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Adrienne Stortz, YouTube Cooking Show Host & Digital Marketer

Get to know some of the cool people on Kit. Adrienne Stortz is one of the first YouTubing cooks to share her knowledge here — and our Kitchen Kits and Video Production categories are forever grateful. Who is she, and why did she just move from Brooklyn to Denver?! We asked and she answered.


1) Who are you and what do you do?
I’m Adrienne Stortz and I’m both a YouTube cooking show host and a digital marketer of music. I have been creating my show, xoxo cooks, since 2013, and it’s a way for me to share new things I’m learning in the kitchen to help others to cook foods that make them feel great, and take the stress out of trying to cook perfectly. I’ve learned a ton about YouTube and video production, too, in the process, since I do everything myself from start to finish.

By day, I’m the Director of Growth and Marketing for a really exciting new startup called Edify Technologies that is working on a music app for kids called MusiQuest. The app is a way for kids to learn to make their own awesome music with no tears; cute animals guide them through quests where they get all the benefits of studying music while actually having fun. No tablet-time guilt, works for any level of music knowledge, and kids love showing off their musical creativity.

2) You just moved from Brooklyn to Denver. What! List three things you love about Denver so far, and three things that you miss about Brooklyn.
I’m more surprised than anyone that I just moved from Brooklyn to Denver. I’m in love with New York City, and never wanted to leave, but was just too excited about this job opportunity. I’ll be back soon enough.

Things I love about Denver, three weeks in:

  • The sunshine. Everyone likes to say that there are 300 days of sunshine here, and I can see why. It’s awesome to have the warmth of the sun on most afternoons.
  • My new job. It’s the first time I’m in a real startup atmosphere, and with a super small team I feel like I can make a really big impact. Seeing kids excited about making music because of our work is pretty awesome.
  • The quiet. It’s nice to not have to sleep in earplugs because there are no people always yelling outside my bedroom window here.

Three things I miss about Brooklyn:

  • Ordering groceries from Amazon Fresh. It’s an amazing service that’s still only in Brooklyn at this point, but I hope they come west soon. I just ordered groceries online here, but they don’t carry whole wheat flour. What kind of city doesn’t do whole wheat flour?
  • The people. What I have always loved most about NYC is that everyone there is hustling and doing big things. I love the energy and inspiration that comes from that atmosphere. In Denver, there’s a lot more focus on having an easier life with skiing and watching football.
  • Public transportation. With my entire adult life so far in NYC, I’ve never owned a car, and I hope that I don’t have to. In Denver, unfortunately, that means a lot more Ubers, because there is no subway. But, the biking here is pretty good, and I haven’t yelled at anyone while biking in weeks, which would never happen in Brooklyn.

3) You’re a chef. What’s the most valuable (in terms of usefulness) tool in your cooking kit?
As evidenced by making sure I packed it first when we came to Denver with very few kitchen items, my solid chef’s knife is extremely important to me. I can make do without most other things, but it’s nearly impossible to cook anything (and can also be dangerous) if you don’t have a good sharp knife to cut with. I’ve found that most kitchens are without a really good knife and people don’t even know how bad they have it, which is crazy. My favorite is one I got as a gift years ago that’s still awesome, and I just took it up a notch for traveling with a plastic cover that allows me to throw it into a (checked) suitcase without worrying about cutting everything up in there.

4) You also make videos! Please share a secret tip and the item that helps you achieve it.
One of the best little items I’ve gotten lately that really helps when I’m filming by myself is a remote switch for my camera. I shoot with a T3i which doesn’t have auto-focus while shooting video, so it used to be a challenge for me to get the frame set up and in focus by myself. With this little remote, I can flip the screen facing me, and hit the remote button to get myself focused from in front of the camera, then hit record with confidence that I have the shot that I want and that it will be sharp.

5) If you could ask anyone to create a kit about anything, who would it be and why?
I would love to see a Kit from Broad City’s Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson with the things they can’t live without while shooting.

6) Show us your emoji!

Thanks, Adrienne!

Be sure to follow her on Kit and check out her essential recommendations on cooking knives, cookbooks, YouTube/DSLR video production and more.

If you’d like to recommend a Kit creator get the royal treatment here in this blog, just put their Kit handle in the comments of this post or use #tagyourekit on Twitter with your nomination.

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