Live data from Hacker News

Cooklang – Managing Recipes in Git

briansunter.com

41–49 of 49 posts

Re: Cooklang – Managing Recipes in Git

#41

I just wanted to shout out Cooking For Engineers even though it’s only moderately related. Its format for recipes is so quick to read. I would love to see CookLang integrate this style of recipe viewing. http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/108/Banana-Nut-Bre...

I prefer the Modernist Cuisine Format: http://modernistcuisine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Colon... It's the best I've seen for being able to easily follow along. I also really appreciate their diligence with scaling factors since that tends to be a huge pain point for me with other recipes.

Are these scaling factors baker's percentages? What is the purpose? I.e. what do you use them for? And if these are specified for all recipes, what do you use as the 100% for recipes that aren't based around flour?

Re: Cooklang – Managing Recipes in Git

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer the Modernist Cuisine Format: http://modernistcuisine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Colon... It's the best I've seen for being able to easily follow along. I also really appreciate their diligence with scaling factors since that tends to be a huge pain point for me with other recipes.

But specifying everything in grams looks like a practical nightmare for normal home cooks. 0.1g of a spice? Verses 1/4 teaspoon?

Every home cook should have a digital scale. They cost like $20. And yes, for subgrams, you can always estimate 'a pinch', 1/4 tsp, etc...

By weight is more accurate, almost never exceeds the max of a home scale and simply throwing everything into one bowl, taring the scale each time is quicker too.

Re: Cooklang – Managing Recipes in Git

#43
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer the Modernist Cuisine Format: http://modernistcuisine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Colon... It's the best I've seen for being able to easily follow along. I also really appreciate their diligence with scaling factors since that tends to be a huge pain point for me with other recipes.

Are these scaling factors baker's percentages? What is the purpose? I.e. what do you use them for? And if these are specified for all recipes, what do you use as the 100% for recipes that aren't based around flour?

They are baker's percentages! The reference ingredient is always set to 100% in the recipe. In the case of the one I linked it would be Chicken, drumsticks.

Re: Cooklang – Managing Recipes in Git

#44
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything needs a financial incentive

Fireship: The Dark Side of Open Source / What really happened to Faker.js? https://youtu.be/R6S-b_k-ZKY

Some people have hobby projects they really don't want anything other than donations for. Sometimes they don't even want donations.

Money brings responsibility, and responsibility kills the fun. Donations will begin to feel like you owe the donators your time, even though you do not. But it's hard to break out of that mindset. Especially once you start getting negative remarks for not implementing enough features, despite the donations.

Re: Cooklang – Managing Recipes in Git

#45
> Recipe sites have gotten so bloated that you need to read someone's entire life story to get the ingredients and steps.

This is a hellish IP “hack”. They can’t copyright the recipe, but adding a story about how your cat always meuws when your cooking pasta turns it into a copyrightable story. That’s why they do it.

It’s horrible and I hate it.

Re: Cooklang – Managing Recipes in Git

#46
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But specifying everything in grams looks like a practical nightmare for normal home cooks. 0.1g of a spice? Verses 1/4 teaspoon?

Every home cook should have a digital scale. They cost like $20. And yes, for subgrams, you can always estimate 'a pinch', 1/4 tsp, etc... By weight is more accurate, almost never exceeds the max of a home scale and simply throwing everything into one bowl, taring the scale each time is quicker too.

Most home kitchen scales have gram accuracy, but I doubt the calibration procedures lend themselves to even that level of accuracy.

Throwing in a bowl works to a point, but if you accidentally dump too much in, you might have a hard time removing the extra 1g.

Re: Cooklang – Managing Recipes in Git

#47
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everything needs a financial incentive

Fireship: The Dark Side of Open Source / What really happened to Faker.js? https://youtu.be/R6S-b_k-ZKY

This feels like a non sequitur. Their project being open source or not doesn't protect their mental health spiralling. This could have happened to a paid lib, and you'd be out of luck due to vendor lock rather than just picking a fork.

Re: Cooklang – Managing Recipes in Git

#48
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every home cook should have a digital scale. They cost like $20. And yes, for subgrams, you can always estimate 'a pinch', 1/4 tsp, etc... By weight is more accurate, almost never exceeds the max of a home scale and simply throwing everything into one bowl, taring the scale each time is quicker too.

Most home kitchen scales have gram accuracy, but I doubt the calibration procedures lend themselves to even that level of accuracy. Throwing in a bowl works to a point, but if you accidentally dump too much in, you might have a hard time removing the extra 1g.

Honestly, I haven't found many ingredients where you do it to the gram. A few like spices, salt or baking powder you just do it to taste or assume a tsp is enough, for that one item.

A scale still beats measuring cups n things.

Re: Cooklang – Managing Recipes in Git

#49
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The % in this syntax is not to indicate information about scaling, it is just a meaningless separator: "3%tsp". I'd say both "3tsp" or "3 tsp" look better.

The author didn't go with a space because[0] some things have spaces in them, which would be harder to figure out. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28999634

That is highly unconvincing! Isn't the quantity a number? Have the syntax be @{ }, where the units may contain spaces but not braces. You can even make the space between quantity and units optional.
Post reply on HN