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I Almost Let My Failed Startup Destroy Me

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Re: I Almost Let My Failed Startup Destroy Me

#61

Post by TarpitCarnivore »

thenomad wrote: post #28

There's one takeaway - no pun intended - that leaps out from this. Learn. To. Cook. I run a small, scrappy company that's been in startup mode multiple times over the last 20 years. Being a good cook might well be the most valuable skill I've used over those years. It lets you drop to very low personal expenditure very easily - far lower than you could manage on all but the junkiest of ready food - whilst still eatin…

> Thinking about it, would a "How To Cook For Hackers" video / ebook / webseries be of use or interest to HN? With the right instrumentation, absolutely anyone can learn to cook nutritious, tasty, cheap meals.

The need for cheap, healthy and delicious meals isn't mutually exclusive to "Hackers." In fact there are many sites out there that have this aim already. One such site is called Budget Bytes [1] which my wife and I use all the time.

1: http://www.budgetbytes.com/

Re: I Almost Let My Failed Startup Destroy Me

#63

Post by VLM »

thenomad wrote: post #28

There's one takeaway - no pun intended - that leaps out from this. Learn. To. Cook. I run a small, scrappy company that's been in startup mode multiple times over the last 20 years. Being a good cook might well be the most valuable skill I've used over those years. It lets you drop to very low personal expenditure very easily - far lower than you could manage on all but the junkiest of ready food - whilst still eatin…

I'm not entirely disagreeing, but learn WHAT to cook.

Woe is me, I cannot bake a cake from scratch and my souffle always collapses, well, off to McDonalds for a double cheezeburger. OK, well, its pretty hard to mess up the "cooking" involved in making a salad. Oh you want a snack instead of a meal and its too hard to scratch bake homemade cookies so you'll just drive to krispie kreme and eat a dozen donuts, nope, go eat a carrot. Let me describe the "cooking" steps in preparing a raw carrot snack. Wash off the dirt. Optionally cut off the green end or just don't eat it. If you're lazy and wealthy you can buy a bag with carrots in it where this advanced "cooking" has been taken care of for you. I can provide similar "cooking" recipes for grapes, apples, pears, bananas, cherries, blueberries and many more. Meat is microscopically more complicated, but not much worse. Put raw chicken parts in slow cooker. Do not lick hands until after washing them. Dump BBQ seasoning packet (for those who can't handle mixing 8 or so cheap, practically free, dry ingredients by themselves...) on chicken. Put cooker on high for 5 hours, or follow packet directions. Its about that hard.

Another "what to cook" problem is you'll get into huge arguments with people addicted to junk food, because taco bell 35% "meat", which they call beef filling and there have been lawsuits filed to forbid them from calling it "beef", in a shell, is a lot cheaper than seared kobe beef tenderloin, and thats the only option for cooking at home, therefore its too expensive to cook anything at home, so welcome to taco bell for all meals.

Edited to add another common anti-pattern heard continuously on HN is insisting on comparing fake food to out of season organic imported hydroponic food. I live near blueberry country so I'm used to paying about $2/pound once a year. Yet out of season, you can easily pay over $15 per pound. Invariably someone will use as an example, blueberry flavored kool aide vs out of season organic hydro grown imported blueberries at $15/pound at whole foods, which isn't all that fair. My brilliant solution to the annual variation in blueberry prices is not to eat them when the price is above $5 or so per pound. And I can and freeze them. Freeze them on a cookie sheet THEN bag them so they don't clump up.

Re: I Almost Let My Failed Startup Destroy Me

#64

Post by VLM »

TarpitCarnivore wrote: post #60
ncarroll wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought the hackable angle on cooking is patterns. A whole lot of stuff that you might cook for everyday eating is, in fact, a pattern and once you know that, you can riff off whatever is in your fridge. Take soup, for instance. You need a certain amount of liquid, veggies and meat are optional in their type and amounts and you need to apply the correct methods and tools. I've had a domain and plans to write…

> I always thought the hackable angle on cooking is patterns. A whole lot of stuff that you might cook for everyday eating is, in fact, a pattern and once you know that, you can riff off whatever is in your fridge. This isn't "hacking" (loathe this word when used this way) cooking, you've just learned the basic ratios of recipes.

Ah but the hacking is the "messing with ratios" part, not just knowing them.

I slow cooked homemade bbq chicken with a dry rub last weekend. You can play games for your whole life with the ratio of paprika to cayenne. A lot of people are really happy with 1:1:1 ratios of onion garlic chilli but I prefer weaker heat and stronger onion and garlic flavor. Another ratio is brown sugar to salt, I prefer no/low sugar and higher salt, but tastes do vary. I suppose "no sugar" is such extreme hacking, that some might not consider my bbq chicken to be bbq chicken anymore. Oh well.

Another analogy is its like modding a game. (and edited to add, its like design patterns)

Re: I Almost Let My Failed Startup Destroy Me

#65

Post by TarpitCarnivore »

VLM wrote: post #64
TarpitCarnivore wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always thought the hackable angle on cooking is patterns. A whole lot of stuff that you might cook for everyday eating is, in fact, a pattern and once you know that, you can riff off whatever is in your fridge. This isn't "hacking" (loathe this word when used this way) cooking, you've just learned the basic ratios of recipes.

Ah but the hacking is the "messing with ratios" part, not just knowing them. I slow cooked homemade bbq chicken with a dry rub last weekend. You can play games for your whole life with the ratio of paprika to cayenne. A lot of people are really happy with 1:1:1 ratios of onion garlic chilli but I prefer weaker heat and stronger onion and garlic flavor. Another ratio is brown sugar to salt, I prefer no/low sugar and h…

Maybe it's just because I cook often, but to me this is the foundations of cooking. You're always changing and tweaking what you're making to suit your needs. What a more smokey taste in the chili add some chipotle and smoked paprika. Want to make that rub sweeter add some more brown sugar.

Re: I Almost Let My Failed Startup Destroy Me

#66

Post by thenomad »

TarpitCarnivore wrote: post #61
thenomad wrote: post #28

There's one takeaway - no pun intended - that leaps out from this. Learn. To. Cook. I run a small, scrappy company that's been in startup mode multiple times over the last 20 years. Being a good cook might well be the most valuable skill I've used over those years. It lets you drop to very low personal expenditure very easily - far lower than you could manage on all but the junkiest of ready food - whilst still eatin…

> Thinking about it, would a "How To Cook For Hackers" video / ebook / webseries be of use or interest to HN? With the right instrumentation, absolutely anyone can learn to cook nutritious, tasty, cheap meals. The need for cheap, healthy and delicious meals isn't mutually exclusive to "Hackers." In fact there are many sites out there that have this aim already. One such site is called Budget Bytes [1] which my wife a…

Very true - there are lots of excellent cooking resources out there already. I'm a fan of Delia Smith's stuff, personally.

"Hackers" / startup guys / whatever you want to call them tend to have similar patterns of thought, which can be applied to cooking to make it easier to learn. For example, we tend to get on well with science and chemistry, which means that it may be easier to teach high-quality meat cookery based on Mailliard reactions, denaturing of proteins, conversion of connective tissue, and so forth.

Hence the question of whether a specifically focused course might help or appeal to the HN crowd - despite the many cookery courses out there, I do see people (like the OP) mention that they haven't found cooking easy to learn.

Re: I Almost Let My Failed Startup Destroy Me

#67

Post by thenomad »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #47
mseebach wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thinking about it, would a "How To Cook For Hackers" video / ebook / webseries be of use or interest to HN? What's the hacker angle on cooking? In my experience, cooking is much more of a craft than an intellectual exercise, which doesn't make it very 'hackable'. Personally, I'd recommend start with something like these [1][2] - good, fast, cheap, nutritious food has been focus for many others than hackers, for qui…

Check out Nathan Myhrvold's work, cooking is (or at least can be) very much an intellectual exercise.

Heh, I'm well aware of NathanM - his initial work on Sous-Vide on eGullet is what got me started with it.

Modernist Cuisine is pretty amazing, but not quite the same sort of thing I was thinking about: it isn't exactly newbie-accessible, either in price or approach.

Re: I Almost Let My Failed Startup Destroy Me

#68

Post by thenomad »

mseebach wrote: post #36
thenomad wrote: post #28

There's one takeaway - no pun intended - that leaps out from this. Learn. To. Cook. I run a small, scrappy company that's been in startup mode multiple times over the last 20 years. Being a good cook might well be the most valuable skill I've used over those years. It lets you drop to very low personal expenditure very easily - far lower than you could manage on all but the junkiest of ready food - whilst still eatin…

> Thinking about it, would a "How To Cook For Hackers" video / ebook / webseries be of use or interest to HN? What's the hacker angle on cooking? In my experience, cooking is much more of a craft than an intellectual exercise, which doesn't make it very 'hackable'. Personally, I'd recommend start with something like these [1][2] - good, fast, cheap, nutritious food has been focus for many others than hackers, for qui…

There are lots of intellectual / scientific ways to look at cooking which can really help.

For example, understanding the science of cooking meat lets you cook safely, precisely, and to a very high standard. If you understand how flavour pairings work in terms of aromatic chemicals, you can generate likely combinations from what you have available. And so on.

Re: I Almost Let My Failed Startup Destroy Me

#69

Post by TarpitCarnivore »

thenomad wrote: post #66
TarpitCarnivore wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thinking about it, would a "How To Cook For Hackers" video / ebook / webseries be of use or interest to HN? With the right instrumentation, absolutely anyone can learn to cook nutritious, tasty, cheap meals. The need for cheap, healthy and delicious meals isn't mutually exclusive to "Hackers." In fact there are many sites out there that have this aim already. One such site is called Budget Bytes [1] which my wife a…

Very true - there are lots of excellent cooking resources out there already. I'm a fan of Delia Smith's stuff, personally. "Hackers" / startup guys / whatever you want to call them tend to have similar patterns of thought, which can be applied to cooking to make it easier to learn. For example, we tend to get on well with science and chemistry, which means that it may be easier to teach high-quality meat cookery base…

> For example, we tend to get on well with science and chemistry, which means that it may be easier to teach high-quality meat cookery based on Mailliard reactions, denaturing of proteins, conversion of connective tissue, and so forth.

These things are fine to learn, but they're not essential to learning how to cook. Knowing about the connective tissues isn't going to suddenly make you better at cooking a steak or braising short ribs. Time, practice and patience is what's going to help.

Realistically the easiest and simplest way for anyone to cook is with a crock pot. There are a million recipes out there for basic crock pot cooking. And even better it lets you make large enough batches for multiple days.

Re: I Almost Let My Failed Startup Destroy Me

#70

Post by thenomad »

TarpitCarnivore wrote: post #69
thenomad wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true - there are lots of excellent cooking resources out there already. I'm a fan of Delia Smith's stuff, personally. "Hackers" / startup guys / whatever you want to call them tend to have similar patterns of thought, which can be applied to cooking to make it easier to learn. For example, we tend to get on well with science and chemistry, which means that it may be easier to teach high-quality meat cookery base…

> For example, we tend to get on well with science and chemistry, which means that it may be easier to teach high-quality meat cookery based on Mailliard reactions, denaturing of proteins, conversion of connective tissue, and so forth. These things are fine to learn, but they're not essential to learning how to cook. Knowing about the connective tissues isn't going to suddenly make you better at cooking a steak or br…

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one, I think.

I know that I personally became a much better cook - and specifically, since you mention it, much better at cooking steak - after learning the science behind it.

I do agree that they're not essential to learning how to cook. Millions of people cook without knowing these things. But for people with a specific mindset, they are likely to be helpful if more "traditional" routes don't gel well for them.

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