What counts as cooking? In defense of the store-bought sauce

“I didn’t cook dinner last night,” my sister mentioned to me the other week. She has a one-year-old and a three-year-old, a combination of ages that practically guarantees a baseline level of perpetual exhaustion. “Oh!” I replied. “Wait.” I tried to rationalize what that meant. My sister sounded too …

Notes on the anxiety of the perfect loaf

My previous blog post, The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision, has been getting a (minor) amount of attention over on Hackernews and Metafilter, and I wanted to take a moment to go through some of the comments, share my thoughts, and revisit the main thesis …

The anxiety of the perfect loaf: the illusion of culinary precision

One of my favorite recipes for challah does not tell you how much flour to use. To a modern amateur baker, this ommision borders on heresy. But it is an honest reflection of how the bread is personally made — cooking is a deeply personal experience, and culinary precision is no replacement for intuition.

Building a vintage recipe rolodex with Python, Pelican, and Markdown.

I enjoy cooking. Not only that, but I enjoy complicated cooking — which can sometimes be a bit of a curse. A simple weeknight meal? Not interested. A week-long project to nail the ultimate Xiao Long Bao, Croissants, or homemade ramen? Sign me up! I become somewhat obsessive, reading cooking blogs …