Dinner's On, was published in May 2014. His second cookbook, entitled My Virgin Kitchen - Delicious Recipes You Can Make Every Day, has also been released on 24 August 2017.

Career

Lewis set up My Virgin Kitchen as a way to inspire himself to learn to cook. He was working at the time as a quantity surveyor for Wates Group and would make recipe videos in the evenings in an attempt to gain confidence in the kitchen.

Each video consists of Lewis cooking a recipe for the first time to inspire others to do the same; hence the name 'virgin kitchen.' Over time his reluctance to cook slowly began to turn into a passion; and a broad range of cooking videos were being uploaded including simple dinners, cooking with kids and stunts such as cooking using hair straighteners. Eventually, Lewis was discovered online by the man who originally inspired him, Jamie Oliver.[2] Lewis decided to take a sabbatical from his surveying job to push his cooking passion further as a career.

Lewis also started making videos with fellow YouTube personality Stuart Ashen, with most videos being Ashen's food specials, which are either reviewing foods of certain themes, or looking at (and sometimes eating) out of date food. In February 2016, Ashen and Lewis have created a joint channel called Barshens, which features comedians Paul Gannon and Eli Silverman of the "Cheapshow Podcast" and has the group doing a range of weird and wonderful tasks from tasting bizarre food combinations to reading out terrible news articles, dubbed "Sharticles".[3]

Lewis has written two cookbooks, and has appeared on a variety of television shows including Channel 5's The Gadget Show testing barbecues,[4] and ABC's Nightline,[5] as well as appearances at food festivals.

Bibliography

  • Dinner's On, HarperCollins, 2014 ISBN 9780007544592
  • My Virgin Kitchen-Delicious Recipes You Can Make Every Day, HarperCollins, 2017

Personal life

Lewis is married to Rebecca, and has two daughters, Phoebe, and Chloe; and two pugs, Boston and Amy in Weston-super-Mare.

References

  1. ↑ Bruxelles, Simon. "Naked Chef Snaps Up Virgin Cook". 2013. The Times. Retrieved 2 February 2013.
  2. ↑ "Construction converts to online cook". Daily Mail. Retrieved 2 February 2013.
  3. ↑ "Barshens (Web Video) - TV Tropes". tvtropes.org. Retrieved 2018-03-06.
  4. ↑ "Barry Lewis testing BBQ's on the Gadget Show". The Gadget Show, Channel 5.
  5. ↑ "MyVirginKitchen feature on ABC Nightline". ABC Nightline. Retrieved 10 April 2013.
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