Claire Saffitz, one of the stars of the Bon Appétit YouTube channel, did something that she didn’t really want to do – and the results show us the importance of determination, strong will, and perseverance.
When she was tasked with making homemade Pop Rocks, she wasn’t in love with the idea, to say the least. She had some less-than-complementary things to say about the popular candy, and just seemed overwhelmed by the challenge at first.
And for good reason. It was a year ago when the folks in charge had originally asked Claire to make Pop Rocks and she outright refused it, and said she felt like she wasn’t being listened to when this video was still assigned to her, despite her wishes. We’ve all had to do stuff at our jobs that we aren’t really excited for…
But instead of giving up, Claire got to work.
Claire has re-created countless popular foods in the test kitchen, with a home-cook point of view. Pop Rocks require some industrial-grade equipment to produce, so she had to get creative.
Without access to the proper equipment to make Pop Rocks at home (or in this case, in the test kitchen), she opted to go for a chemical reaction between baking soda and citric acid, like a papier-mâché volcano.
After a frustrating first day, Claire returned for day 2 and seemed refreshed, and had a whole new attitude. She said she felt a bit bad for how she approached this challenge at first, and came back to absolutely crush the task at hand.
“Before we go any further I’m just (oh! listen to it!) I’m really glad to see your excitement level come back. You needed this. You were getting dark there…” joked Brad Leone.
Brad goes on to remark that this is one of Claire’s better replicas, which is a huge complement considering all of the incredible work she’s done, and goes to show that having supportive people around is another important ingredient.
Claire’s custom, gourmet, homemade pop rocks recipe and how to make pop rocks.
The takeaway: We all run into challenges in our jobs and day to day lives, even when it comes to stuff we’re experts at. Claire is incredibly talented, and even though she was feeling frustrated and discouraged, she still went home to look up some other possible ways of accomplishing her goal instead of giving up. The result was a huge success, and frankly a pretty damn inspiring video.
