Barbara Costello, best known as ‘Brunch With Babs’ on social media, has been sharing useful tips and life hacks to her followers for several years now. She has a way of teaching you things you’d think you already knew – or at least should know – earning her the title as internet’s most popular grandmother.
In hopes of preventing cooking-related fires and other accidents, which are three times more likely to happen on Thanksgiving Day than any other day, Babs took to Instagram and posted a video detailing her five keys to kitchen safety. As usual, her followers were blown away by her practical, yet useful advice.
While she expected her followers to utilize her advice when needed, she never expected the message she received from one of her followers a few days after the video was posted. The message was from a woman named Suzi and she was thanking ‘Brunch With Babs’ for potentially saving her from a house fire.
“My oven caught on fire, set off my alarms, was engulfed with flames, and I remembered to grab my box of baking soda, putting it right out. The fire department came to check it and said I did the right thing and everything was out and fine. My greatest thank you for such a simple tip that saved my home,” she said.
The first little hack Barbara gave in the ‘Brunch With Babs’ video was how to put out a small grease fire quickly and safely. “For small grease fires, just use baking soda, right on it,” she said in the video. She also said covering the fire with a lid would do the trick, ‘to cut off the oxygen the fire needs to burn.’
‘Brunch With Babs’ gave four other tips to ensure a safe holiday in the kitchen – including how to use a fire extinguisher for larger fires, using a piece of bread to pick up shards of glass, rubbing a potato on a burn for its anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving effects, and rubbing vaseline on a cut to stop bleeding.
As of November 25, the post accumulated nearly 140,000 likes and thousands of comments as homeowners rushed to thank one of America’s favorite grandmothers. In fact, the comments section turned into an open conversation for other users to share their useful safety hacks when in the kitchen.
‘Brunch With Babs’ Doesn’t Plan on Stopping Anytime Soon
What Barbara Costello is doing with ‘Brunch With Babs’ is similar to what we’ve seen with other accounts – such as the ‘step dad’ account that teaches people how to fix things around the house. And while the hacks are nothing we shouldn’t already know, they always seem to surprise us with what they say next.
‘Brunch With Babs’ recently opened up about the joy she feels when users give her feedback about her tips.. “When you get this feedback…oh my word. Nothing happens by chance. This lady was meant to see that. I always say there are no coincidences. It touches your heart…it was fortuitous,” she said.
The account originally started on TikTok in 2020 with her daughter, Liz Ariola. Over time, she expanded to other social media platforms in hopes of reaching a wider audience. To this day, she is nearing two million followers on Instagram alone and more than three million across all of her social media accounts.
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Her daughter was also amazed at the message they received from Suzie. “This has got to be the most profound,” Ariola says of the message her mom received. “In an emergency you just freeze. Being able to help someone in such a chaotic moment right before the holidays is pretty amazing,” said Liz Ariola.