In Noms with Neeko’s Second Season, Neeko Wants You to Know That You Can Cook, Too

gamerant.com:

Although she’s been cooking on camera for around three years, Nicole Sanchez, otherwise known as Neeko, says she is still learning the ropes. “I'm not going to act like I'm a pro at cooking,” she said. “I have basic cooking skills: things like cooking an egg, or flipping properly, or being able to tell when something's fully done.”

Neeko, who just unveiled the second season of her live-on-Twitch cooking show, Noms with Neeko, traces her passion for cooking to her early days as an independent adult, and credits her Mexican-American heritage for some of the dishes she now prepares live. Game Rant sat down with the Twitch streamer to talk about how she’s been able to explore that interest through her career, and the hope that her audience will be inspired by her culinary journey.

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Neeko’s interest in cooking didn’t begin with her streaming career, she said. She got her first taste of the art as a child, reluctantly helping her mother in the kitchen.

“Growing up, my mom would scowl at me to come help her in the kitchen, and I would hesitantly go,” Neeko said. “You know, it’s one of those things where your mom is saying ‘you need to do this,’ and you don't want to do it.” Despite her reticence, though, Neeko retained many of the skills she learned from her mother, and realized that she actually had a passion for cooking.

By the time she was hopping on for her first streams in 2017, Neeko was already employing some of those skills in her personal life. She had recently moved to Seattle from California, “because Hispanic parents can be very overbearing,” and was faced with sudden financial responsibility — bills and rent. Saving money was crucial, Neeko said, and so she started to focus on