Top all-time · #5495
Jeff Potter
Personal blog · cookingforgeeks.com/blogculturescience
Jeff Potter's personal blog at cookingforgeeks.com covers culture and science. Since 2010, 15 different Hacker News readers have linked it 16 times. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (15) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Cooking for Geeks, Jeff Potter's book and site explaining the science behind cooking, aimed at analytically minded cooks and engineers. Several commenters say it turned them on to cooking.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 15 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The Cookbook With Answers to 'How?' and 'Why?' to Satisfy the Curious, Smart, and Hungry Geek
Most-linked posts?
What Hacker News says?
The book I'm currently going through (after a year of using the techniques I learned as a kid to successfully follow random recipes) is Cooking for Geeks ( http://cookingforgeeks.com ). None of its advice is obviously wrong so far, and it's not telling me that I need every single kitchen gadget, which I like. But of course, I don't really know enough to know if it's wrong.
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on “The No Excuse List: The Best Place On The Web To Learn Anything”Submitted Cooking for Geeks Book Tour: Where should I go? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionCooking for Geeks is really good too: https://www.cookingforgeeks.com/
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on “The physics of baking good pizza”http://www.cookingforgeeks.com
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on “So You Wanna Be a Chef - Anthony Bourdain”I would recommend https://www.cookingforgeeks.com
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on “Common Git Problems and How to Fix Them”A lot of things at play. 1) We actually can sense "coldness" or "hotness" as separate tastes. Think about mint candies or pepper for example. 2) Our receptors have different sensitivity based on the temperature. For example cold sweet drink feels much less sweet. That's why warm cola is disgustingly sweet for example. And water does contain a lot of dissolved salts which have a taste. 3) More than half of the taste…
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on “Why you can hear the temperature of water”Worth mentioning in the same context: https://www.cookingforgeeks.com/
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on “Cooking for Engineers”This book is also worth a read for basic cooking that can be built upon but also explains the underlying scientific principles https://www.cookingforgeeks.com/
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on “Cooking for Engineers”that's interesting! Same concept. I initially got the idea from the book Cooking for Geeks https://www.cookingforgeeks.com/ I wonder if they got it from Cooking for Engineers
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on “Thinking about recipe formats more than anyone should”I'm currently reading Cooking for Geeks[1] enjoying it a lot. Check it out if you're "analytically minded." [1] http://www.cookingforgeeks.com/
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on “Cooking For Engineers: Step by Step Recipes and Food for the Analytically Minded”My first introduction to the Maillard reaction was in "Cooking For Geeks", which turned me on to cooking. It was no longer (just) a chore but a science/chemistry experiment that ended up being tasty! I'm including the link here because maybe it'll do the same for others. https://www.cookingforgeeks.com/ (I am in no way associated with the book or author; just a fan.)
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on “Maillard reaction”I couldn't agree more. So much so that I wrote the O'Reilly book on the topic: http://www.cookingforgeeks.com
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on “Cooking Patterns”Pizza stones aren't just for cooking pizzas on. They help you maintain your oven temperature[1]. Also, IIRC, Alton Brown does use a pizza stone, but he recommends buying unglazed ceramic floor tiles as an alternative. [1] https://www.cookingforgeeks.com/blog/posts/the-two-things-yo...
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on “Americans Love Ordering Pizza on Facebook”Ditto. I actually asked my parents if they could help me get rid of some stuff as a Christmas gift. I did ask for one book though: http://www.cookingforgeeks.com/ Since it's formatting heavy, I'd rather have a hardcopy of it.
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on “Ask HN: what's on your Christmas list?”Humorous, but I beg to differ: http://www.cookingforgeeks.com/ It's a great book. Tons of analogies that engineers will love.
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on “Why Engineers Don't Write Recipe Books”Instead of sticking to recipes, for many it's a better approach to learn what is going on behind the scenes. "Cooking for Geeks", published by O'Reilly is a book that focuses on explaining cooking. https://www.cookingforgeeks.com/ PS No affiliation.
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on “Why do recipe writers lie and lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions?”