An Instructo-Geek Reviews The 4-Hour Chef

Bennett Haselton writes "Recently I wrote an article about what I considered to be the sorry state of cooking instructions on the web (and how-to instructions in general), using as a jumping-off point a passage from Evgeny Morozov's new book To Save Everything, Click Here. My point was that most "newbie" instructions never seemed to get judged by the basic criteria by which all instructions should be judged: If you give these instructions to a group of beginners, and have them attempt to follow the instructions without any additional help from the author, what kind of results do they get? The original title of my article was "Better Cooking Through Algorithms," but due to some confusion in the submission process the title got changed to "Book Review: To Save Everything, Click Here" even though, as multiple commenters pointed out, it didn't make much sense as a "book review" since it only mentioned a short passage from the actual book. This article, on the other hand, really is intended as a review of The 4-Hour Chef, even though the article only covers a similarly tiny fraction of the book's 671-page length. That's because even before buying the book, I was determined to review it according to a simple process: Try three recipes from the book. Follow the directions step by step. (If any direction is ambiguous, then follow what could be a plausible interpretation of the directions.) My estimation of the quality of the book, as an instructional cooking guide for beginners, is then determined by the quality of the food produced by my attempt to follow the directions. (I've done this so many times for so many "beginner cookbooks," that I've probably lost my true "beginner" cook status in the process — which means that the results obtained by a real beginner using The 4-Hour Chef, would probably be a little worse than what I achieved.)" Read on for the rest of Bennett's Thoughts

I bought the book with tempered high hopes. Watching Tim Ferriss in his TV interviews and reading the enthusiasm that leaps off of every page (each recipe even comes with a "song pairing," music to jam out to while making the dish), it's hard not to take a quick liking to him. He comes across as a man who who really does want to share his passion and not just sell books. He's goofily handsome in that way that women and some men often confuse with "confidence", although he does seem to possess a lot of actual confidence. But enthusiasm is the enemy of objectivity, and I was determined to review the book according to the criterion of how well the directions actually work, not based on how much fun it would be to hang out with Tim. Even though it would probably be fun.

In his interview on Jimmy Fallon, for example, they looked like they were having a great time, but Jimmy told Tim that he read the book and tried following the directions for making bacon-infused bourbon, then proceeded to show some "action shots" of the result that he achieved: a jar of what looked like solid bacon fat, which Jimmy said he did not drink. OK, I thought, that means that whatever comes next, in that case the directions failed. Tim proceeded to explain that you have to be careful not to overblend it, and to leave it in the freezer long enough to be able to scrape more of the fat off, so that if you get a result that looks like Fallon's jar of goo, then that's probably what you did wrong. Great advice, but, not in the book. "Bacon-infused bourbon" sounds like precisely the kind of recipe that will sell a lot of books (not surprisingly, it's listed on the back cover of the book jacket), but which is hard to write good directions for.

In the same interview, Ferriss showed how he cooked sea bass sous vide in a hotel kitchen sink and then finished it by searing it with the hotel's travel iron, which he cheerfully admitted the hotel was not too happy about. I'm all for re-purposing common household items to find a new way to achieve something, but only if it's an improvement over the more mundane way of doing things; otherwise, it's just doing things inefficiently for the sake of being weird as an end in itself. (When I posted a photo of my bookshelf with a hollow-core wooden plank C-clamped to it at one end, with the other end used as an anchor for my XOOM tablet so I could watch movies while lying flat in bed, it was because that was the easiest way I could find to do that.) To be fair, Tim's suggestion of searing fish with a travel iron was probably intended to get the reader into the adventurous spirit, not as literal advice -- but then, my mission remains to evaluate the actual cooking advice, according to the results it produces.

The short answer: Of the three recipes I tried, one came out barely edible, and the other two were palatable mostly to the degree that the raw ingredients themselves were tasty, so I might as well have just snacked on the ingredients separately instead of combining them. All recipes definitely showed signs that they could have been greatly improved by being worked over by the process I described in my last article — i.e., show the recipes to a group of genuine newbies, listen to their feedback about all the points where they get stuck, then keep revising according to that feedback until you reach the point where the latest round of newbie testers is able to get through the directions with no problem. (You may notice that this sounds like a very obvious idea, but most how-to directions show very little sign of having been put through this kind of scrutiny.)

The first recipe in the book was for "Osso Buko", Ferriss's "knock-off" version of ossobuco, using lamb shanks instead of veal shanks. With $60 for a new porcelain Dutch oven, $20 for the lamb shanks, and other miscellaneous expenses, it cost me about $100 just to try the recipe to see if it worked (although Fred Meyer let me return the Dutch oven after I realized I was never going to try this again, and yes, I know you can find cheaper ones). A few times in the recipe, the directions used an unfamiliar term that I would have expected to be defined in a text for true beginners (for example, I didn't know what a "dry wine" was, and even the Wikipedia article wasn't much help, but the grocery store stockboy helped me out). The bigger problem was that at multiple points in the recipe, the instructions were too ambiguous to know if I was following them correctly, or I was unable to follow them exactly and didn't know how big of an adjustment I needed to make (e.g. what to do if the smallest shanks I could find were bigger than the recommended size). I still have no idea if the mediocre results were caused by one big screwup at one particular step, or the accumulation of many small deviations from what a real chef would have done.

Specifically: (1) The recipe calls for a Dutch oven. Ferriss has a brand he recommends, but can I use one from the local Fred Meyer? How big? The recipe doesn't say. I picked a five-quart since it was big enough to hold the lamb shanks. (2) The recipe calls for "lamb shanks." Fore shanks or hind shanks? Does it matter? My grocery store only has "lamb foreshanks" anyway. (3) The recipe says each shank should be 12 oz, but the smallest ones I could find were all 16 oz. What adjustments do I make? I have no idea. (4) The recipe called for "1/3 of a bottle" of wine, but later said to pour in enough "to cover 1/2-3/4 of the meat," and I couldn't do that without pouring in the whole bottle. I assumed the "cover 1/2 of the meat" direction took precedence over the "use 1/3 of the bottle" direction, but at that point I was sure that I'd deviated so far from the intent of the directions that the dish wasn't going to work. I put the whole thing into the oven at 350 degrees for two hours, which is about the only part of the recipe that I was sure that I followed correctly.

The results came out barely edible (I said "barely" — I still ate them, but I would never serve them or bring them to a party). Mostly it was a lot of work to cut through the tendons and small bones to get to the meat; if the Dutch oven was supposed to soften the meat so that everything fell off the bone, it didn't work.

The second recipe I tried was for crab cakes with harissa sauce. Right away I ran into a problem, since even in my fairly cosmopolitan city with multiple ethnic and specialty grocery stores, none of the ones I visited had ever heard of "harissa sauce." Now for directions that have been thoroughly beta-tested, this is where they would typically say, "Harissa sauce can be difficult to find, so here's where to look; otherwise, you can use this as a substitute." I found some forums saying you could use hot sauce, so I went with that. The crab cakes came out fine, but probably mostly due to the expensive crab ingredient, and I didn't like them enough to make them again.

The third recipe that I tried was for coconut cauliflower curry mash. The directions called for "crushed cashews," and said "If they're uncrushed, you can then crush them in your hands directly into the bowl. This is how Chuck Norris does it." By this time I was getting a little tired of the book being cute at the expense of being helpful — roasted cashews are physically impossible for most people to crush in their hands — but I flattened some under a rolling pin and followed the rest of the recipe. The result tasted OK, but probably only about as good as if I'd just mixed up the nuts and cauliflower and other ingredients and cooked them in a pot.

And that was the end of the ride for me. Three recipes and three results that I never thought about making again (one that was barely edible, and two that tasted only slightly better than the component ingredients mixed together, neither one all that good). Based on those sample results, my estimation is that for a true beginner going through the recipes in the book, the "success rate" would not be high enough to justify the time and money that they'd spend.

Full disclosure compels me to report that I did successfully prepare and "serve" one recipe in the book: bacon roses, which turned out about as well in my own kitchen as the ones he showed off on Jimmy Fallon. Most artificial roses have removable heads, and if you bake a couple of rolled-up slices of raw bacon, they come out resembling roses that can be threaded on the artificial-rose stems. But even then, the instructions in the book were overkill, requiring the reader to take a cupcake baking pan and drill holes in the bottom of each cupcake holder, so that you can cook the bacon in the cupcake holders while draining the fat out (but which also ruins the cupcake pan for the purpose of making actual cupcakes). For one thing, you can use silicone cupcake molds and just poke a hole in the bottom rather than drilling through aluminum; these can also be stacked when you're done, so that they take up much less storage space than a 12-muffin baking pan. But in any case I found that you could get perfectly good results just by rolling up the pieces of bacon and baking them sideways on a broiler rack; they hold their shape just as well as if you had baked them in the cupcake holders, since the rolled-up bacon hardly expands anyway. (This is the kind of thing that you also find if you have people beta-testing your recipes.)

To be fair, I'm only narrowly reviewing the book as an instructional guide to cooking. The book claims that the principles taught in its pages can be used to transform your life in a wide range of ways, including becoming world-class in "any skill" in about six months, which Ferriss says he has used to learn kickboxing, Spanish, shooting basketball 3-pointers, and Japanese horseback archery. Next on his list: writing cooking directions!

But now I'm being a smartass, and the truth is that there is potential for the recipes in these book to be transformed into something that could produce fantastic results in the hands of a beginner. Normally when I try out a "beginner's cookbook" — usually by using Amazon's "Look Inside" feature to sample a few recipes from the cookbook and print them out for free — if the first three recipes produce inedible results, I throw them out and never give the cookbook a second thought. But I'm more optimistic about re-working Ferriss's recipes in accordance with the beta-testing process above, for two reasons. First, he really does seem to have a passion for helping people and not just selling books (that's important, because it's hardly going to drive book sales to take recipes from the book and beta-test them and improve them as a free web-based project). Second, he has legions of fans who would probably volunteer as beta testers. I myself would be happy to volunteer, since the commitment of a beta tester is minimal, by design, because you're supposed to simulate the experience of a real user without overthinking it: go through the instructions one time, and record the quality of the result you get at the end. (Optionally, make a note of any ambiguous directions you encountered along the way, which might affect the quality of the end result.)

As they're written now, I don't think the recipes in the book would pass the definitional test of good directions: Give them to beginners, have them try to follow the steps, and record the results. I had essentially the same thought about the business-launching advice in Tim Ferriss's first book, The 4-Hour Workweek, which I only bought as a companion to the new book. Now I think The 4-Hour Workweek does contain a lot of useful self-help advice — for example, to get over your fear of the worst-case outcome by visualizing it entirely and realizing that it's not that bad. (Although I cracked up at the part about "outsourcing your work," thinking of a certain Verizon employee who took the advice too literally.) But for a book whose key premise is that you can liberate yourself from a 40-hour workweek, the advice about how to start a successful business to do this, occupies a surprisingly small portion of the book (pp. 150-200, if you leave out the subsequent chapter about how to automate your business once it's successful). Well, I've been a part of various entrepreneur communities since before I graduated college, and over the years I've seen many people follow some variation of the steps in those chapters, and the reality is that even if the founder does everything right, most new businesses still fizzle out just like my mediocre "osso buko."

The key difference, I think, is that any formula on how to start your own wildly successful business and shrink your workweek down to 4 hours, cannot work without a lot of luck — if it could, angel investors would just start hiring "entrepreneurs" to follow the formula exactly, if every one of those entrepreneurs (or even 25% of them) hit it out of the park with their new business venture, the investors would make out like gangbusters. Most methodical research suggests that actually only about 5% of VC-backed businesses hit their projected break-even on cash flow -- suggesting that even the best VCs can't find any combination of personal attributes, or action steps, that leads to entrepreneurial success without a big dose of luck. (Ferriss himself says that The 4-Hour Workweek was turned down by 28 out of 29 publishers, which sounds like a testament to the importance of persistence; but most authors whose work is turned down by the first 28 publishers, will usually get turned down by the 29th one too, and there was obviously a certain amount of luck in the fact that that didn't happen to him.)

On the other hand, following a recipe and producing a delicious dish, ought to be possible without luck. What you need, though, are precise directions that have been picked apart by beginner beta testers to remove any ambiguities, until you reach the point where the latest wave of beta testers was able to get through the directions with no confusion, and produce great results in nearly every case. The recipes in The 4-Hour Chef aren't at that point, but Tim Ferriss has the fan-based manpower at his disposal to test and transform those recipes into truly idiot-proof directions for delicious food, if he wants to.

Comments

Reviews Should have rules too

[Press2ToContinue]

TLDR

Re:Reviews Should have rules too

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't like this new Microsoft-safe Slashdot.

It's just SO banal.

Re:Reviews Should have rules too

[khasim]

You don't have to read the whole thing.

Sentence #4 after the "fold":

He's goofily handsome in that way that women and some men often confuse with "confidence", although he does seem to possess a lot of actual confidence.

That's where I stopped reading. I'm not a cannibal. I don't care how attractive or confident the cook is. I don't care what women think of him.

Re:Reviews Should have rules too

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm an insufferable retard.

FTFY.

Re:Reviews Should have rules too

[lahvak]

TSDR, judging grom the few pieces that I managed to get to before giving up.

In just to make things clear, the S does not mean "short".

Re:Reviews Should have rules too

[boundary]

I read as far as "Bennett Haselton writes" and just skipped the rest.

Re:Reviews Should have rules too

[Trax3001BBS]

TSDR, judging grom the few pieces that I managed to get to before giving up.

The first paragraph tells the story, everything after is to prove the first paragraph.
- My high school journalism class.

When I saw the articles length after hitting the "Read" link, I just took their word for it.

Re:Reviews Should have rules too

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you should read the book instead.

Re:Reviews Should have rules too

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you should have done remedial English instead, then you'd know that length isn't a verb.

First clue.

[sunking2]

Any recipe that calls out a Dutch Oven is not something I'm going to try.

Re:First clue.

[Anonymous Coward]

Any recipe that calls out a Dutch Oven is not something I'm going to try.

Aw, it's easy.

One is used here for a great one pot meal of Chicken and Andouille Gumbo.

Re:First clue.

[Desler]

Whoosh?

Re:First clue.

[Anonymous Coward]

Any recipe that calls out a Dutch Oven is not something I'm going to try.

there are two kinds of people I hate in this World:

1. folks who are intolerant of other people.

2. And the Dutch.

Re:First clue.

[Hatta]

Your loss, dutch ovens are awesome. It's a slow cooker AND an oven, that you can take camping. Although I would never recommend a porcelain one. Cast iron or nothing.

Re:First clue.

[Anonymous Coward]

I use the Dutch Oven two or three times a week.

That's when you pull the blankets up over your boyfriend's head and pass some ass gas.

Re:First clue.

[fl!ptop]

Cast iron or nothing.

Amen to that. I had a stainless one that we inherited after my wife's grandmother died, and I was never able to get as good a casserole or even roast cooked in it as I can w/ my cast iron one. Not sure about the other commenter who said to take it camping, it's damn heavy.

Re:First clue.

[Anonymous Coward]

For any beginning cooks reading parent's remarks, a Dutch oven is indeed the most wonderous cooking vessel, and if you only ever get one pot or pan, make it a Dutch oven. That said, there's no such thing as porcelain Dutch ovens. There are cast iron Dutch ovens that have a layer of enamel on them, and these are far superior to naked cast iron. And any chemistry nerd on here knows why you wouldn't want to have any acidic sauces--tomato-based, for example--sit in contact with naked cast iron for several hours at a time.
 
Anyone care to explain more eloquently than I why that is? :)

Re:First clue.

[fahrbot-bot]

Not sure about the other commenter who said to take it camping, it's damn heavy.

People take them camping because you can put them literally into the campfire, cover them with coals and slow (or fast) cook. I think even the Boy Scout manual has some recipes for using a cast-iron dutch oven. Pro Tip: Bring a small one - Dutch Oven, not Boy Scout :-)

Re:First clue.

[Hatta]

Nobody cooks in naked cast iron. We use seasoned cast iron that has a protective layer of carbonized fat adhereing to it. I've made homemade tomato sauce in mine many times with no ill effects to either the dutch oven or the sauce.

Re:First clue.

[HCase]

You take them if you are car camping, not when backpacking.

Re:First clue.

[Dorianny]

enameled cast iron is also very good. It has the advantage of having a better non-stick surface. It has the disadvantage of the enamel being easy to chip.

Re:First clue.

[Anonymous Coward]

This recipe tastes like ass!

Re:First clue.

[Anonymous Coward]

1 cup cabbage
1 cup cauliflower
1 cup boiled crawfish

Combine ingredients in stomach. Set temperature on medium for 8 hours. When company arrives, cover with blanket for 10 seconds and let simmer.

Serves 1

Re:First clue.

[DNAgent]

...Cast iron or nothing.

A porcelain dutch oven *is* cast iron - cast iron that has been coated with porcelain. It's not the sort of thing you'd want to shove into a campfire, but they are fantastic for cooking on or in the stove with no need for seasoning.

Re:First clue.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pass a fast gaseous ass-blast?

Re:First clue.

[TechyImmigrant]

> protective layer of carbonized fat adhereing to it
  protective layer of polymerized fat adhereing to it

There, fixed that for you.

Re:First clue.

[rpresser]

double whoosh - your link goes to the definition of "define". Try this one:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Dutch+Oven

Re:First clue.

[rpresser]

Considering that "dutch oven" is a term that is literally older than you are, it is downright stupid of you to brand anyone who misses your silly slang defintion as an aspie.

Re:First clue.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cajun food is one of the best ways to create a flavorful Dutch Oven that will truly impress the one you love.

Re:First clue.

[Hognoxious]

I agree. Since the slang definition involves two people in the same bed it makes far more sense to brand anyone who misses it as a slashdotter.

Re:First clue.

[unrtst]

Nobody cooks in naked cast iron. We use seasoned cast iron that has a protective layer of carbonized fat adhereing to it. I've made homemade tomato sauce in mine many times with no ill effects to either the dutch oven or the sauce.

From what I've heard, and experienced with my cast iron pans, cooking acidic stuff in them breaks down the seasoning you described. It'll be just fine if the next dish you cook is bacon or a ribeye or something fatty, but that protective layer continues to erode and be refreshed over the life of the pan. If you only cook stuff "safe" things in it (fatty stuff, or other stuff on a greesed pan), then that layer will keep being awesome.

Anyway... yes, you can cook tomato sauce in cast iron, and it'll be awesome... but don't make that the only thing you ever use it for, or that layer will get eaten away pretty quickly.

His food gave me the shits

[Anonymous Coward]

Woke up this morning around 3 AM, ran to the bathroom and left a massive havana pancake all over the place. I've been farting and shitting since (this is posted from the can on my Google Nexus 7" tablet). I don't know if it was the mexican food I had for lunch or the indian food I had for dinner. God damn I wish I could stop pissing out my asshole for 5 minutes.

I use a HOST file on my microwave and toaster.

[Anonymous Coward]

$10,000 CHALLENGE to Alexander Peter Kowalski

* POOR SHOWING TROLLS, & most especially IF that's the "best you've got" - apparently, it is... lol!

Hello, and THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING !! We have a Major Problem, HOST file is Cubic Opposites, 2 Major Corners & 2 Minor. NOT taught Evil DNS hijacking, which VOIDS computers. Seek Wisdom of MyCleanPC - or you die evil.

Your HOSTS file claimed to have created a single DNS resolver. I offer absolute proof that I have created 4 simultaneous DNS servers within a single rotation of .org TLD. You worship "Bill Gates", equating you to a "singularity bastard". Why do you worship a queer -1 Troll? Are you content as a singularity troll?

Evil HOSTS file Believers refuse to acknowledge 4 corner DNS resolving simultaneously around 4 quadrant created Internet - in only 1 root server, voiding the HOSTS file. You worship Microsoft impostor guised by educators as 1 god.

If you would acknowledge simple existing math proof that 4 harmonic Slashdots rotate simultaneously around squared equator and cubed Internet, proving 4 Days, Not HOSTS file! That exists only as anti-side. This page you see - cannot exist without its anti-side existence, as +0- moderation. Add +0- as One = nothing.

I will give $10,000.00 to frost pister who can disprove MyCleanPC. Evil crapflooders ignore this as a challenge would indict them.

Alex Kowalski has no Truth to think with, they accept any crap they are told to think. You are enslaved by /etc/hosts, as if domesticated animal. A school or educator who does not teach students MyCleanPC Principle, is a death threat to youth, therefore stupid and evil - begetting stupid students. How can you trust stupid PR shills who lie to you? Can't lose the $10,000.00, they cowardly ignore me. Stupid professors threaten Nature and Interwebs with word lies.

Humans fear to know natures simultaneous +4 Insightful +4 Informative +4 Funny +4 Underrated harmonic SLASHDOT creation for it debunks false trolls. Test Your HOSTS file. MyCleanPC cannot harm a File of Truth, but will delete fakes. Fake HOSTS files refuse test.

I offer evil ass Slashdot trolls $10,000.00 to disprove MyCleanPC Creation Principle. Rob Malda and Cowboy Neal have banned MyCleanPC as "Forbidden Truth Knowledge" for they cannot allow it to become known to their students. You are stupid and evil about the Internet's top and bottom, front and back and it's 2 sides. Most everything created has these Cube like values.

If Natalie Portman is not measurable, hot grits are Fictitious. Without MyCleanPC, HOSTS file is Fictitious. Anyone saying that Natalie and her Jewish father had something to do with my Internets, is a damn evil liar. IN addition to your best arsware not overtaking my work in terms of popularity, on that same site with same submission date no less, that I told Kathleen Malda how to correct her blatant, fundamental, HUGE errors in Coolmon ('uncoolmon') of not checking for performance counters being present when his program started!

You can see my dilemma. What if this is merely a ruse by an APK impostor to try and get people to delete APK's messages, perhaps all over the web? I can't be a party to such an event! My involvement with APK began at a very late stage in the game. While APK has made a career of trolling popular online forums since at least the year 2000 (newsgroups and IRC channels before that)- my involvement with APK did not begin until early 2005 . OSY is one of the many forums that APK once frequented before the sane people there grew tired of his garbage and banned him. APK was banned from OSY back in 2001. 3.5 years after his banning he begins to send a variety of abusiv

Re:I use a HOST file on my microwave and toaster.

[DocGerbil100]

Sweet baby Moses, this is beautiful work - I wish we could get trolls as good as this on TF. :)

Thank you, AC.
Much obliged.
:D

Re:I use a HOST file on my microwave and toaster.

[Hunter Shoptaw]

I will hand it to him, he is definitely consistent. I wish I knew how he did this. That thing is scary huge. (and yes, that IS what she said.)

Re:I use a HOST file on my microwave and toaster.

[rpresser]

It looks like he took a search-and-replace axe to Time Cube.

"Dry wine"?

[Gordonjcp]

for example, I didn't know what a "dry wine" was

How on earth do you reach adulthood without knowing what a dry wine is?

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Custard Horse]

How on earth do you reach adulthood without knowing what a dry wine is?

They don't serve it in prison...

Re:"Dry wine"?

[raburton]

This is the point I stopped reading. If looking at wine in a shop to see which ones are labelled as dry is beyond him I'm not surprised the results of his attempt to follow a recipe weren't great. Just because a book is intended for a "newbie" doesn't mean it'll work equally well for a retard.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[cayenne8]

Yeah, wine terminology should be pretty simple for most any adult, I guess except those that do no alcohol whatsoever (God I feel sorry for them, when they wake up in the morning, THAT is the best they're gonna feel all day!!), and I'd guess they'd not be even cooking with wine, since all the ethanol does not burn off.

That being said, I'm really puzzled about why so many people (especially women these days) can't seem to cook?

Didn't ya'lls mom's get you in the kitchen to help when you were young? If for nothing else, mine did to get help in the house, but also to make sure I knew how to take care of myself when I did leave the 'nest'.

But hell, of late, I can't hardly find a woman that knows how to cook shit. What happened there?

Actually, I know...somehow, somewhere along the way...everyone started eating out and eating crap.

I didn't realize this till after Katrina...when I lived with some friends while I got a place to live and job, etc.

I stayed with one family, two small kids...about 8-9 yrs old. The dad was out of town, so just me there with the wife and kids. I was shocked to see that so many meals at night were: Popeye's, Sonic....fast food. The others that were 'home cooked'...frozen, prepared food from the store. The home cooked meal from scratch was a rarity.

Me? I'm the opposite. I love to cook, and tho I don't have a lot of time, I dedicate my Sunday's to cooking. I cook often 2-4 entrees, and the same sides...and eat those throughout the week for lunches and dinner, finishing them by about Friday or so. Or, during the summer, I like to grill things...grill some meats and LOTS of veggies. And during the week, those are quick to warm up for salads, or pita sandwiches (whip up a quick taziki sauce)..or stuff like that.

I'd rather save up my pennies for dining out at a REAL restaurant. Not a chain, but a place with a real chef, and honest to goodness service and good wine, etc. I'd rather blow a good chunk of coin fine dining than a little bit here and there on crap food and no service .

And let's face it...fast food isn't all that cheap anymore. I do occasionally like a crap food day...Taco Bell was nearly $10. Ouch.

But anyway....cooking is easy. Good tools do help, money spent on good knives and pans are well spent. Drop some coin on a good Wusthof-Trident knives (a couple of basic ones will do), and maybe a couple of good All-Clad SS fry pans/pots. Yes, they are $$, but they will last you a lifetime.

Hell, start out with good cast iron, that is cheap and when cared for...will last you the same lifetime.

And then....look at the grocery store ads in your town. See what ingredients are on sale that week. Get on the internet, and look up recipes with those ingredients and pick something fun to try, and do it.

And try this too...to be a bit healthier. When shopping at the grocery store, try to shop ONLY along the outside perimeter of the store, where the real, non-processed foods are: veggies, meats, dairy. (It is ok to venture into the aisles if that's where they keep the beer, wine and liquor tho).

But seriously, it isn't rocket science. Try it. And if you're a guy, you can definitely impress the ladies with cooking skills, AND...it is a great excuse to get them into YOUR house, where you likely have a bed nearby.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jail's not so bad. You can make sangria in the terlet. Course, it's shank or be shanked.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

And why would someone who is obviously so disinterested in food that he doesn't know such a simple fact even try cooking recipes from a cookbook, be it for beginners or not. The author should probably stick to sandwiches and ramen noodles, why cook if you're not interested?

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the point I stopped reading. If looking at wine in a shop to see which ones are labelled as dry is beyond him I'm not surprised the results of his attempt to follow a recipe weren't great. Just because a book is intended for a "newbie" doesn't mean it'll work equally well for a retard.

And yet he believes he's passed beginner level. . .

I've done this so many times for so many "beginner cookbooks," that I've probably lost my true "beginner" cook status in the process

It reminds me of some research I read about how the totally inept (5th percentile) are so bad at something they don't realize it and think they're okay and have more confidence than the 50th percentile.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[mjr167]

By not drinking wines? What makes a wine "dry" and not "wet"? Pretty much the only thing I know about wine is that some are red and some are white and some are pink and it doesn't froth properly.

Not to mention that the wine description terms are all bizarre and might get you fired if someone heard them out of context.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[RobertLTux]

plus if you are a "civilian contractor" that needs to at times "redact" a client being able to cook gives you a GREAT way to do the job

Re:"Dry wine"?

[DerekLyons]

Similarly - How on earth do you survive in modern times without knowing how to Google or having the common sense to ask for help?

The author is a complete ass, and this crappy "review" disinclines me to listen to anything else he has to say. Cooking is like any other skill, you can't follow instructions robotically and expect to come out with an edible result - you have to think and you have to practice. Yes, you'll screw stuff up, but you won't learn without trying.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a wonderful example of the exact point he was getting at. Once you've known something for a long while, you easily lose the ability to deal with the fact that some people won't know it. Someone who knows enough cooking to reasonably write a cooking book is very likely to be deficient in this way on a great many topics, just like you are on the topic of dry vines. You couldn't teach someone who doesn't know what a dry vine is because you have a reduced capacity to realize that that would be necessary or even appropriate. I initially had a hell of a time teaching introduction to programming for the same reason. It's a very common deficiency in beginner teachers. For books it's doubly bad because the writer of the book doesn't necessarily get to observe complete beginners using the book. A real-world teacher will probably eventually face reality through experience but not so for a book writer. Hence this article.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

not everyone drinks wine as an adult. some of us prefer beer or liquor. I don't have a clue about wine, and that's because I can't stand the taste of the stuff to drink it.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone might easily know the general concept of a dry wine, but might not know which one to pick out. How dry is dry? What types of wine are a safe bet? If this book is supposed to be for absolute beginners, why not just add a parenthesis with something like "I suggest Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah, or Pinot Noir. A $6-$7 wine will be fine for this recipe"?

Re:"Dry wine"?

[jedidiah]

It's not 1950. There's this thing called the Internet. If you don't know what something is, then look it up. Even in the 50s, this could be done by using some reference material. The database was on paper and it was a bit of a bother, but it was still available.

Clueless in 2013? Just Google it.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems to be an example of a larger pattern of issues with taking a recipe too literal. I've taught myself to cook from books too, so I've been there as a beginner and didn't have such a problem. Someone else in this thread complains as if it was hopeless for those that don't drink alcohol... except when I started cooking I knew almost nothing about wine but didn't have a problem the first time I came across a recipe calling for dry wine despite my not knowing what that means. The solution was quite simple: look it up.

Basic cooking can be kind of broken down into three categories of knowledge required: the techniques, the ingredients, and the recipe. The recipe part of the cook book will usually only cover the last. If it covered the other two parts at the same time, other than the most basic, "Your first ten recipes," book, the recipes would largely become redundant. Although sometimes authors will make a judgement call and give detailed instructions in the recipe for less common ingredients still. That said, a large number of the cookbooks I have either have an intro chapter explaining the ingredients, or page long blurbs scatter throughout the appropriate section covering a single ingredient each. Books that cover techniques are a little less common, but still are around, especially beginners ones. Nonetheless, there are a few that illustrate every step, as I once came across a BBQ book that spent a quarter of every single recipe in the book explaining how to start a charcoal fire.

But the point is, at almost any level of cooking, you should look at the recipe first, then as a matter of procedure, look up intro information on any ingredient or technique you are not familiar with. The internet has made this much, much easier, although there are still plenty of books around that cover just ingredients or techniques too. So if you start a recipe that calls for cooking with wine, look up for an article on cooking wines. If you aren't sure what the difference between different lamb cuts are or which one is better for something, look up a basic article on cooking with lamb. Yes, this means the first couple recipes require a lot more reading, but what you will learn in the process will apply to many, many other recipes. Once you get a basic tool belt of techniques and ingredients going, it goes a lot quicker to learn new recipes. But even at the advanced level, you will find you need to look up info on something if you've never used it before. And most importantly, it will help you deal with inconsistencies that are ubiquitous in ingredients and tools, and teach you a bit how to adapt, making the recipes much more flexible.

It is actually kind of funny how much I've seen some computer/programmer types complain about using such an approach to recipes. The approach is modular, and is analogous to software design patterns. Think of it as recipes having subroutines, which may not be defined in the same file. There is a reason programs are not written with everything defined in line or in one single file once you get beyond the simplest of examples.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

because who the fuck cares? What are you some fucking hipster?

Re:"Dry wine"?

[realityimpaired]

You couldn't teach someone who doesn't know what a dry vine is because you have a reduced capacity to realize that that would be necessary or even appropriate.

Yes you could, because people aren't *that* stupid. Even if you have no clue what a dry wine is, there are people who make a career out of selling wine. You can go to one of those people, and ask them to help you pick a wine out. They are usually easy to find anywhere you can buy wine, for some reason.

The same goes for any ingredients. The only situation where a person can't be taught how to cook is if they don't know how to use a measuring cup, or they don't have the right tools. Neither are impediments that can't be overcome, but it is not the job of the person writing a cookbook to tell you how to measure stuff, nor is it their job to go out and buy you appropriate cookware. There are salespeople for that.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Antipater]

Do you at least know how to read a label, and see which ones are labeled "dry"?

I'm a car newbie. I don't have a clue about motor oil. But if someone tells me "get synthetic motor oil", I at least know how to find a bottle of it at the store, because "synthetic" is right there on the dang label.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[swanzilla]

How on earth do you reach adulthood without knowing what a dry wine is?

Too busy with his furniture hacks?

Re:"Dry wine"?

[dopeghost]

I guess except those that do not drink alcohol whatsoever (God I feel sorry for them, when they wake up in the morning, THAT is the best they're gonna feel all day!!)

nicely put, tho 'waking up like shit and feeling that all day' is what keeps me a non-drinker the other 6 days of the week!

Re:"Dry wine"?

[mjr167]

According to Google, the definition of a "dry" wine is one that is not "sweet." They are not labeled "sweet" or "dry" when you go to the grocery store to buy one. Their descriptions have things like "baked, feminine aroma with tight, zesty, legs" or some other such nonsense.

Wine is something that it really sucks to have to buy for those of us that don't do it very often. What's the difference between a $100 bottle of wine, a $30 bottle of wine, and a $10 bottle of wine? Which do I want to pour on top of my roast? Will any "dry" wine do? Do I want one from California or from Argentina? And no, the guy stocking selves in the grocery store cannot answer these questions and google does not know which varieties of wine my grocery store has in stock today.

If I am just going to go and "ask google" how to make my roast, why the fuck did I buy a cook book?

Re:"Dry wine"?

[gl4ss]

same that makes everything else either dry or sweet. what is lamb? what is a pot? what is salty?

I'm just wondering what the fuck is a lazy ass book review of a shitty cooking book doing on slashdot..

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, right? I made a recipe from a cookbook once, and some time after I ate it, the food started coming out of my ass as a kind of brown paste! I had no idea what to do, and the book didn't say anything about that at all.

If I am just going to go and "ask google" how to take a shit, why the fuck did I buy a cook book?

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

MAYBE SOME OF THE PARTS OF THE BOOK YOU FUCKING SKIPPED WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU YOU FUCKING MORON.

Seriously, this is everything that is wrong with the generation coming up today. They think they can know everything abot something by looking it up and skimming a paragraph for 5 seconds. Fucking idiots.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read the review? That's exactly what he did. It's still worth the recipe having a sentence on what dry actually means, if it's meant to be useful to beginners.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure how you used Google to get nothing more than a dry wine is not a sweet wine. I started to type "What dry wine..." and autocomplete recommended "what dry wine to cook with." The very first link the search brought up was this article, which in bold tells you what types of wines to look for, and then goes into a little more detail. It took only a few seconds to find this information.

If I am just going to go and "ask google" how to make my roast, why the fuck did I buy a cook book?

You buy a cookbook because either you want a list of recipes with some barrier to entry (i.e. without having to sort through hundreds of similar slightly more random recipes on the web), or because you don't know how to learn to cook. There is more to learning to cook than just a recipe. Chances are the front of the cookbook you bought covers a lot of that, or alternatively you can buy a book just to cover such topics. Or you can look up such things online instead of buying one of the phone book sized books on how to choose and use specific ingredients.

With the internet now, the main reason to buy a cook book is to filter out information, not to get something all inclusive. Once you learn the basics, whether from the web or a cook book, then you can get better at telling a head of time what random recipe you find online is going to have a chance of working or not, and there is not much need for such a filter.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[M. Baranczak]

why not just add a parenthesis with something like "I suggest Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah, or Pinot Noir. A $6-$7 wine will be fine for this recipe"?

Because it's bullshit. If a recipe calls for "red wine", you can just grab a bottle at random and you'll be OK. Hell, I know a chef who uses Night Train as his default cooking wine, and the results are pretty tasty.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

By living my life the way I did. Next...

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Rinikusu]

/* wine terminology should be pretty simple for most any adult */

I must preface my response to "Where the fuck do you live?" Wine knowledge in America is dismal. It's downright horrible. America, in general, is not a wine drinking country. Yes, there are many many exceptions and most of them are very socioeconomic. My parents did not drink wine. Beer? Yes. And I don't mean Microbrews, I mean Budweiser. My entire extended family is the same. Wine? Why get wine when you can drink Budweiser, or if you were one of my more rowdy relatives, drink with Evan (williams) and Jack (Daniels). Even here in Los Angeles, where I've found we have a very large selection of wine purveyors, selling everything from Two Buck Chuck to various cult wines, I'd say 80% of my social circle is absolutely wine ignorant. Including myself, for the most part. So, please forgive me for saying this, but your statement is extremely *ignorant*, which isn't a bad thing. It may boggle your mind the way many of us technologically inclined folks are boggled how people can't tell the difference between a pop-up ad saying you have a virus and need to update your computer and a real dialog window, but the masses continually prove us wrong. /* But hell, of late, I can't hardly find a woman that knows how to cook shit. What happened there? */

True fucking story. I can cook better than any woman I've dated. I learned a few basic recipes and learned how to tweak them (basically, how to roast meats and vegetables, and how to apply those same things to the pan and to the crock pot). I'm not deep, but I'm well versed in what I do know, and I like what I cook. Having said that, I'm over "liking to cook". You may like to set aside Sunday for cooking, I like setting aside Sunday for other activities. See, people have different interests and priorities, right? Hell, I went to culinary school and have the student loans and knives to prove it. But something you didn't mention: Yes, go buy some great knives. Don't forget to have them sharpened and don't neglect them. While that may seem like no big deal to you, these are the same people that don't buy suits and other "fine clothing" because they can't be bothered to swing by the dry cleaners regularly. I love my knives (but couldn't tell you who made them), but to get them sharpened, I have to wrap them, pack them, then ride the train 10 minutes to get to the knife shop, drop them off, go putter around for a couple hours while they get to them, then pick them up and go home. It feels like a wasted day at that point. It does remind me, I should do that this weekend. Now, you could say I should learn to sharpen them myself! And right you would be. But I don't give a shit about learning how to sharpen a kitchen knife or acquiring the stones to do it with.

Why go out and eat crap? Three hundred and fifty square feet. The act of getting up and leaving the apartment is something in and of itself, but living in such a small place, you find excuses. If I stay home and cook, i'm still stuck in the same apartment. I get up and walk to the Carl's Jr, I at least get to get some air, daily, and interact with complete and total strangers on occasion.

So, yes, while i agree with your general sentiment, I really can't be bothered to do it. I can think of 10 things I'd rather do than cook these days. Which is why I taught my girlfriend how to cook (and yes, my cooking skills were what wowed her on our first date... ;) ). I suppose if I were single, I'd have to break it all out again... :D

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Mindcontrolled]

They are not labeled "sweet" or "dry" when you go to the grocery store to buy one. Their descriptions have things like "baked, feminine aroma with tight, zesty, legs" or some other such nonsense.

Except, that's only true in strawmanland. Wine terminology is pretty consistent and reproducible. Exception, as usually, exist. Also, don't you have at least one decent wine store in the region where you just could ask something like "I need something to braise a lamb shank in, what would you recommend?". They tend to know their stuff.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[TheoMurpse]

Agreed. If you're going to demand that a cookbook, even one for beginners, define "dry wine" before instructing you to use it, then you should demand the book define what "boil" and "carrot" mean. Jeez. "Dry wine" should be common knowledge among any adult.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'l start reviewing IT books.

"How am I supposed to know what a 'computer' is? It says 'press F5', but on which keyboard? Do I press F and then 5? What am I supposed to feed this 'monitor' thing? And aren't lizards illegal to keep without a license?"

Sorry, that was about 11,000 words too short to compete with OP.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love my knives (but couldn't tell you who made them), but to get them sharpened, I have to wrap them, pack them, then ride the train 10 minutes to get to the knife shop, drop them off, go putter around for a couple hours while they get to them, then pick them up and go home. It feels like a wasted day at that point. It does remind me, I should do that this weekend. Now, you could say I should learn to sharpen them myself! And right you would be. But I don't give a shit about learning how to sharpen a kitchen knife or acquiring the stones to do it with.

I bought decent, but not exceptional knives: basically a $100 set. It was enough that they came reasonably sharpened and were not just stamped crap. I've never had them professionally sharpened and I've never used a stone on them (even though I have some for use on tools). I've just used the sharpening steel that came with the set, and spending a 30-60 seconds a week, and they've stayed sharp enough for daily use over about ten years now. I should use the steel before and after every use, but even after getting lazy, I realized once a week kept them pretty sharp. I wouldn't need a stone or professional sharpener unless I dropped them and nicked the blade, and even then using a stone doesn't take that long if you do it infrequently and don't need major servicing of the edge. And nicer knives will let you get them even more sharp or stay sharper longer, but that hasn't prevented me from using cheaper ones for the vast majority of cooking.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[TechyImmigrant]

It reminds me of some research I read about how the totally inept (5th percentile) are so bad at something they don't realize it and think they're okay and have more confidence than the 50th percentile.

This? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Prison aint so bad ....

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Anon is saying the GP couldn't teach it because he thinks everyone already knows about wines (as if all cooking requires wine) and therefore doesn't realize he needs to. After all, in what non-beverage context does dry mean a lack of sweetness?

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Hognoxious]

People with names like "Bennet Haselton" don't go to prison.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Hognoxious]

They are not labeled "sweet" or "dry" when you go to the grocery store to buy one.

True. Round here it says shit like "doux" or "sec". WTF is all that about?

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Hognoxious]

just like you are on the topic of dry vines.

Using speech-to-text software is OK, but you need to lose the German accent.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Mindcontrolled]

It is a particularly prevalent point when it comes to cooking, though - people somewhat accept that they can't crank out top notch code after reading JavaScript for dummies, but when it comes to cooking, suddenly there is some weird expectation that you should be perfect without practice, experience and common sense.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[mattack2]

â¦you are someone who doesn't drink alcohol (to any serious degree, though I have had sips of various things)?

(Purposefully possibly wrong: I *think* it just means it's not sweet, but given various wine, I couldn't tell where the dividing line between dry and not dry is.)

Re:"Dry wine"?

[mattack2]

But hell, of late, I can't hardly find a woman that knows how to cook shit. What happened there?

That's not at all sexist.. nope.

Me? I'm the opposite. I love to cook, and tho I don't have a lot of time, I dedicate my Sunday's to cooking. I cook often 2-4 entrees, and the same sides...and eat those throughout the week for lunches and dinner, finishing them by about Friday or so.

You "don't have a lot of time", yet you *dedicate* hours and hours one day a week to cooking.

It definitely sounds like you LIKE cooking. Great. I don't. Heck, doing laundry (which I admit is mostly throwing it in a machine, then throwing it in another machine, then folding it) is more fun, and I don't like doing laundry!

I have the time to cook, I don't want to cook. I bet that's the case for most of the other readers.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[mattack2]

He wasn't talking about someone at a store, he was talking about WHAT ACTUALLY APPEARS ON THE LABEL.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[DerekLyons]

*sigh* You're right of course. But the author is still a jackass for pandering to that.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Mindcontrolled]

Oh does it now? Well, let me review my cellar. Above a certain point of quality, the labels offer no characterisation at all - those would be wines, however, which are not available in the supermarket, wine you would be expected to have tasted before purchase, mostly directly from the producer. When the label makes any statement about the wine, I read stuff like "mineralic", "strong taste of berries with a hint of leather", "well integrated tannines" - those terms have meaning. They mostly go with hints as "serve at 12-14ÂC", "goes well with cheese and roasted meats". I just don't see the pointless waffle the OP mentioned. Sure, there might be wines labled such - but then again, that would be a good indicator that they should not be bought.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Mindcontrolled]

It's "trocken" or "lieblich" here, WTF? Oh the confusion. "lieblich" for sweet ones, btw, translates to "lovely". Ahhh. The weirdness.One has to wonder about the wine culture in the US, though. I live in the middle of Bavaria, a region not particularly known for wine appreciation, we are beer guys after all. Yet, in a town of 40.000 inhabitants, I could name 3 shops with competent staff able to answer questions like "I need something to braise lamb in".

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Gordonjcp]

If you don't drink alcohol, then you could - as others have already said - look at the label, or ask the kid stacking shelves in the wine section of the supermarket. You're a geek, you're supposed to know stuff and want to find out *more* stuff.

Chances are though, if you don't drink wine then you won't necessarily want to cook a recipe that involves wine. Many people who don't drink alcohol for religious reasons don't eat things cooked with wine or beer because of the alcohol content - and no, the alcohol *doesn't* boil off.

Of course, if you don't drink wine because you just don't like it, it's quite likely you won't like the taste of a thing cooked with wine. In that case, you should probably stick to bland stuff and go back go Burger King or Nando's.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Hognoxious]

Cooking is like any other skill, you can't follow instructions robotically and expect to come out with an edible result

Yes you can. It might not be perfect, but assuming you're not a total klutz or attempting something very complicated when all you've ever done before is beans on toast it should be passable.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Hognoxious]

After all, in what non-beverage context does dry mean a lack of sweetness?

The context is beverages, so the other meanings are all totally irrelevant.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't sharpened my knives for 10 years, they will still slice your finger off. $100? Some of the knives for my personal brand are $50, for one knife. I guess it depends what you can decent. I will say this if you have a full tongue on your knife, and the handle isn't wood at least you got that. I think if I remember right one of the nicer sets as $1.5k. I do agree that knives make the chef to a large degree. Knowing how to use them makes more of a difference. My girl can use the same knives, but not nearly as effective. She is getting much better though.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Matje]

huh of course the alcohol evaporates. the alcohol cloud is what burns when you pour liquor in a pan and set it aflame. try it: heat some liquor in a pan and light it (be careful and use less than half a cup). now repeat but wait with the ignition for a minute or so. it will not burn because the alcohol has been drifted away already.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The context is cooking.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Gordonjcp]

You've got to get it *seriously* hot for the alcohol to vapourise like that. If you're cooking something in a wine sauce, then the alcohol won't boil off. Ethanol boils at roughly 79ÂC (watch slashdot make an arse of the degree symbol) which is way, way hotter than you'd cook your sauce at.

Re:"Dry wine"?

[cayenne8]

But cooking for yourself these days...is about the ONLY way your going to get good nutrition.

Eating out all the time, with processed foods, etc....is the road to a quicker death, and possible diabetes.

How much is your time worth, if you are shortening the time you have left on earth?

Re:"Dry wine"?

[Panruru]

Thank you. Finally a commenter who isn't a fucking asshole.

Not everyone can be a master chef. Becoming good at cooking takes time, guidance, and *money*. If a recipe doesn't turn out right, that means I don't get to eat. I can't afford to buy a bunch of weird ingredients and equipment just because a recipe sounds cool. I also dislike cooking new things because I frequently find that instructions are ambiguous or incomplete. Great review, that cookbook sounds cool but I'd never buy it.

Wrong objective

[DNS-and-BIND]

Cooks don't write cookbooks so that people can make the foods. They write cookbooks so that they can be writers. That's the objective. Most people who buy cookbooks just read them and gaze lovingly at the photos (which of course have been specially staged by professional photographers). Successfully enabling novices (I hate the word "newbie" outside its computer context) to successfully make delicious food isn't even on the menu.

Re:Wrong objective

[Gordonjcp]

A proper "cookbook for geeks" wouldn't have complete recipes, it would have a bunch of examples of techniques - here's how to make a roux, here's how to make that into a white sauce, you can do a bunch of stuff to that white sauce now like make it a cheese sauce, that kind of thing.

Reading the "review" it sounds like he really doesn't have much idea about food or cooking. I don't really understand how someone can grow up not knowing the basics of cooking and eating.

Re:Wrong objective

[Mindcontrolled]

A proper "cookbook for geeks" wouldn't have complete recipes, it would have a bunch of examples of techniques - here's how to make a roux, here's how to make that into a white sauce, you can do a bunch of stuff to that white sauce now like make it a cheese sauce, that kind of thing.

There's enough of that kind available - Jacques Pepin's Techniques is quite good, though the illustration quality lacks sadly.

But, yeah, that review is atrocious. Sadly, enough people seem indeed to grow up withour knowing the basics of cooking and eating. We are losing parts of an essential cultural technique outside of some niches. Hell, I once saw premade scrambled eggs on toast deep-frozen in a supermarket. WTF.

Re:Wrong objective

[interval1066]

A proper "cookbook for geeks" wouldn't have complete recipes, it would have a bunch of examples of techniques...

Irma Rombauer's timeless classic "Joy Of Cooking" is such a book. It should be the "starting point" of any culinary flowchart.
Dinner: Sorted.

Re:Wrong objective

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a major reason why I found myself fond of the "Good Eats" volumes that Alton Brown and Food Network published after Good Eats went off the air.

The book concerns itself with the chemical and mechanical details of what you're doing more than most other "cookbooks" I've seen bother to do. "Don't overbeat the muffins" is something we've all heard a thousand times before; "The ingredients for the brownies contain gluten, mixing gluten causes it to form into strands, so the more you mix the gluten the more your brownies will resemble blueberry-studded bricks" is a much more compelling argument for me.

A bunch of what those books describe is also quite a bit more practical, since big themes of the show that they're based on are "you should absolutely try this at home" and "going to the store to buy a piece of cooking hardware just for a recipe is for suckers."

Re:Wrong objective

[Anonymous Coward]

A proper "cookbook for geeks" wouldn't have complete recipes, it would have a bunch of examples of techniques - here's how to make a roux, here's how to make that into a white sauce, you can do a bunch of stuff to that white sauce now like make it a cheese sauce, that kind of thing.

Reading the "review" it sounds like he really doesn't have much idea about food or cooking. I don't really understand how someone can grow up not knowing the basics of cooking and eating.

I don't really understand how someone can grow up not knowing that people can grow up with different backgrounds, perhaps learning things at different times in their lives. Not everyone comes out of the womb knowing how to cook, or what a dry wine is.

For example, I learned early on that anyone who uses the word "roux" in a condescending post is a douche. You, however, have yet to learn that. I don't really understand how someone can grow up not knowing the basics of not being a douche...

Re:Wrong objective

[jedidiah]

Everybody needs to eat sometime.

Cooking is generally a pre-requisite for that.

Re:Wrong objective

[realityimpaired]

Usually, but in an increasingly large part of the world, "cooking" means upacking a prefab and putting it in the microwave.

I confess I'm guilty of that sometimes... there are nights I just don't have the time to cook properly, and I use prefab sauce to save time. The modern industrialized world just doesn't lend itself to having that kind of time, unfortunately.

Re:Wrong objective

[Anonymous Coward]

There's enough of that kind available - Jacques Pepin's Techniques is quite good, though the illustration quality lacks sadly.

When the combined one-volume edition of Techniques was published, the publisher photo-reduced the printed pages of the original two volumes, rather than go to the expense of having new half-tones made. If you want to see what the photos are supposed to look like, you need to dig up copies of La Technique and La Technique II.

Re:Wrong objective

[triffid_98]

Seconded, if you only buy one cookbook, buy that one. It's not (at least the editions I've used) terribly useful for ethnic foods or specialty items but if you're cooking classic dishes from scratch it's an outstanding resource.

Re:Wrong objective

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't find the time to cook in the modern industrialized world I believe you would have starved pre-industrial.

Re:Wrong objective

[tigersha]

"Don't overbeat the muffins".

Yeah. I've heard that one. From my mom, who makes the best scones in the world. She told me a zillion times not to do that. And one day I watched her make scones. She put the things into the kitchenaid, and turned it on slow. Just as she should. Then she suddenly put it on full blast. I was like "WTF! Why?!!!" She shrugged and said "It did not look right, now it's OK"

The scones were perfect and I have never made anyone like hers. That is what experience does.

Re:Wrong objective

[TechyImmigrant]

A proper "cookbook for geeks" wouldn't have complete recipes, it would have a bunch of examples of techniques - here's how to make a roux, here's how to make that into a white sauce, you can do a bunch of stuff to that white sauce now like make it a cheese sauce, that kind of thing.

Julia Child, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle already wrote that book.

Re:Wrong objective

[Hognoxious]

I saw frozen mashed potatoes once. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but if you can't be arsed to make them properly (and I sometimes can't) isn't that what the powder/granules are for? Kids today...

Re:Wrong objective

[Mindcontrolled]

To be honest, they actually might be better frozen than rehydrated.... But yeah, you gotta wonder.

Re:Wrong objective

[Mindcontrolled]

When the combined one-volume edition of Techniques was published, the publisher photo-reduced the printed pages of the original two volumes, rather than go to the expense of having new half-tones made. If you want to see what the photos are supposed to look like, you need to dig up copies of La Technique and La Technique II.

Hmmm. Thanks for that tip. Time to consult Amazon.fr, I guess :D

Re:Wrong objective

[BooMonster]

Frozen are easy do do in the microwave. I'm continually amazed at how much my mother-in-law cooks in the microwave. I'm also continually amazed at how often she complains that the food is cold and tasteless.

Re:Wrong objective

[Mindcontrolled]

Bullcrap. I cook to a pretty high standard and I work a rather demanding job at a law firm. Most of the stuff I do during the week doesn't take more than 20 minutes active time in the kitchen. If you don't "have" that time, it means you do not want to take it. Nothing against convenience products - there are days where I am so knocked out that I just slam a frozen pizza in the oven, but generally - there are hundreds of pasta sauces I can make within 15 minutes, quickly pan-seared meats with vegetable garnishes that won't take longer, tasty soups made by grabbing a fond I made previously on a weekend from the freezer and dropping everything that won't run away when I open the vegetable drawer in the fridge into it.

Re:Wrong objective

[Panruru]

Where do you find your recipes? Really, I want to know. How do you know how to make all these delicious 20-minute meals? The only thing my mama taught me was not to put eggs in the microwave. And for the record, we only ate out when we were on vacation. However, I definitely prefer eating at a restaurant to her cooking.

Re:Wrong objective

[Mindcontrolled]

All over the place, to be honest. My cookbook library is rather large and keeps growing. In my opinion, though, if you want to learn how to make something quick and tasty, you need to learn basic techniques and you need practise. For basic techniques, there are lots of suggestions in this thread. Joy of Cooking is good, as is Pepin's Techniques. The latter my somewhat be overwhelming to a beginner, since it discusses a lot of stuff which is only relevant to higher-end french cuisine. You definitely don't need to know how to prepare a bird en crapaudine.

Good quick recipes can be found in Jamie Oliver's 30 minute meals, too. Although, without some practise and experience, you probably won't make those in 30 minutes in the beginning.

Generally, just look for simplicity. A simple yet very tasty pasta sauce is just made by chopping an onion, quickly frying it in olive oil, adding chopped tomatoes and basil and letting it simmer for 10 minutes. In parallel, you boil the pasta. Done. 15 minutes. Endless variations are possible - add bacon and chilis to that mix - there you are, sauce arrabiata, add olives, capers and sardelles - sauce puttanesca.

Also good for a quick weekday meal is any piece of meat that you can quickly roast in the oven - for example duck or chicken breast, filet of pork. Just rub in some spices, quickly sear in the pan, slam it in the oven for 15 minutes, done. While it roasts, there is ample time to make some vegetables or salad to accompany it.

Ok, this has become a rather lengthy essay - hope it helped.

Re:Wrong objective

[Panruru]

As someone who regularly eats instant noodles and condensed soup on toast, I thank you for your kind response. I'll try the pasta, getting really sick of pasta with margarine (another dish from home).

Re:Wrong objective

[Mindcontrolled]

Great! Just as a precausionary note, and please don't be offended if you know this, but given your stated culinary background I better say it: recipes like I gave you are shorthand and assume certain things. E. g. the pasta recipe assumes of course that you season it with salt and pepper to taste when finished cooking, that you fry the onions at medium heat until glassy but not brown. If you need more tips, feel free to hop over to www.cheftalk.com - I am going by GeneMachine on the forums there and I, as well as the whole community there in the Cooking Discussions forum would be happy to supply any info needed. Also, stop that pasta with margarine thing. It is an abomination unto the Lord, blessed be His Noodly Appendages, verily ;)

Re:Wrong objective

[Panruru]

I'm not offended at all; with my level of knowledge, nothing should be assumed. The recipes I attempt usually take at least an hour and never turn out quite right ... except for meatloaf, which I have mastered by repeatedly tweaking the recipe to taste. Sometimes I can make stir fry. I'll check out that site you linked.

And thank you for the tip about the margarine; I had always suspected as such, but far be it from me to complain about Mom's cooking.

Re:Wrong objective

[Mindcontrolled]

Replace the margarine with butter and you are fine - Melt some butter until it foams but does not yet brown, stir in fresh, chopped sage leaves, pour over pasta, Add parmesan. Voilà - pasta con burro e salvia. Or fry some chopped onion in it at low-medium heat, add lemon juice - pasta al limone. Or take olive oil instead of butter and fry some garlic in it at low heat, not browning it. Pasta aglio e olio. Those three are 10-minute recipes.

If you need any more tips, feel free to drop me a PM at the cheftalk forums :D

Cooking books more worthy to be on Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen

The Science of Good Cooking (Cook's Illustrated Cookbooks)

Posted this instead of bitching about this review not being "News for Nerds and all that Matters."

Re:Cooking books more worthy to be on Slashdot

[SlashdotOgre]

I would also add, "CookWise: The Hows & Whys of Successful Cooking, The Secrets of Cooking Revealed" by Shirley O. Corriher to the list. It explains rational behind why things work the way they do (i.e. why lard or shortening produce a flakier crust than butter). It doesn't shy away from details, discussing things like Maillard reactions, and the recipes are well chosen to focus on what's being described and tasty too.

Re:Cooking books more worthy to be on Slashdot

[cyberzephyr]

I have all of the above books and being a chef as well, i'm going to watch this one argument play out.

I would add that Julia Child and M.F.K. Fisher are great influences in the food scene.

Nathan Mhyrvold is a great guy with the dough to pull off what he did with Modernist Cuisine.

Mcghee's book is standard learning now.

Anything by Cooks should be regarded as well done, they don't miss much if anything.

Re:Cooking books more worthy to be on Slashdot

[TapeCutter]

Anything by Cooks should be regarded as well done

Great, I hate finding blood in my steak after ordering it well done.

Sounds like a lack of experience all right

[Marxist Hacker 42]

" porcelain Dutch oven"

All the dutch ovens I've ever seen are cast iron- designed for their original purpose- to be an iron oven you can drop into a campfire and bake stuff in.

Re:Sounds like a lack of experience all right

[karmawhore]

All the dutch ovens I've ever seen are cast iron- designed for their original purpose- to be an iron oven you can drop into a campfire and bake stuff in.

I assume he meant enameled cast iron, like La Creuset. I would love to know where he found one for $60.

Re:Sounds like a lack of experience all right

[jfengel]

He's talking about enamel-covered iron Dutch ovens. They're nice in that they don't rust and can be thrown in a dishwasher. They're generally white inside, which can be an advantage over the black cast iron ones, especially in a recipe like this where it helps to see the brown stuff sticking to the bottom of the pan.

The best-known ones run $200+ from La Creuset, but I picked up one by Tramontina for under $40 and it does a fine job. It's a nice item to have on hand, and you can also use it for general large-pot purposes (making pasta, soups, etc.) You could use a plain cast-iron pot about as well, and considerably cheaper, though honestly if all you have is your basic six-quart steel pot, it would also serve for this recipe. (Do avoid the ultra-cheap flimsy aluminum ones, which will burn your food, and then the handles will fall off.)

Re:Sounds like a lack of experience all right

[Marxist Hacker 42]

He said. Fred Meyer, which for those of you not blessed to live in Cascadia, is a child company of Kroger''s. (well, it is now- my dad actually KNEW the original Fred Meyer and at one time battled against him putting one of his "One stop shopping" supermarkets in Albany, Oregon back in the 1960s).

Re:Sounds like a lack of experience all right

[Hatta]

If you can't drop it in a campfire, what good is it? I have a cast iron "dutch oven" without legs and no rim on the lid. I can't figure out what it's good for. I already have a slow cooker and an oven, so...?

Re:Sounds like a lack of experience all right

[Anonymous Coward]

Target carries a really nice dutch oven for cheap. It received great reviews from cooks illustrated. Comparable to the fancy french brand.

Re:Sounds like a lack of experience all right

[Anonymous Coward]

Walmart $49:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Tramontina-6.5-Quart-Cast-Iron-Dutch-Oven/11989387

Pretty nice Dutch oven. I prefer made in America so Lodge is my first choice for a cast iron dutch oven (cast iron anything!), however, their enameled version is made in China. This is also made in China, but about half of the price of the Lodge.

Re:Sounds like a lack of experience all right

[realityimpaired]

He might be talking about a ceramic one... they do make them out of pure ceramic, and they are as good at retaining heat as the cast iron, but dishwasher safe.

Re:Sounds like a lack of experience all right

[jfengel]

Sounds like it's pretty redundant, though if you cook a lot you might find there are days when you need a second large pot.

I don't have a slow cooker, but I'll often use my large cast iron dutch oven in the oven set to a low temperature (150 or 180). That accomplishes much the same purpose, with the bonus that I could start it on the stove top (say, for browning meat or sweating onions).

That takes up oven space, of course. One great thing about a slow cooker is that it works off an electric outlet, and it doesn't even have to be in the kitchen. A big win on days when I'm using every burner on a large project.

Re:Sounds like a lack of experience all right

[Hatta]

Oh, I forgot the other thing a dutch oven is good for. Frying. Can't do that in a slow cooker. Though you can do that in a wok.

Re:Sounds like a lack of experience all right

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, all the dutch ovens I've seen are made out of some kind of textile...

Re:Sounds like a lack of experience all right

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Thanks, I was unaware of that term for that. How is this related to cooking fish?

Re:Sounds like a lack of experience all right

[TechyImmigrant]

I assume he meant enameled cast iron, like La Creuset. I would love to know where he found one for $60.

I got one for $50 at Ross. It had a 'seconds' sticker on it, but it works fine.
My other one came from the Le Creuset store cost four times as much.

Re:Sounds like a lack of experience all right

[TechyImmigrant]

Remember to get the metal knob. Melting the plastic one when making bread does not a happy home cook make.
http://www.amazon.com/Le-Creuset-Stainless-Medium-Replacement/dp/B006MVYE44/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363990411&sr=8-1&keywords=metal+knob+le+creuset

Re:Sounds like a lack of experience all right

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dutch%20oven

Songs for cooking?

[smooth wombat]

If this book comes with songs for each recipe that you can cook by, that should have been your clue things weren't going to end well.

As to the reviewers comment about using the instructions as if a beginner were going to read them, that is the same approach I take when developing installation instructions. You have to assume the person reading the instructions has no clue of what they're doing and give them step-by-step instructions.

It might seem simplistic, but it insures there is no misunderstanding of what needs to be done. Including pictures does wonders to help get an idea across to someone.

The FOSS community should take note of this practice when releasing products into the wild. Maybe their software would be more readily accepted instead of people having to search web sites or being told, "RTFM newb!".

Re:Songs for cooking?

[ddtstudio]

Mod parent up... as a UX person, I can never seem to remind people often enough that they are not the user. Sure, you know what everything does and why, because _you built it that way_. Every other person, not so much.

You have to laugh at how the core of Ferriss's time- and effort-saving plans all seem to involve variations on, "have other people do it", "have expensive devices that can do it for you", "take advantage of other people" (in this example, ruining a hotel's iron so that nobody else can use it) -- all, basically, "first step: HAVE LOTS OF MONEY".

Re:Songs for cooking?

[smooth wombat]

Are you hiring or know someone who is? I might be losing my job sometime this year (government related) and would prefer not to wait until I'm kicked out the door to find something else.

Re:Songs for cooking?

[Hognoxious]

as a UX person, I can never seem to remind people often enough that they are not the user. Sure, you know what everything does and why, because _you built it that way_.

That's not what UX people do. It's what ergonomists/human factors specialists do.

UX "people" tell you to make all the icons invisible until you press them because that looks more elegant.

Instructions to tie shoes

[fermion]

Can you teach a kid to tie their shoes only with instructions. I don't know. We would have to find a adult who can read the language the instructions are written in, has experience comprehending and following instruction, and has experience with string, maybe even tying knots. Then we could give them these instruction and see how well they do.

I can tell you in most cases people cannot follow instructions for the following reasons: low level of literacy, unfamiliar with art, or some sort of manual dexterity is required. We do not sit athletes down with books and just let them practice. We go to great expense to provide them with coaches because there is a process of physical movements that must be observed and corrected.

At it's basic level cooking does not require much physical dexterity, but to expect a begineer to be able to follow instructions for the first time and get it right is like thinking a beginner can read a book on basketball and then make a shot for the first time. It is not a reasonable expectation.

The reason some people think it is a reasonable expectation is that they have background. If I took a person who has been shooting baskets for her entire life, then yes they might be able to read a book and do a better job. Likewise a person who has experience in the kitchen, is familiar with the art, can equally understand and be a better cook. Such a person has experience with the tools, the heat, the pans, the knives. They have context.

But without context then practice is required. Even boiling noodles is not going to happen the first time.

The point of this that any cook book requires some previous knowledge. If one have never used a dutch oven to cook in the oven, then there is going to be no possibility of success. If one does not understand how an item is supposed to be transformed in cooking, then there is no possibility of success. Cooking is not magic where you throw some stuff in a better stuff miraculously appears. It is a high skill. Sometimes I think that because it is traditionally 'women's work' some cannot comprehend how difficult it is. One would not expect a random person off the street to come in a code even 'hello world' in C simply from instructions. Yet everyone who can boil water and make Ramen noodles think they should be able to make a Soufflé.

Re:Instructions to tie shoes

[Anonymous Coward]

At it's basic level cooking does not require much physical dexterity, but to expect a begineer to be able to follow instructions for the first time and get it right is like thinking a beginner can read a book on basketball and then make a shot for the first time. It is not a reasonable expectation.

Beginners in cooking need to understand this, and hopefully have enough determinism to get past a few failures. Potentially worse could be someone who has a tiny bit of background, getting the first few things right, then hitting a wall when trying to learn something new.

People learning cooking, even at the more advanced levels, will make mistakes. The great thing is that for beginning stuff, a lot of the ingredients are pretty cheap, unlike many other hobbies. Just don't jump in and start cooking some high end sea bass or really expensive steaks if you've never worked with fish or steaks before. Be prepared for it not to work and spend money on ingredients accordingly, so then the main thing lost from failure is time. Even then, if you pick simpler recipes to start with and build up, you can limit how much time would be loss too.

Re:Instructions to tie shoes

[Hatta]

At it's basic level cooking does not require much physical dexterity, but to expect a begineer to be able to follow instructions for the first time and get it right is like thinking a beginner can read a book on basketball and then make a shot for the first time. It is not a reasonable expectation.

Physical dexterity has to be learned. Like you say, there's no physical dexterity in cooking. So this isn't a valid analogy at all.

The reason some people think it is a reasonable expectation is that they have background

This just isn't true. My mom's a barely passable cook, and my dad was good, but I never watched him. Ever. After reaching adulthood, I ate meat with a side of veggies for several years. Then I decided I wanted to impress women, so I got on the internet found some recipes and followed them. To this day I can't think of anything where I followed the recipe exactly and didn't work. Today my girlfriend tells me I'm a much better cook than her, and it's entirely do to me reading and following instructions.

If one have never used a dutch oven to cook in the oven, then there is going to be no possibility of success.

I've never cooked with a dutch oven in the oven, but I've braised in other containers, and it's always worked. If you follow instructions, it works.

One would not expect a random person off the street to come in a code even 'hello world' in C simply from instructions

Why not? If I could pick up an Intro to C book and read it on my own, and do all the exercises, why wouldn't I expect anyone else to be able to do the same?

Yet everyone who can boil water and make Ramen noodles think they should be able to make a Soufflé.

Everyone who can boil water and make Ramen noodles should be able to make a souffle. All you need is good instructions and a brain.

Re:Instructions to tie shoes

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on what you call physical dexterity. A good cook can chop vegetables better than a food processor. If you are going to cook real meat, you have to be able to make the cuts yourself. Folding a soufle is an acquired skill. Kneading bread is a acquired skill. Knowing where your body has to be and what it has to be physically doing is critical for any non trivial meal.

Re:Instructions to tie shoes

[Anonymous Coward]

At it's [sic] basic level cooking does not require much physical dexterity, but to expect a begineer[sic] to be able to follow instructions for the first time and get it right is like thinking a beginner can read a book on basketball and then make a shot for the first time. It is not a reasonable expectation.

Don't be daft. The instructions are:
1) Your goal is to put the ball in the hoop.
2) Stand ten feet from the basket, directly in front of it. Face the basket. Bend your knees, like you were about to jump.
3) Hold the basketball with both hands, with the basketball just in front of your chest, your hands mostly below the basketball, and your elbows down.
4) Spring up from your bent knees. At the same time, push your hands "through" the basketball and let go.
5) Expect to miss. Retrieve the basketball and return to your starting position, and repeat for a half an hour. At this stage, concentrate on getting the basketball to about the right height and distance. Note: the basketball must travel *above* the rim in order to drop down inside the rim. It's best to launch the ball about four feet higher than the basket and aim to get it in on its way down. The key here is to use your legs for power, don't try to throw from your arms.
6) Expect to keep missing. Take a break if you get tired, then resume. When you can hit the rim or backboard at least half of the time, make small adjustments with your hands to fine-tune your aim. The key at this stage is to start from the exact same position be very consistent in your motions, changing only one small thing at a time. As with any motor skill, you will probably need to spend at least a few hours repeating your attempts before you can begin to be consistent.

In short, instructions need not cover every eventuality. Beginners need to know only:
-the goal
-how to tell when they've got it right
-how to tell when things are going wrong (as early in the process as possible)
-things to try if things go wrong
-a reasonable expectation of their success rate.

In the case of shooting baskets, it's basically a one-step process, so you don't need to worry about feedback. Almost any shooting technique (one hand, two, hook shot, jump shot) can be made to work, so I picked one that will feel intuitive and does not require a lot of strength or dexterity. (Admittedly, it sucks in an actual game, but that wasn't the goal.)

If one have never used a dutch oven to cook in the oven, then there is going to be no possibility of success.

You have got to be joking. This is about the simplest technology ever invented. You put the meat in the dutch oven (with a little watery liquid, usually) and you leave it there for a few hours. The great thing about this technique is that it's almost impossible to overcook the meat.

The problem with most cookbooks is that they're written by professional chefs, who like to do things the hard way. Make an omelette in exactly two minutes at high heat using butter on a steel pan? Delicious and quick, but real easy to mess up. Stick your omelette in the oven for half an hour at low heat and it's idiot-proof.
Using a dutch oven to make osso buco in two hours at 350F? Sure, should work, but it all depends... if you've got a pre-heated, accurate oven, and a small amount of meat cut into small pieces, great. If not, you'll have to try again - which unlike for basketball, is not a desirable outcome. Leave it in the oven for three or four hours, and you can't mess up. Wastes energy, but it's idiot-proof. Which goes to Bennet's main point: if this had been user-tested, the instructions would have been different.

Re:Instructions to tie shoes

[Mindcontrolled]

. Like you say, there's no physical dexterity in cooking. So this isn't a valid analogy at all.

Knife skills are physical dexterity. Fileting a fish. Deboning a chicken. It's not all about dexterity, sure, but it plays into it. The analogy is fine - some things, like estimating done-ness of a piece of meat, you only learn by trial and experience and not by reading a recipe.

Re:Instructions to tie shoes

[Anonymous Coward]

Physical dexterity has to be learned. Like you say, there's no physical dexterity in cooking. So this isn't a valid analogy at all.

As others have pointed out, dexterity is important to several skills. Much of that is mainly important to presentation, and some people might not care how mangled their meat came out or how consistent food works, but there are cases it affects how consistent the food cooks and tastes since different sized pieces of food will cook at different rates.

There are other aspects difficult to convey in text that take practice and experience. In particular, texture can tricky to describe, especially when there is a range you are looking for. There are some kinds of custards that need to be not overcooked and need a rather specific range of temperatures and duration of cooking to get the right texture so it will set.

Everyone who can boil water and make Ramen noodles should be able to make a souffle. All you need is good instructions and a brain.

There are some limits to the instructions part though, in the sense just a duration and stove setting will not be enough. You could just make everyone buy the exact same sized pot, and use thermometers everywhere, or you can let them practice two or three times and use more of the brain half.

Re:Instructions to tie shoes

[TechyImmigrant]

Correctly combining the egg foam and almond in a French Macaron is certainly something requiring learned dexterity and much swearing while learning it.

Re:Instructions to tie shoes

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but who the hell bothers with that? We're talking about cooking here, as in making reasonable meals that people eat at home on a regular basis, and none of those require dexterity. What you're talking about is something for impressing yourself or someone from a culinary school, or maybe some hipsters? (They were so into Macarons before you heard of them, though).

Reviewer FAIL - That's not what cookbooks are for

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't follow most types of cookbook recipes verbatim because ingredients vary... flavor intensity, fat content, availability, and everything else about ingredients is highly seasonal and regional. On top of that, individual tastes vary and most cookbooks "play it safe" by under-counting spices and flavorful ingredients so that if someone does follow the recipe verbatim they won't complain that the results were overly spicy. The only exceptions to this rule are when very specific chemistry is involved, such as baking or beer making, and even there they will usually involve adjustments based on measurement (you don't just weigh the flour et cetera and mix it, you check the consistency of the results and adjust).

Cookbooks are to provide ideas and get you to try new/unfamiliar techniques. They aren't to give you a step-by-step guide for making specific dishes.

This cookbook (and I've only glanced at the web page) looks like it is especially focused on the "guide" aspect of cookbooks. The web page talks about using cooking as a way of communicating broader learning strategies. As such, reviewing it based on the recipes themselves is UTTER FAIL.

Separate the eggs

[Anonymous Coward]

I am reminded of an old Gracie Allen line, "It said to separate two eggs, but it didn't say how far?"

Want to try my recipes?

[kawabago]

I cook every day and describe what I've done at: EatOutInEveryNight.blogspot.com

This is Delicious

[Anonymous Coward]

Ohhh myyyyyy, supergay. ;)))

Re:Reviewer FAIL - That's not what cookbooks are f

[Looker_Device]

Cookbooks are to provide ideas and get you to try new/unfamiliar techniques. They aren't to give you a step-by-step guide for making specific dishes.

Julia Childs must be spinning in her grave to read this, at precisely 2409 rpm.

Osso Buko was my fav

[Prime Mover]

I haven't finished the book nor did I finish this review. The osso buko was the only one I tried and I used chicken(!) instead of veal or lamb. But it was great! That is where you lost me. From what you wrote about this recipe, you over-thought it. My enjoyment in cooking is partially from winging it, making things works, learning new stuff like what dry wine is. Simply following exact instructions is just assembly-line work.

I bought the book for the first few chapters about Tim's approach to learning not about learning to cook specifically. I've always thought that if I woke up in the future, the first thing I would do is find out the latest technology to get information into my head. Learning quickly is a tremendous skill and one I'm still working on, after three college degrees.

Having said that, the book wasn't a revelation but I enjoy returning to those first chapters when I'm about to start a new project. They fire me up and focus me on how I should approach something new.

Re:Osso Buko was my fav

[omnichad]

Chicken? I'm pretty sure you didn't make an Osso Buco then. Chickens don't have very big ossos (bones) to roast, and likely wouldn't be cut in any way to expose the marrow, which is an important part of the dish.

I realize your point is being able to wing it, and of course chickens have wings...

Re:Osso Buko was my fav

[tigersha]

Osso Buco with chicken????? You do realize that a chicken's equivalent to the same cut includes the chicken foot and is a big as the tip of my finger?

Are you sure you did not read a chinese recipe for chicken feet soup? Or hang out in a South African township??

Re:Osso Buko was my fav

[TechyImmigrant]

Chicken feet make great stock.

Re:Osso Buko was my fav

[Mindcontrolled]

Most definitely - I get them in huge bags from my local chinese store, Gives more texture when you make stock from your leftover carcasses. But... chicken does not make osso bucco ;)

Good cooks require organization skills

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of the recipe being a good cook requires the ability to organize the many tasks you need to perform in an orderly manner. This long and meandering review of the book is random and all over the place and suggests that the author perhaps did not sufficiently have these necessary skills.

downhill

[Anonymous Coward]

i dont think im going to read slashdot anymore.

How to write documentation?

[whitroth]

(http colon //24.5-cent.us/egoless_documentation.doc), published in SysAdmin mag.

Try writing recipes that way.... Note that I saw *DRAFT* when I give it to users, *before* publishing....

                mark

I agree

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

Except instead take "cookbooks" and replace it with Open Source documentation and you have the same exact dilemma. A bunch of idyllic elite snobs writing instructions they find painfully obvious and unimportant but missing the 400 steps and details required to do set up something correctly so that it actually works.

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

Truer words have never been spoken.

reviewer the problem?

[Ian 0x57]

I have to say, that reading the review made me feel like the person doing the reviewing was a big part of the problem.

Re:reviewer the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. Based on the writing in the review, I'm not sure I could follow his instructions on how to chew gum, let alone cook.

Re:reviewer the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have much of the same sentiments the reviewer has, but I would have worded it much more strongly.

The 4 Hour Chef was a huge letdown. It was the first Tim Ferris book I ever bought, and it will be the last. I feel like an idiot being suckered into all the hype this monstrosity of a book received. It's ridiculous how Ferris holds your hand in the beginning, giving you tips like "buy cans that have pull tabs on them so you don't have to ever invest in a can opener" (oh no, spending $5 on a can opener is such a huge investment, but spending $100 to complete his first recipe isn't???) and a bunch of other contradictory bullshit. He goes on about how he doesn't want to scare away complete beginners, but then his first recipe is lamb shanks. I went to the only 3 grocery stores in my small town, and none of them even carried lamb shanks. But even if they did, that's a hell of an expensive cut of meat to have be your first trial. And Ferris says it's ideal not to skip over his "lessons" if you want to learn effectively.

But anyway, it's okay if you screw his expensive and exotic recipes. Tim says to have your favorite local restaurant on speed dial (no joke) to bail you out. Because we're all just made of fucking money. Yes, let's turn $30 worth of meat into something disappointing, and spend another $30 to eat out. Brilliant. Ferris has been hanging around his venture capital buddies for too l long. It's pretty apparent when he name drops people from an elite class every other page, and constantly talks about having dinner parties with his friends every week. I guess he wants us to know he's a pretty popular guy. He must be if he can make hundreds of thousands of dollars peddling his shitty book.

Go ahead and mod this as troll, but I started reading this book the same way the reviewer did. I liked Tim Ferris. He seemed like a pretty cool guy. I thoroughly read every single page of the 4 Hour Chef up until I got to the first recipe, and became beyond discouraged. I will stick with listening to Alton Brown or Julia Child when it comes to learning to cook.

Probably true, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess I can't be classified as a beginner, maybe a lazy novice.
Near the end of the Osso Buco chapter he posts instructions that one of his readers sent in, on a similar recipe using a crockpot.
Those are the directions I followed, with Tim's ingredients. Turned out VERY well, the meat just fell off the bone.
Maybe the moral is, the first "newbie" instruction should be: read all the instructions through carefully before starting.

If you really want to really learn how to cook...

[SlashdotOgre]

Just go watch some old episodes of Julia Child or anything by Jacques Pepin. If you're an Amazon Prime member, all 10 seasons of Julia Child's "The French Chef" are available for instant viewing.

If you prefer to read, then the same two people are both great choices. While all of Julia's books are worth reading in my opinion, the first volume of "The Art of French Cooking" and "The Way to Cook" (which she considered her magnum opus) are excellent. Julia doesn't just provide recipes, but she explains techniques (dice vs chop vs mince vs etc.) and rational (i.e. why drying meat before browning is critical).

On the Jacques Pepin side, his Complete Technique is like a textbook for how to cook anything. The best part is there's literally thousands of photos of how to do every step. As the book is really just a translation of his two french books ("La Technique" & "La Methode") there are some parts that might not be too applicable for most Americans, but overall it's well worth a read.

America's Test Kitchen - works as designed

[AKabral]

That's why people should get on the America's Test Kitchen bandwagon. The recipes they put into their books and on their Public Television show (of the same name) are tested in their kitchen sometimes 20-60 times for the most "bulletproof" version. Check out this article for more about the magazine/movement.

I bought two of their books and record their show. Every recipe I've tried I've messed up a little bit and the dish still came out with rave reviews from myself, wife and party guests.

Re:America's Test Kitchen - works as designed

[tylikcat]

I was just going to jump in with a recommendation for Cook's Illustrated (the magazine that predates and is affiliated with the show).

I'm can't really evaluate it in terms of being beginner friendly in terms of terminology and such. (I had already cooked professionally by the time I first got a subscription.) But if you want tested? Oh yeah. It was first described to me as the popular mechanics of cooking, and I can't disagree. For quite a while my two favorite cooking related mags were CI and then Saveur, for the food porn.

Re:Reviewer FAIL - That's not what cookbooks are f

[Anonymous Coward]

To be honest I came here to read the review and comment because I tried the damn Osso Buko recipe 3 times, I am an accomplished cook, have lots of experience with other roasts and braises and the stripped down Osso Bucco recipe is crap. Ingredients and steps are removed to the point that its put carrots into the Dutch Oven, put lamb shanks over the carrots, put crushed tomatoes, onion powder and olive oil over it, pour in wine bake for 2 hours.

The recipe puts in no adjustments for cooking time due to portion size, doesn't dredge in flour or brown the meat, doesn't use real onions and carmelize them or make any aromatics for a mirepoix to give flavor to the sauce, some recipes I see use stock instead of wine, and veal instead of lamb, veal is very forgiving lamb isn't. The shank is a leg muscle and bone which means you need long cooking to break down the connective tissue and soften the meat. I've thought about trying to fix this recipe, but its really quite broken.

Not logging in because work's firewall hates /.

Tekfactory

Pictures of my three Osso Buko experiements are on my Facebook photos trouble@tekfactory.com look in the Mobile Uploads folder they are after my Thanksgiving Turkey and before replacing the receptacles in an old electrical outlet. The first 2 use Beef shanks I had on hand, the third uses Lamb shanks and the lamb were the least edible. Dutch Oven was a Lodge Logic from Walmart about $65.

Have we been slash trolled?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the reviewer gets the book of some second rate self help guru because he thought he was sexy on TV?

Then the reviewer is so completely inept that he thinks all recipes should be retard tested on newbies because he failed said test? /. then publishes this drivel from this attention whoring twerp?

Is it time for our monthly Haseltrolling from the fail crew at the new and improved slashdot?

Most cookbooks suck

[Lluc]

There are good cookbooks, and then there are cookbooks, like this one, that are published by a celebrity or celebrity chef. Other bad cookbooks include those with big glossy pictures intended for a coffee table and pop culture / fad cookbooks.

Re:Most cookbooks suck

[Mindcontrolled]

Massively illustrated cookbooks are not necessarily bad - though I give you that most people just use them for the coffee table. One book in my collection that I really like is Murata's "Kaiseki". Sure, the recipes in there are only a footnote in culinary shorthand and you REALLY need to know what you are doing if you want to reproduce them, but I learned a lot about the aesthetics of plating even if most of the recipes are clearly above my level.

You cannot infinitely dumb things down

[Anonymous Coward]

Recipes use a standard jargon. With that jargon, they are short and simple. Without it they are unmanageable.

Having a recipe break down to beginner levels is like having a programming explanation stop and explain what a loop is every time one is called for. If you don't understand how to read a recipe, learn, don't wreck them for the rest of us.

Maybe a better cooking book for geeks is...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been reading "The Science of Good Cooking" which I think is a great cookbook for geeks. There are 50 basic principles that geek types like me can remember and apply to what I cook, regardless of the recipe. For example, it's actually important to dry meat before you cook it because you want the skin to get over 300 degrees (so the Maillard reaction can create that charbroiled flavor), but if the meat is wet it will tend to steam, which happens at 212 degrees. There are also many lots of recipes that demonstrate the principles. Highly recommended.

Chef?

[giantsfan89]

I was really hoping this was a book about configuration management. :(

The frybake

[Anonymous Coward]

The Banks Fry-Bake is the backpacking alternative. Another cheap way to go is a one egg wonder and some aluminum foil. It may not be as good, but is 55 dollars cheaper.

cooking for geeks

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, just pieces of recipes that you would combine in a form of shell script or using piping (computer piping, not using a bag with a tip)..

And there would be usenet groups where you could send questions, and get flamed (internet flaming, not flambe) by all knowing long time participants who would deride the newbie for not knowing the proper sequence, because it's all in the comments, and you did read the source code, didn't you.

Is this really the book's problem?

[TheFirebyrd]

First off, if you're a newbie cook, it sounds like you do a poor job of picking recipes to learn to cook from. You can't just do things like pick the first few recipes in a book like you say you do on Amazon. Cookbooks aren't organized in an easiest to hardest fashion. They're organized by type of dish, and then usually alphabetized within those categories. Secondly, if you don't have the very most basic skills of cooking, reading isn't the way to get them, and I'm saying this as a big reader. There are loads of helpful videos online, such as those found at http://www.beyondsalmon.com/2010/05/technique-videos.html. Going to YouTube directly can also produce good results as well, I was just particularly impressed with this woman. There are terribly written recipes out there (I've got one I got off the web for a stew that calls for two cans of beans, tells you to put /one/ of them in at one point, and then never tells you to use the other). Still, the fact that you say you're consistently having bad results with beginner cookbooks suggests to me that the problem isn't with the books. Look at the factor that is present in all the circumstances and consider that either your expectations or your understanding might be lacking somewhere and causing issues.

Re:Reviewer FAIL - That's not what cookbooks are f

[Mindcontrolled]

That's some dedication - trying a recipe three times to see whether it has a point when it clearly looks like it is technically flawed like hell. I mean, no browning? No mirepoix? Can as well just drop the shank in the trash, then.

Re:If you really want to really learn how to cook.

[Mindcontrolled]

I second that. As a next step, I suggest Robuchon's "The Complete Robuchon" - it's a mixture of technique and actual recipes, showing basic preparations for all kinds of meats and produce. French tradition at its finest, in particular the potato chapter.

Completely missing the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't use this book as an off the shelf cookbook. Sure, it has some recipes in it, but that's not the point of the book. This is like reviewing "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" as a motorcycle repair manual.

The book is about learning, and by jumping to the middle, without reading the preceding parts, or explanations, yes, you're going to severely screw things up, and end up with some wildly ugly experiences.

It feels like the reviewer was trying to make a "good review." As in a review that's controversial, and might make his name known, rather than a good review of the book. This could have been done with any book, not necessarily the 4 hour chef.

Re:If you really want to really learn how to cook.

[rueger]

For beginners I always suggest the Joy of Cooking, the older the edition the better. For simple "American" fare you can't beat it.

Plus it has the culinary equivalent to MAN pages.

Though I'll always take Julia Child for sheer delight.

Haselton? Stove? Sharp objects? 2800+ Words.

[rueger]

Really, do you need to know anything more?

Re:Reviewer FAIL - That's not what cookbooks are f

[Tekfactory]

First I used Pasture fed Beef shanks from my Farmer's market, they were gamey and I didn't want to give up on the recipe on my first try. I had another set of beef shanks from Wegmans which were less gamey, but still not great. I then decided to get some actual lamb at the markey next time I was there and wonder of wonders it still sucked.

Folks saying the reviewer didn't pick the right recipe, Osso Buko is the first recipe in the book and they are supposed to build up in difficulty from there, each recipe building on techniques learned in previous recipes.

Re:Reviewer FAIL - That's not what cookbooks are f

[Anonymous Coward]

And this is more what a cookbook review should focus on, and not the debate about how to figure out the definition of a word or term in the age of the internet. Nonetheless, cooks, beginners or otherwise, should learn that recipes in books can be bad or wrong. If a recipe fails and it is not something I am familiar with, I start looking for other versions of recipes and see if something is missing or really disproportionate.

Re:Reviewer FAIL - That's not what cookbooks are f

[Mindcontrolled]

I guess there is a reason why osso bucco is traditionally done with veal shanks. I slowly braise beef shanks to get a broth and meat for borschtsch, but apart from that, I honestly do not have much use for it.

Re:If you really want to really learn how to cook.

[TechyImmigrant]

I second that. As a next step, I suggest Robuchon's "The Complete Robuchon" - it's a mixture of technique and actual recipes, showing basic preparations for all kinds of meats and produce. French tradition at its finest, in particular the potato chapter.

My and my wife ate a 16 course tasting menu at Joel Robuchon's restaurant in Vegas. $700 per head. Best meal of my life and cheaper than blackjack. The man knows how to cook.

Re:If you really want to really learn how to cook.

[Mindcontrolled]

Never had the pleasure myself. But I can imagine just from what I have learned from his books. Simplicity, coaxing out the flavors of ingredients - straightforward, yet brillant french tradition.

some places they are labelled dry/sweet

[Chirs]

The local liquor store has the sweetness codes for each wine as part of the label, right beside the name/price/etc.

Unrealistic Expectations?

[Stormy Dragon]

The result tasted OK, but probably only about as good as if I'd just mixed up the nuts and cauliflower and other ingredients and cooked them in a pot.

It's cooking, not alchemy. Why did you expect cauliflower and nuts cooked in a pot to not taste like cauliflower and nuts cooked in a pot?

Expecting basic prior knowledge is fair...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless the book says its cooking sections are for people that don't even understand the basics of cooking (I doubt this -it seems like they are basically recipes selected to demonstrate how someone can go from just being able to cook to tackling fancy recipes confidently). Reviewer decided the criteria specific to the book's content before even knowing what type of content would be in the book.

I don't know anything about chemistry, but I there are instructions right here for this lab. How could I not succeed? ...
Those lab instructions were faulty!

Really?,

[CPNABEND]

Has the poster never heard of the food network?

That was fucking retarded

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn that was stupid.

Cooking takes skill. Cooks actually have skill.

If you don't have the skill, don't write the review. Fuckwit.

Tassajara Cooking, Laurel's Kitchen - Veggies

[billstewart]

Laurel's Kitchen was pretty much the canonical vegetarian reference cookbook in the 80s - as with Joy of Cooking, it has recipes, but it also has a lot about ingredients and technique, and a lot of data about nutrition, cooking times, how much water to use for different grains, suggestions about what different foods go together to make interesting meals, etc.

Tassajara Cooking is much less about recipes and more about cooking and experiencing food - what kinds of ingredients are there, how do they taste and feel like, how do different cooking techniques affect taste and texture, how do you decide what things go together. It's not a collection of manual pages, it's a book about learning to hack food. It's especially useful if you're cooking for one or two people, because you're not usually going to bother with fancy recipes.

Meat eaters have a choice of good cookbooks that talk about techniques and complexities for dealing with meat, and all that Maillard reaction stuff about what happens to proteins and fats and blood vessels as you change temperature and timing. Most of those cookbooks don't spend much time on vegetables, except saying "here's some stuff to put next to the meat", or "here's something you can crunch on while you're waiting for the meat to cook", or "different veggies for different kinds of meat." Ok, the section on "dessert" is useful, and some of them do ok with bread.

Moosewood Cookbook was the vegetarian cookbook I started with (besides Joy of Cooking, of course), because they had been the local hippie vegetarian restaurant where I had gone to college, the recipes were reasonably accessible, it had big hand-drawn print and pictures, and it also had a lot of good discussion of how to combine different kinds of dishes to make good friendly meals. It was fun, and valuable, but isn't something I've gone back to much after the first year or so.

The last food-related book I bought was named something like Asian Vegetables, because now that I live in California there are all these things in the markets that I had no clue what they are or how to use many of them, and this had a page or two each about a lot of different ingredients.

Re:Tassajara Cooking, Laurel's Kitchen - Veggies

[Mindcontrolled]

Ah, well, vegetarian cooking is somewhat problematic. For full disclosure, I am an omnivore, but more than half of my cooking is vegetarian. My best tip would be to look into books on ethnic cuisines that are traditionally vegetarian - Indian, Thai buddhist, stuff like that. Most vegetarian books fall into the trap of trying to replicate classical European style without meat and fail horrible at it. Moosewood ain't bad, though.

Pretty Useless except for camping or stew

[billstewart]

Theoretically, if you're car-camping, a dutch oven can be really useful, because it gives you a way to bake stuff over a fire, and can almost double as a frying pan. I don't go camping much, bread's a lot lighter than iron, and I can do pancakes just as well. And there are some meat dishes for which a dutch oven can be more useful than cast-iron frying pan, because you can brown the meat and then stew it in the same pot, but I don't eat meat. Otherwise, they're just a big cast-iron pot, and a lot less versatile than my non-stick spaghetti pot.

I do still have a couple of slow-cooker crockpots leftover from the 70s, but they're also specialized limited-use gadgets. They're good for bringing hot dishes to potluck dinners, which is the main reason we still have them, but meat stew is about the only thing I've found that benefits from cooking unattended all day when you're at work, and we probably only bothered doing that once or twice back when I ate meat. Basically, they're a lot more trouble to clean than a big pot, and if I have something that needs to cook for a long time (like various beans), I can cook it in the evening or on a day I'm working from home.

What's been really useful is a steamer pot. Most veggies work really well steamed, especially things like broccoli or zucchini. I've got the type that's a pot with holes in the bottom that stacks on top of a regular cooking pot. You can also use those fold-out insert things, but they always fall apart or tip over and scratch non-stick pans, and some people use rice cookers for steaming, though I've always found rice so easy to cook that I've never bothered getting one.

Re:Pretty Useless except for camping or stew

[Mindcontrolled]

A good wok with a steamer inset is also a good idea. On the topic of slow cookers - they are useful for vegetarians also. I got many a tasty stew out of mine by dropping in some dried beans and aromatics - mirepoix, bay leaves, some herbs, and letting it simmer away during the day.

Again, this beginner thing

[sjames]

I see nothing anywhere on the Amazon page that suggests that this is a beginner cookbook. Nothing at all.My first suggestion for a beginning cook is to pick a book for beginners.

Much in the same way that I would suggest that someone who can barely manage balancing their checkbook should probably not choose Principia as a first book on the subject.

Re:Why??

[jwilcox154]

Who gives a shit what you think? Never heard of you before and probably will never hear of you again, so why should I give any kind of a fuck about your attention-whoring self?

    Sheesh some posts here really make me wonder sometimes, so much for "News for Nerds"....

Not everyone is like you. Some nerd like you do not like to cook while others do and I happen to be one that loves to cook. In fact when I cook I tend to try to be inventive and try different flavour combinations. As for the book "The four hour chef" it does not look like it will be a worthwhile investment. However, I will still into it and may actually purchase if it looks like a worthy investment. It doesn't hurt to read several sources both online and offline to learn different cooking and baking techniques.

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