She is not the first grandmother to make the buzz but unlike others, it is neither dancing nor singing that she posts 24 million views for her last video on Tik Tok. Barbara Costello, 73, known as “Grandma Babs”, simply offers her grandmother’s tips for just about everything, and it’s a hit. In her latest post, she explains how to properly cut eyes, nose and mouth out of a pumpkin for Halloween, that is, without messing up the squash or splitting your hand. She advises, for example, to open the pumpkin from the bottom and not from the top, to use an electric mixer to take out all the fibers, or to coat the openings with Vaseline to prevent the squash from rotting. So many tricks on which 24 million Internet users have thrown themselves.
@brunchwithbabs Do’s and Don’ts of Pumpkin Carving It is a treasured tradition in our family to carve jack-o-lanterns for Halloween. But with all the yuck and mess, sometimes my kids would quit the project before we even started. Babs’ Do’s and Don’ts for Pumpkin Carving, saves the mess and speeds up carving so you can have the perfect jack-o-lantern with no mess and no fuss. Happy Halloween XO Babs 1. Carve from bottom. That way you have the stem to hold onto and you can easily slip the pumpkin right over a candle or flashlight. 2. Hold pumpkin in your lap to carve. You will have a much steadier pumpkin to cut. 3. Use a red dry erase marker to sketch your design. It erases easily and if you miss a spot, it blends in. 4. Use a hand mixer to clean out your pumpkin. 5. Use cookie cutters and a rubber mallet to carve your design. 6. Cover all cut surfaces with Vaseline to keep the pumpkin moist after carving. Pumpkins should last 1-2 weeks carved! 7. Sprinkle some cinnamon on the inside top of your pumpkin for festive pumpkin spice smell when a candle is lit inside the pumpkin. #pumpkincarving ♬ original sound – everyone’s grandmother
Barbara Costello is the first surprise. She has been recording videos for two years now, on the initiative of her daughter, who opened an account for her, throwing her, she explains to People magazine, “you have to put your tricks on Tik Tok, everyone must benefit from it“. So she started with kitchen advice, then widened her scope to advice on storage, cleaning, DIY. Her tutorials range from “how to clean your car in five minutes” at “how to improvise homemade petit fours for an impromptu aperitif” Passing by “how to properly store plates in the dishwasher so that it really cleans”.
In short, Barbara Costello, who for more than forty years was a primary school teacher, finds herself teaching everything that is not transmitted at school, everything that makes it possible to manage daily life, the house, life. “I have four children and eight grandchildrenshe confides to Insider, I come from an Italian-Lebanese family, and the transmission in these two cultures, especially in the kitchen, is sacrosanct. But I never thought I’d do anything with it. In fact, it was by reading the comments of the first videos that I understood that, curiously, it brought joy to people, a kind of comfort.” Because that’s what its success says implicitly: Tik Tok or not, we always need transmission, these precious moments with our elders, those who lived before us.