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Ask HN: Hackers who cook
136 points by Cherian on Sept 23, 2014 | hide | past | favorite | 207 comments
While going through a ProductHunt post[1] I came across a fellow HNer[2] who was following NYT Cooking[3] and cooking with a plan on a regular basis. I was very curious to understand how he spaces time to cook and work. And the type of stuff he cooks.

Which kind of inspired me to start working on project to follow someone and get inspired by their – meal plans, shopping patterns, recipes, hacks, tips etc (Another inspiration [4])

I am trying to find hackers who cook at home on a regular basis (even if its only 2-3 times a week).

If you cook, some questions:

1. Why do you cook? Is it to save cash or is it recreation? Or something else?

2. Do you plan ahead? Like a weekly meal plan?

3. What kind of things do you cook usually?

4. Do you follow any diet? Atkins, Slow Carb etc.

5. Do you have any life hacks, tips to be more productive as a cook?

Disclosure: I run Cucumbertown (http://www.cucumbertown.com/), the Tumblr for cooks.

[1] http://www.producthunt.com/posts/new-york-times-apis

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cdavis565

[3] http://cooking.nytimes.com/

[4] http://www.reddit.com/r/EatCheapAndHealthy/comments/2gutuk/26_2021_1592_grocery_list_meal_plan_and_recipes/

Edit:

Seems like this was taken off the homepage for some reason. The comment rate’s coming down.

Thanks a lot for the encouraging comments. A short but exciting Q&A. If you can help me out more, please reach me on cherian@cucumbertown.com




1. i view cooking and writing software as a creative act. Making food is a pleasant contrast to making software because the projects are short and the asthetics are straightforward: do i, and whomever else i'm cooking for, think this is delicious. With practice, i can cook a higher grade of food than i can afford to eat out, just like buying nicer alcohols is cheaper at a liquor store than a bar.

i look forward to cooking and find it relaxing, particularly when it's just for my own household - small quantities of food for people whose tastes i know well.

2. i plan a few days ahead and i go shopping every few days. some days i spend the majority of my spare cycles imagining and re-imagining how i'll cook dinner with the ingredients i've got at home.

3+4. i cook mostly vegetarian / pescetarian and try to use whole grains and complex carbohydrates, probably less carbs than e.g. sandwiches or pasta? i often start with a protein source and then try to make it a balanced and tasty meal.

5. plan ahead. treat the whole thing as a meditation: chopping is a deep consideration of the vegetable, cleaning is a meditation on the colors and shapes as they reveal themselves beneath the food-dirt.


1. I find the more natural (less processed) the food is, the better it is for you. I cook to ensure I know as much as possible what is in my food. Where possible I get my food from the butchers and green grocers and only go to the supermarket where necessary.

2. I don't plan ahead more than a day.

3. I cook meat and veg in some combination. If it was just me it would be a simple mix of meat with some veg and spices, probably with little variety. But I need to keep everyone happy, the wife is pretty picky and there are the kids. So I have to cook a variety of shapes and flavours. Our youngest kid is a good eater, probably because we have always fed her whole foods and little junk. Although she always prefers pizza and icecream she will eat most things we put down for her.

4. I try for paleo and succeed 80% of the time.

5. It is worth having a few dishes that you can consistently cook well. Once these are mastered then it is possible to start creating variations in those dishes to suit any situation. You can become quite versatile with just a few basic dishes.

Should also add, if you really want good food, grow your own. The difference in taste between a freshly picked tomato and a supermarket bought one is a world apart. This is what I am going to be focusing on next year.


I am looking to building something that breaks the monotony of “mastering”. People tend to cook the mastered ones for a lifetime.


1) Cheaper. Healthier. Tailored to my personal tastes, accounts for my particular allergies/sensitivities. Saves time and aggravation with my autistic four year old. And it's enjoyable.

2) If something is on sale at the grocery store, I'll plan out a specific meal around it (steak and peppers, for example) but otherwise I don't make a detailed plan.

3) I do a lot of one-pot or two-pot meals. One pot is grain (rice, pasta, or potatoes) and the other is a meat-veggie mix. Sometimes it's curry, sometimes it's more beef-and-tomatoes, sometimes lemon chicken with asparagus.

4) I have in the past done weight watchers (the points plan that was popular in ~2008). This is easily adaptable -- the meat-and-veggie dish is usually fairly low calorie and nutritiously filling, and using brown rice or whole wheat pasta with a small portion size keeps the points down.

5) I think of the dishes I make as essentially templates. I know how to make a decent Chicken Vindaloo, but I can turn it into Pork With A Different Blend of Spices And Veggies using the exact same cooking techniques and it's still good.

My favorite tools: a deep frying pan with a lid, a slow cooker, and a pressure cooker (especially for rice -- I live at altitude.)


Cooking is a form of engineering. I like that there's a science behind it, and I like that if you become any good, your standard-of-living (of eating?) will be vastly improved.

Tip #1: get a good knife. If you can, go to a store that'll let you actually hold a knife prior to purchase, to test its heft and balance. Find one that fits you comfortably. (I like Shun knives, but this is a pretty personal topic; don't let that be my personal endorsement so much as my personal choice.) The knife should be sharp, and you should keep it honed with a honing steel. Eventually it may get dull to the point where you might want a whetstone to sharpen it again, but you'd probably need to use your knife a decent amount before it gets to that point.

Tip #2: mis-en-place, which is French for, basically, putting things into place. Your mis is your work station. Clean your counters. Get out your cutting board. Have a bowl for food waste (e.g. the ends you cut off a carrot, the skin off a potato that you peel) and somewhere to put food once you have finished whatever you are doing.

Tip #3: prep work will make your life much, much easier. If the dish calls for diced onions, then you should dice your onions before you turn the heat on the stove. Having all of the vegetables chopped, things marinated, meat salted and spiced, whatever -- ahead of time -- will make the act of cooking about ten times less stressful than otherwise.

Tip #4: taste your food. Needs some salt? Add salt. Maybe some pepper will make it pop. This is a hard thing to quantify; how things taste and what you think you will need is partly your palate, which you can develop beyond what it is now, but some stuff (salt makes things taste better -- to a point, beyond which it just makes things taste like salt) is universal. Just don't be afraid to try some things, in small measures at least, and taste it to see where it's at.


> Eventually it may get dull to the point where you might want a whetstone to sharpen it again, but you'd probably need to use your knife a decent amount before it gets to that point.

I completely disagree. It gets dull slow enough that you don't notice it, but there is a difference after 1 month and big difference after 4 months. Although it probably takes a year to get as dull as most people's knives. Although you did mention Shun knives which are much harder than the German steels.


Apologies if the experience with some other knives differs greatly. I'd gone from not really having a chef knife to having a Shun, and the difference in sharpness was just nuts. I haven't felt the need to sharpen it yet -- not that I can claim to be a superb judge of that, but to me, the sharpness is still very much there.


> but to me, the sharpness is still very much there.

Cutting tomatoes is usually a really good indication. When my knives are sharp, the weight of the knife is enough to cut right through them. The real test is dicing tomatoes because there is less tomato holding the pieces together and you if you push the softer parts of the tomato squish out.

The Shun knives are made with a very, very hard steel. The German steels like Wusthof and Henckels are much softer and have a steeper bevel. With harder steel you can have a thinner angle because it doesn't need as much strength (although i hear that they are more brittle).


Don't forget he said he does hone it with a honing steel. That's different from actually sharpening it. You can easily quickly hone your knife before every cooking session (though I don't do it always myself).


Yeah. Honing makes a huge difference.


1. Both. It's cheaper, and often better than anything I can find in the small town where I live.

2. We plan MOST of our meals in a week, but leave a night or two open for flexibility and/or a restaurant visit.

3. All kinds of shit! My wife is an avid Pinterest user, and I am a former professional gourmet cook.

4. Nope.

5. LEARN HOW TO PROPERLY USE AND MAINTAIN KNIVES. That is the biggest tip that I can possibly give.


Two things common in many replies:

1. Meal plan days ahead.

2. Learn to use knives


We cook recreationally and to avoid feeding our family processed food.

We try to keep a 1-week meal plan, but it's very hit or miss. We're happier when we have the meal plan.

We start from a protein and work from there; we hit our butcher once a week and grab a couple whole chickens, some braising pork, and some beef. We have some staple meals built out of those things.

Unless fasting is a diet, nope; we try to cook more green vegetables and less starch, but we're not religious.

My biggest productivity hack is bulk-packaged deli cups.


“bulk-packaged deli cups” – do you use this for freezing? Or take outs?


I use them for everything. Mise. Leftovers. Mixing small amounts of things. They're reusable, but also incredibly cheap; about the same amount of material as a ziploc.

It's like having an infinite supply of small, light bowls with tight-sealing lids.


+this. You can buy them in qty ~50 or so on Amazon fairly cheaply. There are probably a billion, but we have a big stack of these we use for everything from prep to freezing leftovers/taking to work: http://goo.gl/viX1Nh (they come in 8oz versions too, which I also have a stack of). They crack after about 10 cycles through the freezer and in backpacks/lunches, which comes out to about 5c per use. Very reasonable.


I liked to cook with my girlfriend as a fun and easy date activity, and we've continued to do it now that we're married. Also, cooking our own food is cheaper than going out every night, and tastes better than getting takeout.

We try to plan meals for the week and then do a big grocery run on the weekend, and I'll stop by the store after work if we run low on something.

We have a few meals that we run through on a rotation; making pulled pork in a slow cooker is pretty easy. There's a mustard marinated chicken dish that we both like. There are a few pasta dishes I can whip up from memory; we also make simple stuff like fried rice on occasion as well.

Neither of us follow a diet; we're still at the stage of our lives where trying to make generally balanced meals (protein, vegetables, fruit) is enough to keep us pretty healthy.

The only real life hack I have is that it's worth the time to memorize a couple recipes that taste good and are easy to make. Don't worry too much about cooking time; one of the pasta dishes I like to make has to simmer for 3 hours or so, but it's really easy to let that sit on the stove and just check on it a couple times an hour to make sure it isn't burning. Cooking isn't an active process where you have to be paying attention to it and devoting cycles to it every second of the process.


Slow cookers are something I discovered recently. They pretty much give you’re a killer food on the table without much effort.

Do you have recommended recipes?


One I actually have in my crock pot right this very minute is dead simple and turns out delicious.

Grab some type of beef roast (I usually get either chuck or round), and two cans of Campbell's french onion soup. Throw it in the crock pot on low over night (about 7-9 hours should do it) and you have delicious tender roast beef and gravy that will feed one person for 3-4 days, all for 5 minutes of prep.

Throw in some veggies if you like (pearl onions are really good, and I personally like mushrooms in there as well as they pair well with meat and soak up the gravy/soup mixture). It also goes without saying that if you can make your own french onion soup, it would turn out even better, but that does away with the whole 5 mins of prep stipulation. :)

If you want to get really fancy, look up a Brazilian dish called feijoada. Most recipies call for it to be cooked in a pot or a pressure cooker, but I convinced my girlfriend (who is from Brasil) to try to cook it in a crock pot, and it turned out being one of the best things I have ever put in my mouth. It's a real bitch getting all of the stuff to make it, but it is utterly fantastic and definitely worth the effort.


We've been doing the honey pulled pork recipe from http://www.thelawstudentswife.com/2014/05/slow-cooker-honey-...

I doubt it would win any BBQ competitions, but it's dead easy to make and is pretty delicious. We don't bother making the pancakes that the website recommends; we just grab some rolls from a bakery.

We don't make nearly as much use of our slow cooker as we should, but we're definitely looking for more recipes too. As we move into winter, we'll probably start trying to make stew, etc in it.


I cook for a living in NYC/Brooklyn and do catering around the holidays.

1. I cook at home because I love it. I grew up having Sunday dinners with family so the time in the kitchen and at the dinner table means a lot to me. I cook professionally because I enjoy getting beat down into the ground on a regular basis and feeling like a complete idiot. I enjoy the challenge because every event is a new one. Nothing ever goes according to the plan.

2. I only plan ahead when I've invited non-family guests. The rest of the time I decide based on what looks the most fresh/vibrant in the grocery store.

3. Whatever I think will taste good. A lot of Italian/Spanish food.

4. Nope. I truly believe that you should eat healthy, season appropriately, and enjoy every dish as an experience rather than sustenance. If you follow that, you will eat considerably less and be much happier.

5. Yes I have more tips, tricks, and unusual skills than you would probably care to know. From cooking you become very good at unusual skills like pouring liquids.

The restaurant culture has many traditions but we have one in particular that I think sums up the true importance of cooking. Every day we get together as a team and plan/cook a meal for all of the staff to eat before our busiest part of the day begins...

We call it "family meal" and thats exactly what it feels like.


1. Save cash (not much), healthier, it's a good social activity with housemates. I really miss it since I've turned digital nomad. I pretty much only cook with housemates, or when it's too late to go out.

2. Only barely. Maybe a day in advance tops.

3. I learn recipes from whoever's being sous chef for the night. I have a few of my own. Varies. I try to keep it balanced with some meat, veges and carbs.

4. Nope. None whatsoever. I'll eat almost anything too. My only rule is to never feel uncomfortable after a meal. I try to accommodate the requirements of the other participants in the meal though.

5. Core hack: I always keep the ingredients for my (extremely cheap and convenient yet reasonably healthy and tasty) backup meal in the house -- rice, frozen vegetables, frozen wontons, eggs -- which I can turn into a batch of reliable fried rice in under 10 minutes and while nearly brain-dead. Also nearly everything lasts for weeks in the fridge/storage if I don't need to resort to it.

Also I do all the physical labor under my mom's guidance for as many meals as I can spare the time for whenever I'm home. Hands-on-learning and she appreciates the help. It would be a waste to not learn from her culinary genius to pass on to the next generation. I think this is true re: every mom in the world.


I love to cook, I think because at my core I love to make things and my biggest motivation comes from creating and sharing, which is why I got into programming, and also why I'm drawn to DIY home improvement/car repair/etc. Cooking is an escape from the screen, a great way to get hands on and create something physical, and very rewarding, especially when shared with friends.

Over time I've found myself making more ambitious recipes, and these days I often don't follow recipes at all, I like knowing the ratios of ingredients and flavors and creating tasty things from scratch. I cook for myself most of the time, which makes this approach work...if I mess up on a new improvised recipe, I just have a less-than-perfect dinner. Then, when I'm cooking for friends, I'll whip out a home grown recipe that I've made enough times to trust.

I've found paper cookbooks preferable to apps, because I can spill stuff on them, burn them, use them with wet hands, set stuff down on them, and they don't turn off. I have a couple of cookbooks with simple, staple recipes that I use for reference, but I've also found The Flavor Bible(1) to be incredibly useful—it basically works as a big index of ingredient affinities, so you can look up flavors that go well together for a huge variety of ingredients.

I keep my kitchen stocked with a lot of basics, but I live right near a grocery store, so I'll drop by after work if I need anything special.

[1]http://www.amazon.com/The-Flavor-Bible-Creativity-Imaginativ...


The Flavor Bible, as well as What To Drink With What You Eat, and Science And Lore Of The Kitchen, are all invaluable. It's lots of fun to pick an ingredient, and brainstorm a full meal out of the Flavor Bible's combinations.


1. I cook recreationally - I find it's a great way to destress. I find doing something that's a different sort of creative task helps reset and refocus my mind. I actually don't find I save much money in cooking - often I like to cook exciting creative things, using ingredients you wouldn't use every day, and this tends to make cooking cost about the same as going somewhere mediocre for dinner (~£15 either way).

2. I find planning more than a day ahead pretty tough - you never know when you'll decide that actually going out for a beer with mates is more important than going home and cooking. The one exception to this is large meals on weekends. I enjoy having a few friends around, opening a few bottles of vino, and cooking something exciting - which obviously takes planning. At the extreme end of this, I do a christmas meal for 20+ friends every year, generally involving turkey, beef, ham, two types of potatoes, sprouts, a bunch of veg, home made sauces, christmas puddings, etc. This is great fun, but I need to start planning in October (note to self - remember to start planning that soon).

3. All sorts - often roasts, normally something with a meat centrepiece although occasionally I like cooking risotto or a fish pie or a stew. Depends on the time of year really. This summer, most of my meals have been some meat on the barbeque (butterflied leg of lamb for instance), and a bunch of mezze style items. I also occasionally bake loaves of bread (maybe once or twice a month). This feels really great - nothing is better for de-stressing than baking a loaf of bread.

4. No.

5. For me, the productivity isn't important - I'd much rather take my time and do things the old fashioned, conventional way.


1. I really like making things, and my wife and I just had our first kid. Cooking is a 'making things' hobby that counts as valuable home-chores. It's a lot harder to find free time to justify building surfboards, and the like.

2. Uggh. I try. Meal-planning is definitely one of the things I struggle with. I'd like to do more of it, but honestly I also really enjoy the challenge of figuring something out based on what we have on hand.

3. Per the above (cook with what's on hand), I have templates for things I make. I really love making ramen and have a lot of basic ideas that constantly get remixed and bashed together based on what's in the fridge. Really good sandwiches, soups (I especially like making cold gazpacho's, etc.).. stir fry. Lots of stuff in the theme of being amenable to plenty of ad-hoc free-styling.

4. We eat mostly vegan. A little dairy, and fish for me (but I rarely cook that cause only I eat it in my house)

5. I work at home so when I'm smart I prep at lunchtime for dinner. Like I said I try to curate a set of favorites platform-dishes that can tolerate massive recipe diversions... makes meal planning less crucial.


1. Why do you cook? Is it to save cash or is it recreation? Or something else?

I was a chef for 2-3 years before i went into Web Dev, i still love to cook and have much more knowledge in cooking than most people because of working in commercial kitchens. That said, i usually cant be bothered cooking if its just for me, i like cooking for others.

2. Do you plan ahead? Like a weekly meal plan?

Nah, i like to just see whats in the kitchen and work with it. There are general dishes that i cook often because i like them and will specifically buy ingredients for them, but the benefit of being able to cook, is that it allows you to use what you have.

3. What kind of things do you cook usually?

I like to make the ingredients for things that allow me to pull a meal together quickly. EG, i'll make croutons, salad dressing and chicken so i can make a salad or a wrap in 5 mins if i want to. I make pesto, makes pasta really easy. Every time i have a poker night i'll make a massive pot of my BBQ chilli, it has many fans and is versatile, you can have it with tortilla chips, soft tortillas, pasta, rice, chimmichanga's, etc. Mushroom/beef stroganoff is tasty, roast chicken is easy. I could go on for days.

4. Do you follow any diet? Atkins, Slow Carb etc.

Hell no, i liberally use salt, butter, cream etc, but i'll make sure not to live of heavy foods like that, i'll make sure i eat a good lot of salads, wraps, stir fry's, etc to balance it out.

5. Do you have any life hacks, tips to be more productive as a cook?

A good sharp knife, a large heavy chopping board with wet paper kitchen towel underneath it, stops it moving. Also, watch youtube videos for inspiration, food wishes, any celebrity chef, etc.


Your transition would be very very interesting to document. A Chef + Web dev is killer. Would it be possible to connect via email? Mine: cherian@cucumbertown.com


Why did you choose to go into web dev? I'm looking to make the opposite transition - web development to cooking full time.


Brutally honest answer? More money in Web dev. Also, i'm better at web dev. If you're going to become a chef prepare for a massive pay cut and the pay doesnt go up as high with seniority as web dev does. I can earn about £100k a year as a web dev (if i chose to work a full year, i don't) and a executive head chef in London would make around £40k a year and work AT LEAST 60 hours a week, you'd also need 8 - 10 years experience. A mid level chef with 3-4 years experience would make around £20k a year.


I hope you don't mind me asking, how did you transition? Did you take a course, were you already doing personal websites?

What position did you take first, self-employed/sole-trader or with a firm? Who pays £100k pa, or is that self-employed?

Thanks.


I did Web Dev in my spare time as a hobby, managed to get some work from a designer on a forum i was part of, and it just kinda went from there, got to a point where i was making about as much doing web dev as a chef, so just quit the chef job.

I've basically always been freelance, had a few permie jobs but im not very good at having a 9-5, too business minded for that crap. If i was to do contracting for a whole year, i'd make around £100k, but i tend to instead do contracting around 3 - 6 months a year and do my own business related things the rest of the time.


Thanks for that.


Great thread, lots of good responses. Here are my own answers:

1. Recreation and saving money. I really like good food, but don't always want to pay restaurant prices for it. There's a certain satisfaction in creating something delicious. It's sometimes a struggle between making time to cook at home and wanting to be lazy and just go out, though.

2. Not as much as we should. My wife prefers to plan ahead, but I'm not so good at always sticking to it.

3. We're pretty eclectic in what we cook. I enjoy Asian inspired flavors and have been intending to make more curries.

4. Not really. I have a certain affinity toward paleo, but I don't follow it too consistently. Mostly when I'm cooking I just try to eat "clean" without a lot of processed junk in it. I'd like to start baking my own bread again so I know what goes into it.

5. Several. Learn to use a knife, and keep it sharp. Get the biggest cutting board you can find. Season everything. Taste frequently, when practical (good with soups and sauces, not good with raw chicken ;)). Use a rice cooker, it's set and forget and keeps a burner (and pan) open for other things. If you have stainless steel pans, learn to use them correctly. To make it easier to slice meat thinly, put it in the freezer for 10-15 minutes first. Clean as you go. Don't be afraid to fail.

If you need something relatively fast and hands off, oven-roasted veggies and protein (particularly chicken, pork, and fish) work really well, and are much healthier than eating out.

Seriously, I can't overemphasize "keep it sharp" when it comes to knives. It's not just easier, it's also much safer. Dull knives are prone to turning and cutting things you didn't want cut, such as your fingers.


1. I've always cooked. My parents cooked at home and so I just assumed that's what you do.

2. Kind of - we get an organic box with a load of stuff in so I work around that.

3. Lots of Indian food (dal, veg curries, sometimes chicken curry), if I'm in a hurry a bunch of veg thrown into an electric steamer plus some protein (chicken/fish/steak). I make soup a couple of times a week, omelettes are a favourite quick lunch as we work from home, or a bunch of salad stuff.

4. I'm a distance runner so it depends what I'm doing with my training. I'm relatively low carb (no white anything), avoid processed stuff, avoid sugar.

5. Get decent knives and learn how to chop stuff up; an electric steamer, and a couple of decent pans. It takes 30 minutes to throw veg into a steamer and cook up a bit of chicken or fish. You can make soup out of almost anything. In the winter a slow cooker (crockpot) is brilliant. Make a batch of chilli in one then chuck some sweet potato wedges in the oven when you get in. Lovely.


I cook for fun, and because homemade food is delicious, and more customized to my tastes. When I've lived in houses with poor kitchens, I didn't cook at all. I don't plan ahead, and decide each day what I'm going to cook that night, or if I'm going to eat out. Right now I'm cooking at home about 3-4 times a week. Right now I'm able to do all my shopping at farmers markets, because I work a few blocks from a year-round market.

I don't follow any diet, but my preferences are meat-heavy, carb-light, with a light-to-moderate amount of vegetables, so vaguely similar to Atkins/Paleo diets.

A couple of my favorite meals: Roast salmon with a raita-like sauce, sometimes with pesto pasta; whole roast chicken with potatoes in the same pan; pork chops with sauteed onions and Golden Delicious apples; steak with mushrooms and onions; risotto.

No real cooking hacks, other than to have good equipment and buy quality ingredients, and paying attention to the little details.


1. To save money and to eat more healthily. Also, my girlfriend realy appreciates home/cooked meals.

2. We plan out 4 dinners per week. I'm responsible for two of them. I get her two preferences, make a shopping list, and go grocery shopping every Sunday or Monday. We now have a fairly well established list of recipes, and I use Anylist to construct my shopping list easily.

3. I prefer to cook meals where I can easily make big portions for leftovers. My favorites are: pad thai, tempeh + veggie stir fry over rice, black beans + veggies + guac over rice, african vegetable curry.

4. Vegetarian.

5. Buy pre-peeled garliC. You only beed one actually good chef's knife: buy a Dexter. Buy a rice cooker. Wok's are awesome - you can cook more food than in a standard pan, and you can cook it better. An actual cooking tip: when cooking with veggies, sear them to make them crunchy and not soggy. Too often people stir fry them in oil, and they get gross.


> Buy pre-peeled garliC.

why? If peeling it's the problem, i do it this way: http://youtu.be/Az_7uMKGtuE?t=47s


Do you use something to do meal planning? An app/tool?


I recommend www.simplysmartdinnerplans.com for quick and easy (and FREE) weekly meal plans, itemized shopping lists, and one-on-on help from a team of professional chefs.

SimplySmartDinnerPlans also gives back to the community by teaching hands-on free cooking, shopping, and nutrition classes for at-risk youth, and by supporting organizations like No Kid Hungry.

Check it out!

-Chef Perry


1. Recreation, it's fun! Also because it's often a better combination of healthy/tasty/unique than what I could buy pre-made.

2. No, but sometimes I wish I did.

3. There's too much variety here, but maybe I come back to minestrone, tomato/canellini casserole, and pan fried proteins (fish/pork/beef) a lot. I bake a lot of bread.

4. No.

5. Learn to tell whether or not something is cooking the way you want based on the sound it makes as it sizzles in the pan. That simple tip has changed the quality of my cooking forever. Develop recipes around a common set of staples with minor swap outs. Kind of "modular". You get variety without a ton of anxiety. I learned to think this way from Bittman's how to cook everything, though I don't use that book very often anymore, it was a brilliant set of training wheels to break free of recipes.


1) It is fun and feels nice / is appreciated to make food for friends and family.

2) I ballpark what I might want when grocery shopping but generally make serious plans for a meal for several people.

3) Sous vide chicken is currently popular. Grilling and smoking meats is the second most popular food prep I do, with baking or pan-frying fish a third.

4) No but I stay away from red meats, pork, and carbs because I feel better not eating them (so chicken fish and vegetables are most of the menu with some grains).

5) I'll agree with others - cooking is a fun event for friends to participate in.


What do you use to cook sous vide at home? Do you have an actual appliance? Or do you use one of the "improvised hacks" I've seen on blogs, etc. ("improvised hacks" is not meant to be derogatory, by the way -- just couldn't think of how else to describe them)


I use the Sansair device - it seems pretty solid and is very easy to use. I'm not sure how much I'd trust a hack I would do that involves water and electricity, but others who work with hardware more I think would have no problem. The device is incredibly dumb, it's really just a circulator, heating element, and a decent voltage regulator with a thermometer and some basic logic gates to raise or lower the voltage when the temperature is closer or further away from the target.


1. it's healthier, cheaper, fun and usually tastier.

2. no plan, unless "to use up the X" counts.

3. food. real food begins with, and consists mostly of vegetables. meat, cheese, eggs, grains, seeds, etc are great, but are only seasonings.

4. no diet, just real food. the goal of eating is to get enough veg and without much processing - anything else that happens is for fun.

5. recipes are for inspiration; there are no rules (yes, even baking). you should know how to approximate anything. get a couple good knives. also, one-piece silicone spatulas .


3. food. real food begins with, and consists mostly of vegetables. meat, cheese, eggs, grains, seeds, etc are great, but are only seasonings.

How do you figure? What aspects of what you list make them any less real than that of dishes primarily consisting of vegetables?

If I had to name what I considered the prototypical real food, I would have to go with rice. It is eaten all over the world, and has served as the cornerstone for several very disparate civilizations for a very, very long time


1. I cook mainly for convenience, but also because I enjoy it. Due to where I live and the kinds of products I buy, I wouldn't say I'm saving much if any money cooking at home as opposed to eating out. Quality and organic/local groceries are expensive in SF, and there are thousands of delicious and affordable restaurants and delivery services.

2. I rarely if ever plan ahead. Maybe if I have guests coming over for dinner I'll plan a day in advance. I typically have a rotation of staple dishes which I go through, but it's very flexible, and I come up with random new things when inspiration or boredom strikes.

3. All sorts of things, but typically Italian, French, Tex/Cal-Mex, some Thai/Chinese style and the odd curry.

4. Nothing strict, but I'm very low carb, low sugar, high protein and fat with tons of veggies.

5. I use cooking as an escape, and thus don't care too much about my productivity. That said, I can get stressed if things look like they aren't going to turn out well, or when I feel like I'm scrambling to maintain my timing. One tip: it typically pays off to do most or all of your prep work before you start cooking. A little prep+cook multitasking is manageable but I find cooking a lot more fun when I have everything prepped and ready and can focus all of my attention on the composition.


1. Because I love food and take-out often is not nutritionally complete without paying an obscene amount of money. Money isn't a direct factor for why I cook at home, its a definite bonus of everything since I can get a delicious and balanced meal for <$10 that would be $25+ eating out. Additionally, eating out often gets repetitive, what easy breakfast options are there out there? After you've had your fill of muffins and breakfast sandwiches you don't see many options

2. I plan what types of meals I want to eat the following week while at the grocery store. This week I wanted Pulled Pork, Quiche, and Chili so I worked around that. I'm hankering Butter Chicken and a solid steak so that'll likely happen next week. Side dishes like the vegetables are often just whatever I want and try to keep things original; there's much less planning in this aspect.

3. My diet staples will always be Chicken, Eggs, Greek Yogurt, Stir Fry, and Bananas. The rest sort of comes and goes as I get cravings or need variety.

4. No brand-name diets. I just track calories and adjust for what I'm shooting for at any moment. Currently cutting weight at ~1lb/week (TDEE-500cal)

5. My only time-saver tip is really to have your counters clean before you start and clean as you go so there isn't a giant pile of dishes at the end.


5. Things that have helped me be more interested in cooking and be a good cook:

Buy "On Food and Cooking" by Harold McGee.

Listen to Cooking Issues podcast by Dave Arnold (check out blog too)

Watch any cooking show with Julia Child and/or Jacques Pepin, get some of his books to learn techniques. Her books are amazing too.

Buy a few standard cookbooks. I love Joy Of Cooking because it's practically a canonical reference to make anything, and there's lots of info on technique. There are a few Culinary school books that are really good too (the ICC book "Fundamental Techniques of Classical Cooking" and the CIA "The Professional Chef" are good).

Practice, Practice, Practice. Make certain dishes because you want to get good at a technique or skill.

On general recipes: Don't make too many dishes because they were on a blog, sound good, or use a trendy ingredient (beer, bourbon, kale, bacon). Often they are overly complicated and they aren't very diverse. Don't underestimate how delicious basic dishes can be. Don't underestimate how many techniques and skills from classical french cuisine apply to cultures everywhere, and importantly, the ingredients are almost always available. Shy away from dishes with hard-to-source (mostly perishable) ingredients (I'm looking at you, Jerusalem/Ottolenghi).


1. Practicality: cheaper, better control of what the family eats. Hospitality: There's little better for building bonds than sharing a home-cooked meal. Recreation: Fun to try new things, to copy things we like, to do something special for special occasions. Also: Cooking changes how I'm using my hands and brain in a different way than sitting at a keyboard/screen all day.

2. We do a rough sketch of the week on Sunday mornings - we spend half an hour talking over budget, schedule, meals and their intersection.

3. A) What we grew up with. B) What we learned we liked C) Things from cookbooks that look good.

4. At different times we've tried Atkins and South Beach. Mostly, we like Pollan's 'Eat food, not too much, mostly plants'. Although we probably eat too many brats to really qualify.

5. Do you have any life hacks, tips to be more productive as a cook? Planning by the month/week/session ('mise en place') is key. The right gear can be important (knives and pans, yes, but an ounce/gram scale and a thermometer have changed how we cook). Learning is the other key. I've spent too much on cookbooks, but Alton Brown (e.g. 'I'm Just Here for the Food'), Julia Child (esp. 'The Way to Cook'), and Thomas Keller (esp. 'Ad Hoc') all have a lot to teach that applies in day-to-day cooking. I like Thomas Keller's baking trick (from 'Bouchon Bakery'): Use a single measuring bowl with a scale, measure quantities by weight, taring out after each ingredient goes in. Faster, more accurate, fewer things to clean up later.


> 2. We do a rough sketch of the week on Sunday mornings - we spend half an hour talking over budget, schedule, meals and their intersection.

Do you have any notes on this I could use? Will help me a lot.


Not really notes, but off the top of my head: 1) We pull up Mint, categorize anything that isn't and look at how last week's spending compares with the budget. 2) We talk day by day over the week - special events, working late, etc. We dedicate Thursday to having people over for dinner, so we talk about who and what to make for them. 3) We've got a not-nearly-enough-organized list of 'the usual' meals, and we do a sketchy job of lining that up against what's in the fridge/pantry, and against what we haven't had in awhile. If it's Fall/Winter, we usually make a stew or soup or casserole or two for lunch/dinner Sunday and leftovers/lunches the rest of the week. We'll decide Sunday morning, and make it that afternoon, or the following week if we're missing some key ingredient. We buy bulk stuff on our Saturday runs to Costco, produce and such on Sunday afternoons, and there's sometimes a Wednesday or Thursday trip to fill in bits for Thursday dinner.

Hope that helps... I'm sure someone's put more thought into it than we have.


1. I started to cook to save cash on "healthy" food. "Healthy" and high in protein food tend to be expensive, and I was just starting to take my daily macros on fitness more seriously. After spending time on cooking, I learned to enjoy cooking, is like crafting food.

2. I don't usually plan my meals, but there are times I find out about a new recipe I want to try but have to wait till the weekend to buy the ingredients at the supermarket.

3. "Healthy" and high in protein meals or desserts. Or just something I feel like trying out, like Thai food.

4. I just try to reach my daily grams of protein per lbs of bodyweight intake, and try to keep my carbs moderate.

5. Tip #1. Before starting to cook, plan out what to do first to save time. Start with the stuff you have to wait later on: e.g.: prepare and start boiling the chicken first, and while it's cooking, proceed to cut the veggies.

Tip #2. Start washing your dishes while are waiting for something to cook.

Tip #3. Cook in bulk to save time and money. I usually cook enough food for 2 or 3 days, prepare the extra portions in containers and leave them on the fridge.

Tip #4. Learn to taste your food and experiment, don't just follow the recipe. After cooking something new for the first time, taste it, learn to identify what is missing or if there is too much of anything.


My main occupation is a medical student, but I consider myself a "hobbyist hacker".

1. I am on a low carb diet, which rules out the bulk of prepared food options. Also, I discovered a passion for cooking when I was around 14 and actually wanted to be a chef for awhile, so it's something I enjoy. Keto is actually quite expense for me, mainly because there's less "filler" in my meals.

2. No. When I go grocery shopping, I will have a handful of things I want to make in the next couple weeks in mind and get the ingredients for them. Often times I will make several servings at one time and eat them over the next day or two.

3. A lot of breakfast foods, stir fry, "pasta" dishes, and simple meat+vegetable dishes.

4. I am on a keto diet but it's not per anyone else's guidelines. I basically try to limit carbs to <30g/day (and avoid fructose entirely), protein to >40 <60g/day, and fat to >100 <120g/day.

5. It comes down to your rhythm and how well you can multi-task. If you do everything linearly, it will take you a long time to get anything done. Learn how long individual passive steps take and determine what you can actively get done in the down time- especially true when making multiple dishes at once. Also, limit the complexity of your sides. It's much faster/easier to steam some broccoli and carrots while cooking a steak than it is to pair the steak with loaded mashed potatoes and caesar salad. But on that note, prepare whatever you can in advance and in bulk quantities (e.g. mashed potatoes are perfectly fine reheated and will keep for a good while).


1. I cook mostly to save money, and because I really like doing it. I like to go to a restaurant, have a dish, and then try to recreate it myself. Also portions I can purchase are too small to make me full.

2. No, I eat what's in my fridge, starting with most volatile items like kale, spinach and tomatoes. I always have a lot of eggs and onions which don't seem to go bad for a while. In the freezer I have fish, bags of frozen veggies. In the cupboard I have canned beans and canned tuna.

3. All of my meals include meat, fish or eggs and vegetables or beans. I try to limit carbs, but once in a while I make spaghetti.

4. I try to avoid processed food and limit carbs in favor of proteins.

5. Get a magic bullet! I just made a glass of hummus for pitas, celery and carrots. It took me 5 minutes. When I'm rushing in the morning, I make a banana+milk+peanut butter+egg smoothie. Takes 2 minutes to make and serves as a breakfast. You can add in protein powder to your meals. A quick lunch at work: Microwave a sweet potato for 9 minutes (turn it halfway through) and eat with a can of tuna. My favorite is chipotle flavoured. It's a $3 lunch and it's huge! Another thing I do is make lunch and dinner (same food, divided into two portions) while I cook and eat breakfast.


1. Why do you cook? Is it to save cash or is it recreation? Or something else?

For the enjoyment and challenge of making something tangible, that I can watch others enjoy. Something that is not made of bytes and pixels.

2. Do you plan ahead? Like a weekly meal plan?

Yes, I plan my baking at the beginning of each week and and back on Monday and Wednesday.

3. What kind of things do you cook usually?

I bake. Breads, pies, bagels, croissants, cakes, etc. Occasionally I experiment with gluten-free recipes.

4. Do you follow any diet? Atkins, Slow Carb etc.

No but I also don't eat everything I bake. I bake so much that we give a lot of the product to friends and neighbors. My wife is "gluten lite" so she tends to only taste samples and I would gain 25 pounds if I ate everything. If I keep baking this much, I may set up a relationship with one of the local soup kitchens to drop off food there.

5. Do you have any life hacks, tips to be more productive as a cook?

In baking, mise en place, for sure. But also many breads do better with steam in the oven in the first 3 minutes. Do this by pouring a cup of hot water into a heavy pan heated at the bottom of the oven (be careful!).

Also, when making croissants, use European butter (higher fat content) and make sure the butter and dough are the same temperature when doing your initial laminating.


1. recreation and I like the food I cook more than the alternatives

2. I usually plan for a few days but also adjust my plans ad-hoc

3. Curries, Stews/goulash, fried sausages, ribs, burgers, fish (salmon)

4. Low Carb, because it works for me

5. Get a sortiment of curry pastes and a few cans of coconut milk. Curries are really easy and delicious. Cut some meat and vegetables, stir fry them, add the curry paste and pour the coconut milk over everything.

Put ribs into an oven bag and they almost cook themselves.

Get a Thermapen.


1. Mostly it suits my tastes better. Last weekend I finished a winter supply of plum jam. You can't really buy one that isn't half sugar despite plums being pretty sweet on their own.

But yes, it's cheaper, better, and with a podcast on, downright enjoyable.

2. I buy some special ingredients with certain meals in mind but there's base stuff that doesn't spoil easily and I simply keep it around: condiments, eggs, bran, olive oil,

3. Last night I made inferno omelette[1]. Though I cut down on ingredients and used only jalapenos and didn't bother grinding the beef. There's also a great weekend breakfast I stole from Gordon Ramsey[2].

I try to do what's in season so greek salad in the summer, baked apples in the fall and so on.

4. I try to keep the meals low carb but not really when it gets in the way.

5. Put on a podcast when cooking and it's like going to a lecture. But you get to eat afterwards.

[1] http://chefinjeans.com/2012/05/31/cooking-for-single-men-inf...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUP7U5vTMM0


"Mostly it suits my tastes better."

Home canned brandied diced apples. Tastes as good as it sounds.

Another one you can't buy in any store at any price is home canned peach and rum sauce, which is pretty much pureed peaches and rum.

(edited to note the above two are right out of the Bell canning book, nothing exotic)

I'm well aware neither is very paleo or good for me, but given the effort required to prepare them, its a great special treat.

On a slightly different tangent I find it hard to find fajita chicken meat that is marinated the way I like it, with 1:1:1 ratios of orange, lemon, and lime juices. Why? I don't care if its right or wrong, I just know it tastes really good at those ratios!

The best stir fries I've ever had have been just "stuff from the fridge" all dumped in.


Thumbs up on the jam. I just made jam for the first time and it was easily the messiest thing I've ever made. Making it from grapes I picked on our property was pretty satisfying. The splatter burns on my hands look like hives though.


1. Some of both. I've always liked cooking, and my wife and I both like good food and used to eat out a lot. When we got our own place instead of having to share with roommates/family members we just ended up cooking a lot more.

2. Only in a casual way. We have a few stapels that we rotate through on an ad-hoc basis depending on how we feel and what food might be on sale or in season, and plan 1 or 2 more complex meals a week. Planning is the least enjoyable part of it for me.

3. Pasta dishes, curries, roasts, occasional barbecue. I grew up in Ireland eating meta & two veg, my wife is vietnamese/Chineseso maybe 30-40% homestyle cooking (which we both do, eg I can make Pho) and 60-70% what we might have if we went out. We have good farmers markets near us as well so every so often we'll just buy ingredients that look interesting and learn how to cook with them.

4. LOL no. the nearest we come to health food is using olive oil by default. I don't like a lot of grease/salt/sugar in my food so I don't cook tht way. I could accomodate a special diet if I had to, two of my family have coeliac disease so I grew up dealing with limited diets.

5. Cooking is mostly about control of heat. So if you have a choice, use a gas stove. Spend money on pots and pans, you'll get better results. If in doubt, heavier is generally better. It's better to start hot and turn down than vice versa, I've lost a lot more meals to undercooking than burning things. Ceramic or anodized non-stick is totally worth it, but it's not appropriate for everything. 'Barkeeper's friend' will get the shine back on your metal cookware. You can cut your cooking time in half by doing things in the right order.


1. I cook for many reasons -- to make balanced meals for my family, to save money, to get my mind completely off the daily grind. Also, eating out a lot throws my digestive system out of whack and I end up feeling unwell for days.

2. I've tried, but I'm terrible at planning. There are also days where I have ingredients for _____ (some dish) but I would rather eat _____ (something else) -- maybe because I went to my parents' or in-laws' for dinner and they served that same dish.

3. It's usually some medley of vegetables and meat. I love different kinds of food and usually cook Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipino, Indian, and Thai (just last night!) food. And occasionally some kind of casserole/pasta, if I haven't eaten too much wheat lately.

4. No particular diet, but I try to avoid flour/wheat and include more veggies (usually Asian).

5. I think everyone said the productivity hacks already, but basically for me -- you don't need the latest gadgets, but if you can afford it, get a high quality cookware that will last you a lifetime, and use fresh, high quality ingredients. And do all the dishes before you start... it makes a world of difference.


1. Why do you cook?

I like to cook because you always ship.

You can't sit and obsess about it forever. That's liberating. Once you embrace that, it allows you to experiment.


Nice way to put it.


Cooking your own food is healthy, cheap, and you actually know what is going into your food. Few days ago I went to my friends house and we ordered chinese food, got food poisoning and now I'm sick... Doesn't happen often, but you really have no idea what they put in your food when you take out. Same is true with buying processed foods.

The biggest life hack for healthy cooking/eating is something I discovered just a few weeks ago after I bought a $500 top of the line blender (Vitamix). What you can do is fill the blender up with raw vegetables/fruits and it will blend it into a liquid. This might seem obvious, but I really mean RAW fruits (i.e. throw an entire apple, banana, celery sticks, kale, etc. and it will liquify everything including the stems and skins). Every morning I have one of these, some taste horrible, some taste really good, but since it's liquified I can just chug a glass of it and you really start to feel amazing after doing this for even just a few days. To be honest I rarely ate vegetables before, so I don't think I've ever eaten this healthy in my life.


http://www.cookingforengineers.com/ is a decent, relevant site worth having a look at.

I remember reading http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/129/Chefs-Knives-... a long time ago and I appreciated the analytical approach.


For background: I grew up (until about 28) in Australia, then moved to Thailand (a couple of years ago).

1. For pleasure, and because most western food I've found in Thailand is not great. Regardless of the meal it would almost always be cheaper to eat out here.

2. Not so much a meal plan - usually we just look and see what is available/looks good (i.e. imported or less common items are not always available or fresh) at the market/supermarket and then make decisions based based on that.

3. Various pasta sauces are quite common as they're quick and easy (especially if my wife wants Thai food that night and I don't), but anything from roasts to curries (both thai and indian), to things like risotto, pizza, burgers, and various 'meat & veg' using stuff like salmon, steak, etc.

4. Not specifically, I just try to watch what goes into the pan/pot - trim excessive fat/skin from meat, use olive oil when possible, reduce salt/sugar/cream/butter etc when possible.

5. Experiment when you can. For me a recipe is almost never an actual recipe but more like a napkin-sketch outline of the basic ingredients and process. I lived alone for several years which really gave me good opportunities to try things and get a feel for what works and what doesn't. When you are the only person who will end up hungry (if it fails) its so much easier to be brave and try something new - it becomes inspiration to try again until you find something that works. I find I'm much less likely to experiment to the same extent if I'm cooking for my wife. I'll usually get her to try stuff when I do, but its not common I will try something I've never done before if she is expecting to eat what I'm cooking for dinner.


I am not a hacker. I'm more a designer and business person but I also started cooking while building our mobile app product.

1. I cook for several reasons: (a) I am sick of eating the same food every day. The smell of noodles (and other fast food) makes me sick; (b) I get to save money if I cook myself; (c) I can experiment and control my inputs

2. Yes, I usually open one of several cooking apps on my iPad and pick several meals that I will cook this week. Then, I make a list of what ingredients I will need and go to the market so buy everything cheaply.

3. I live in Uzbekistan, so I try to cook food that I wouldn't normally find here. This includes seafood, steaks, and soups.

4. I try to eat lean meat-- chicken and fish (plus salads). That lead to a better health and I can see my abs now. Once a week I treat myself with beef steak or Uzbek kabab (BBQ). Needless to say that I don't drink soda and I don't eat ice cream.

5. Just Do It. Get yourself an iPad app. I personally use Photo Recipe and Cookbook.

PS: I tried cooking for 5 days ahead but my food tends to spoil. So now I only cook for 2 or 3 days ahead, depending on ingredients.


Yes! I am a hacker that loves to cook. Here are my answers: 1. I do it because I find it to be relaxing and a welcome hands-on activity that is just creative enough to dig into fast after hours of staring at a screen. 2. This past summer I would plan ahead and cook quite a bit on Sundays to get meals together for the week. Eliminates a lot of spend and thinking as well as waiting around during lunch time when you want to just focus. 3. I cook things that scale well for myself and the team as well as have a good balance of protein/veggies. Roasts with roasted veggies. Whole chickens. Lasagna with spinach salad. Stir fry. Curries. Fried rice. Bean salads. 4. Not really. I generally eat not as many carbs, but by no means am I a no-carb or low-carb. I focus on getting veggies in the mix. 5. To be more productive in the kitchen is to have a well-stocked freezer plus fridge and have an organized shopping list every week at a certain time. Also a good amount of spices and high quality canned goods to round-out meals when you are out of something.

Happy cooking!


1. Why do you cook? Is it to save cash or is it recreation? Or something else?

Recreation. It is fun to make and eat good food, and share it with others. My friends are generally into kitchen experiments, so it is cooking is a major feature of my social life. The act itself is often relaxing. It is also a personal challenge. I have been working on some dishes for all my life trying to perfect them.

A common theme in my cooking is what some call "peasant dishes". The foods eaten by the common people. These are usually some of the most celebrated and culturally significant dishes you can find. I feel that making these dishes brings me closer to understanding the culture they came from.

2. Do you plan ahead? Like a weekly meal plan?

No. When I want to make something, I go to buy anything I do not have on hand. If an ingredient will go bad, I will make a dish to use it up. This can cause chain reactions that keep me going for months.

3. What kind of things do you cook usually?

Hard to categorize since I blur the lines often. Lots of vegetable dishes, soups, things involving egg, cold dishes, and breads (including lots of pizza, a special case of bread). I generally shy away from meat because it is too expensive for the good stuff. When it comes to ingredients I only buy the good stuff.

4. Do you follow any diet? Atkins, Slow Carb etc.

No. I try to eat healthy most of the time. If I have any "diet plan", it is: I would rather skip a meal than eat something that doesn't excite me.

5. Do you have any life hacks, tips to be more productive as a cook?

Cook by feel. Until you do, you will stuck following recipes. If you want to invent, improvise, and explore, you must train your senses.


I find I'm often too busy to cook and end up eating out instead. However as an early stage founder that's not very sustainable (breaks the bank), so I try to pack a sandwich, have breakfast and morning coffee at home, and do a rotating dinner with friends. The last one is informal, more like "oh we're at your apartment tonight, what's in the fridge we can make?"

Personally, I want to start planning ahead and making large meals on Sundays that I can save. I'd also like to start cooking larger meals and freezing "quick-meals" I can just defrost when I'm in a hurry. I find veggie burritos are cheap, easy quite filling, and almost always produce leftovers. tortilla + rice + beans + sauteed onion and bell pepper + burrito toppings = deliciousness

If you're looking for some delicious recipes to try, my Swedish cousin-in-law is quite into healthy cooking. Should be something for all budgets: http://meandmyfood.blogspot.se/


I do all of the cooking in my household, which on average is 5 dinners, 2 breakfasts, even most packed lunches -- desserts, pot-luck obligations, etc.

1. Why do you cook? Is it to save cash or is it recreation? Or something else?

I love it. Also, we do have a frugal lifestyle, so I would probably force myself if I didn't. I have been doing this since my wife and I moved in together -- so about 15 years.

2. Do you plan ahead? Like a weekly meal plan?

I used to -- with so much experience, I can wing it. I make sure to have a lot of choices, a stocked pantry, and I just make stuff up usually. If I find a recipe I want to try, I plan better that week. For baking, I have to plan a little more.

3. What kind of things do you cook usually?

Normal stuff -- basically "Healthy American" -- so two vegetable sides and a little meat, light on starches. I have a lot of Latino and Italian dishes in my repertoire (from my Grandmothers). I will try anything though -- cook out of a classic Indian cookbook sometimes. I use "How to Cook Everything" as a mash-up source -- see how something is basically made (ratios, technique) and take it from there.

Breakfasts are diner-fare usually (omelets, eggs any way, fruited pancakes, etc.).

4. Do you follow any diet? Atkins, Slow Carb etc.

I used to follow Paleo and it influenced my style. I do a lot of slow cooking from that time -- also jerky.

5. Do you have any life hacks, tips to be more productive as a cook?

Cook in bulk. Get a slow cooker. Realize that you will get better at it if you do it a lot. Prep weekly lunches all at once (I do it during the time Sunday dinner is cooking). Use good ingredients. Herbs and spices matter, especially just salt and pepper.


Slow cooker. My most fascinating biggest discovery in the US yet.


My wife and I cook ~95% of our meals. We eat out maybe once/twice per month.

Neither of us are too picky or on any specific diet, but generally we make meals that are high in protein (meat), some carbs, and a generous amount of vegetables.

Typically, we make rather large amounts so each of us has another meal for lunch the following day.

We try to avoid pre-packaged/prepared foods whenever possible. No pasta bag meals or pre-seasoned chicken, etc. Also, we stay away from anything that contains soybean oil, vegetable oil, or soy products. Organic meat, vegetables, and fruits, if possible.

We still eat some bread/gluten, but our overall carb consumption is down considerably. I experimented with cutting out carbs almost completely and substituting with more fat in my diet, but saw a decline in my energy level.

We drink alcohol ~2x per month, maybe splitting a bottle of wine each time.

We started more seriously focusing on our diet a few years ago and definitely noticed changes in our energy level, body appearance, skin, and overall health.

Don't kid yourself, what you put into your body matters.


I hear it takes 1-2 months to become fully fat adapted when cutting out carbs.. Some decline in energy level initially is to be expected.


I've heard the same.

My failure may have been from trying to cut all carbs too quickly. I've since just tried to remain cognizant of the amount of carbs I consume, and try to lower that over time.

Sugar was tough. Like many people, I used to crave sugar. Tapering off of that has helped, but it certainly takes time to get used to consuming very little sugar.


What kind of diet do you follow?


No one diet in particular. I like some of the ideas from the Paleo diet, but also try to listen to my body. If I am hungry for simple, plain foods, that is what I eat. I also make quite a few richer, fattier meals.

Always high in protein, smaller amount of carbs, and several vegetable servings with each meal.

I keep onions and garlic on hand. Onions can be chopped and kept frozen. Garlic keeps for quite a while in the fridge. I use both almost every day.

I try to keep it simple with only a few high quality ingredients.


> 1. Why do you cook? Is it to save cash or is it recreation? Or something else?

Its an offline activity for me. Whatever time I get in from work say 7-9pm I generally cook if theres food in the fridge. Most meals tend to take an hour which is a good time for me to think about something else other than work.

> 2. Do you plan ahead? Like a weekly meal plan?

Sort of I have goto meals mainly asian which is always in the fridge / freezer

> 3. What kind of things do you cook usually?

Other peoples recipes!

> 4. Do you follow any diet? Atkins, Slow Carb etc.

Slow / No carbs, high protein

> 5. Do you have any life hacks, tips to be more productive as a cook?

I have a few although its less about being productive.

- Have a handful of goto meals that you know inside out and have them in the fridge.

- Get meat out the night before and put it in the freezer

- Always have vegetables you'll eat out if there isn't anything

- Ramen noodles should be bought in 25/50 boxes!

I dont think the focus of cooking should be about being productive, sometimes its nice to switch off and get away from the computer and talk to the wife / partner / people that aren't on the internet


1. Recreational. I enjoy cooking for others more then for myself. I also enjoy that cooking is a task that cannot run over: either the food is done or overcooked. You have to know what you do next.

2. No. Just run past the store on the way home.

3. Flavor of the week. My standard is Quiche Lorraine, but I obviously don't do that all the time.

4. No.

5. Get a cookbook that is very restrained when it comes to ingredients.


Do you have a suggestion on the cookbook?


For starters, http://thestonesoup.com/ has very good recipes built around that idea. They also have free cookbooks.

Other then that, there are "student cookbooks" (differ on country).


"How to Cook Everything" -- there's also an app. It's just the basic recipe for everything. You can use it as a base to add on to later (or not)


The Joy of Cooking


1) If I didn't cook, I'd be cranky and have hungry kids. There aren't many restaurants near home that are decent, and none that are affordable for 5 with any regularity. We also want the kids to know how to fend for themselves if they're left alone in a well stocked kitchen. Also, there's nothing quite like having something new come together.

2) Some planning, lots of ingredients in house so we can usually make something appealing in < 1 hour.

3) Pretty much anything shy of molecular or art food. I'm enjoying slow smoking meats, baking bread, and the odd indian or thai dish. Gathering stuff in the garden is also a good inspiration.

4) Ingredients need to be recognizable as food. With a side of accommodating gluten free, one kid not liking steak or any meat tougher than ground beef or salmon, one kid not liking anything until everyone else is finished, and one kid devouring anything that's green.

5) Move to a place where it's far easier to cook than find a restaurant.


1. Fun. The preparation and cooking (and subsequent eating) is a good change of pace and can be zen-like

2. Not really. I plan special dishes once every couple of weeks, but have enough stuff on my 'normal' weekly grocery list that I can do a fair variety

3. Beef stroganoff, lo mein, stromboli, spaghetti, fajitas, tabbouleh, sushi rolls, steak&baked potatoes, etc

4. No, though I've been trying to reduce fat and cholesterol with low/no fat versions or substitutions (greek yogurt instead of sour cream, ground turkey, etc)

5. Mise en place (prepare everything before turning anything on). Experiment; tweak the recipes and try new things. Don't go cheap on essential equipment (knives, pots&pans). Try doing things without countertop appliances (fresh ravioli with a rolling pin and knife, hand kneed breads, mince with a knife instead of using a food processor, etc) to learn what to look for. Have fun cooking so you do it more often and it's a positive thing :)


Cooking is one of my favorite ways to decompress and shift my focus from work back to spending time with my family. Our apartment is right next to a grocery store, so it's easy to grab stuff for a recipe on my way home from work.

I'm a big fan of An Everlasting Meal by Tamar E. Adler. For instance, last week I prepared pork tenderloin w/ sage and lemon (browned in a skillet and then 20 min. in the oven at 450°F) on Sunday with a spinach and mushroom sauté w/ a garlic cream sauce on the side. The next night we had big salads with the leftover pork, nectarines and a lemon vinaigrette.

We almost always make our own chicken stock, often with the carcass and leftovers from a simple roast chicken and whatever produce in the fridge needs to be used up.

One of my favorite techniques lately is to mash up a few garlic cloves (skin on) and then put 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a cast iron skillet and infuse the oil with the garlic over medium heat for a few minutes. Then, whether we're having shrimp or chicken or fish, I chop the meat, pat the pieces dry, and season it with salt, pepper and a bit of crushed red pepper. After discarding the garlic, I turn the heat up to medium-high/high and after 5-8 min., get a nice golden crust and texture.

We make fish tacos at least once every two weeks, almost always w/ Red Snapper. We buy almost exclusively organic, and try to work lots of produce into our meals. One of my favorite ways to do this is with a fricassée, b/c there's a lot of flexibility in one kinds of things you can mix into it, much like a stew. It creates a full meal in less than 40 minutes (mileage may vary depending on how much chopping you need to do).

As far as diets, we try not to eat processed foods, and keep the carbs in check unless we're craving pasta or pizza, and keep alcohol to two drinks (usually wine, unless the meal pairs really nicely w/ a particular beer).


1. I cook because I and my family need to eat. As for why I cook as opposed to buying premade food: it's cheaper, and I have control over ingredients, amounts, and seasoning.

Personally, I do cook for fun. I live as part of a family of four. We share the cooking; most the cooking is not done by me (I usually cook the evening meal once a week).

2. We plan meals weekly.

3. I personally get into Cantonese-style stir-fries, Indian curries, Thai curries, and whatever else suits my fancy.

4. We do not follow any "name" diet. But we have significant food-intolerance issues in my family, so we do have to work to "weave the minefield".

5. Plan meals ahead of time. Make extra and use for left-overs/lunches.

That said, I find your question strange. Huge numbers of people, all over the world, regularly eat food cooked by themselves or someone they live with. It isn't the slightest bit unusual. It might be better to ask: Hackers who don't cook, why don't you cook?


I'm answering you because geeks and cooking are a great combo - everyone should give it a serious try at some point.

1) I love cooking. I'm (mostly) vegan, and I get a better diversity of food by doing it myself. It's more cost effective. My food is more healthy, and I'm a far better cook than the average food you get at a cheap restaurant (and the expensive ones are just that. :). Add to that that my kid has some digestive allergies -- but I cooked when I was a single omnivore, too, but only 5 days/week instead of 6-7.

2) Half and half. Big meal components get planned on weekends so that I only have to shop once per week. Sides, veggies, salads I replan dynamically based upon what's in the fridge and what looked good at the store.

3) If you read through Veganomicon, World Vegetarian, Vegan Eats World, and some random Chinese and Indian cookbooks, plus a little bit of Julia Child, you'll have it nailed! :)

4) I'm vegan, family's not, but no - just no meat/dairy.

5) Practice. Force yourself to accept restrictions on how and what you cook with -- try cooking vegetarian, vegan, every cuisine of the world. Read the food science texts, too, because understanding why things work gives you room to experiment. Experiment. You'll f- it up. That's ok, it's still edible.

Learn to chop efficiently and get a really sharp, appropriate-weight (for you) chef's knife or santoku. You'll love yourself for it for the time it saves doing prep.

The stuff about mise en place? IT's RIGHT. Unless you're in a crazy hurry, prep first. Buy some little prep containers to hold things after you prep them. It'll cut your mistake rate in half. Have everything assembled and then start. (Note: I violate this rule at least once per week, but it's when I know what I'm doing already and am in a rush and don't mind if I skip something minor.)


1) I cook because it's valuable to me to be able to "provide" my own food, and know what I ingest. Additionally I cook because I believe it's generally more healthy, and with less "short cuts" than take-out or frozen food.

2) I have 5-6 different "recipes" or meals that I know how to cook and usually I cook these one or more times during the week. But generally I decide on my way back from work, with not much planning.

3) I cook lots of curries. Indian curries with tomatoes, chickpeas, onions, coconut milk, rice, garlic, chilis. Thai curries with brocolli, coconut milk, garlic, etc.

4) I am a vegetarian.

5) My absolutely best life hack for cooking, is doing together with someone. Cooking with a friend, or even for a friend, is so much more satisfying and rewarding than doing it alone. If you struggle to cook meals for yourself; team up with a coworker, friend, girlfriend or whatever!


I cook indian food too but my apartment always ends up smelling like a curry den. American kitchens are not particularly well designed for ethnic cooking.


Interesting! What should be changed about American kitchen design to fix this problem? Is it possible to fix this issue without rebuilding the entire house?


No doors or windows in the house to let the smell escape :)

On a serious note -- kitchens need to have a door (and not be connected to dining rooms or living rooms without doors). That way smell stays in the kitchen and escape through a separate kitchen-to-street ventilation system.


Ah yes. I can't think of the last time I was in a house that had doors to the kitchen that close.


I am an Indian. And curries smell.


1. It's cheaper and my cooking tastes better and is more sustainable healthwise compared to buying a dinner for equivalent cost. I didn't actually start enjoying cooking however until I started living in the city and I had a cool Japanese supermarket within walking distance. I actually enjoy grocery shopping, something I hated before, and since it's close, I don't have to think too much or plan ahead when shopping.

2. Do you plan ahead? Like a weekly meal plan? No, for above reasons.

3. What kind of things do you cook usually? East Asian cuisine, usually rice + some marinated meat + some vegatables.

4. Do you follow any diet? Atkins, Slow Carb etc. no

5. Do you have any life hacks, tips to be more productive as a cook? Live near a grocery store, buy a cookbook of some particular cuisine, this way you only have to buy a few core ingredients and you'll be able to make a whole new host of dishes.


1) Cheaper and way more fun! 2) I try to plan weekly. I purchase legumes and rice and non-perishables weekly or even bi-weekly, and proteins (meat, fish, chicken) on a 2-3 day cycle. 3) Protein + rice or pasta + veggies. Sometimes adding more protein and veg and cutting out the rice/pasta, depends on the dish.

A deeper dive than that? Chinese, Middle Eastern, Indian, Mexican... turns out a lot of cultures like to eat variations of chicken and rice.

4) I'd guess I go for the mediterranean diet? Though all that means is that I use olive oil and eat lots of nuts...

5) Soak your dry beans in the morning. You can store tons more if you buy them dry and soaking them is a lot less hassle if you do it before work - you'll have beans ready for dinner when you get home. (Chili, beans and rice, daal, three bean salad, vegetarian tacos, lentil soup are all suddenly much easier to make....)


I cook ~80% of my meals. Generally speaking I try to eat out infrequently, and when I do I seek out items I would not typically cook for myself (or lack the expertise and equipment to attempt).

1. I love cooking, especially for other people. It's also far less expensive for me to cook delicious, healthful food than it is to eat out constantly, even with time spent taken into consideration. Throw in a partner with special dietary needs and there is further reinforcement.

2. I do if I have a special event on the horizon (holiday, dinner party, that kind of thing) or I am going to pack food for travel. Otherwise I just make a mental plan based on what I have and what is available/in season.

3. I grill a lot of spice-rubbed meats, bake muffins and scones using almond and coconut flours, bake fish, roast vegetables, make slow cooker soups, and the list goes on. My girlfriend and I also make homemade yogurt using one of these (http://www.amazon.com/Yogourmet-104-Electric-Yogurt-Maker/dp...), cooking the yogurt for ~36 hours until it has a custard-like consistency. Delicious.

4. My girlfriend has to follow the FODMAP diet (basically eliminating all fermentable substances...of which there are so many) due to a medical condition. She used to follow something slightly less restrictive called the specific carbohydrate diet, and with selective exceptions (I don't have any medical restrictions) I still do. Think little to no processed foods, no refined sugars, no grains of any kind, no starchy vegetables - lots of greens and meat and cheese and homemade yogurt. I throw in rice and some other non-SCD carbohydrates (rice, etc.) so that I can participate in endurance sports.

5. I plan to make leftovers. I try to think of meals in three stages: their original composition, how they'll taste as leftovers, and how they could become an ingredient in a quick third dish (like an omelette).


I discovered low & slow smoking / barbecue a year or so ago (it's not much of a "thing" where I'm from in Oregon), and I'm quite hooked on it. My wife is a bit less enamored of me spending most of the day tending the hacked together 'pit' I made, though.


I cook up a storm a few times a week.

1. I cook to enjoy healthy food which has good enough flavor to avoid unhealthy meal choices. I also love spicy curries.

2. I rarely plan out by more than 24 hours.

3. I normally cook Indian and South African curries and soups and salads. Lentils are a favorite diet food.

4. Low calories per day. ~1700. It's much easier to stick to a diet that doesn't explicitly forbid anything. I start the day with a calorie-efficient meal (like oatmeal, grapefruit, and/or greek yoghurt) so I can eat better the rest of the day. Learn to cook vegetables in the way you like to eat them and your health will improve.

5. Cook a large batch of meals which reheat well to last several days. Many curries and chilis actually taste better the second day after they thicken in the fridge.

Use high quality, fresh, in-season ingredients for great results. It's SO worth it!


I do, I love to cook!

1. Recreation. TBH is not much cheaper cooking than eating out around here...

2. Nope, I decided what to do while in the supermarket.

3. Pasta, the most thing I do is pasta. Ah, and steaks (I looooove meat).

4. Nope.

5.1 Start with dishes that you are used to eat. Doing so you'll have just to perfect the cooking, you already known what a, e.g., spaghetti carbonara, should taste like.

5.2 Don't follow recipes literally. Instead of following exact quantities and time try to understand what each ingredient/method does and, then, perfect it in your way.

5.3 Do the same dish many times. Maybe this time the sauce is to thick... What if I change celery for leek? Let's make it more sweet with purple onion instead of yellow. Things like that.

5.4 And of course, be inventive! At first you may be not proficient enough to try things just out of your head but, once you feel confident enough, just do it!


  1. Both.  We don't save a ton of money as we tend to buy mostly from local organic farmers (except for buying 5 lb boxes of blueberries for 20 bucks, etc.)
  2. Yes and No.  We cook for the majority of the week on sundays.  So we'll cook 3 or more large-ish meals (with enough leftovers).  That means most nights are simply up for reheating or some sort of finishing.  One or two weeknights i'll do something else as well (fire up the grill, put something in the sous vide in the morning, etc.)
  3. Yes.  Seriously.  We'll try to cook anything and everything.  We tend to try to cook based on season (so now that it's fall there's going to be lots of root veg...probably lots of braises, stews, soups, etc.).  I like to grill a lot as it's simple and makes most things taste great (really lets the ingredients shine).
  4. Nope.  Wife is pretty paleo.  Kiddo (2 yrs ish) eats everything except potatoes.  Weirdo.
  5. As most have mentioned brush up on knife skills and keep 'em sharp.  Beyond that I think it depends on what you're trying to optimize.  If you're trying to cut down on prep time, etc. then learn to make things in bigger batches and / or things that take very little time (a quick pizza will take 15 mins with a decent dough...boom..some bocconcini...some olive oil or pesto...in the oven...pull it out and toss on some prosciutto and arugula and a couple pinches of salt.  Melt in your mouth ridiculous).  Beyond that I tend to to get into trying to make something perfect (for me) over time.  My latest kick was chicken pot pie.  I can honestly say mine is the best I've ever had (and I make it a point to try it at any fancy places).  Granted I probably cooked around 2 or 3 dozen of 'em trying little differences.   Anyways..those are 2 different optimizations...optimizing for prep time / yield and optimizing for taste.  There are also in betweens...like sous vide techniques..which can knock out both of those.
Cooking is like startups..don't be afraid of failure. Worst it'll cost you is a couple bad tastes and a couple bucks (salmonella and cross-contamination aside).


1. Enjoyment, health, cost, in that order.

2. I don't, but my partner does.

3. Slow-cooked meats, fresh veggies, broths, fermented foods (e.g. yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, buttermilk).

4. We attempt a gluten-free, grain free diet, with no processed foods (especially sugars), full fat oils (e.g. olive, coconut, lard, butter, ghee), no seed oils (e.g. canola, corn, safflower). If we do have grains or legumes, we always soak them in either whey, water, yogurt, or buttermilk.

5. We are members of three different cooperative food organizations: a grocer, a buying club, and a farm. We have a massive chest freezer filled with grass-fed cow parts (steaks, hearts, bones, livers, etc.), a Vitamix blender, a Hamilton Beach slow cooker, two Le Creuset dutch ovens, an Excalibur 9-tray food dehydrator, and three cast-iron skillets.


1. I enjoy the break from screens and by the desire to make loved ones happy and full.

2. I have a good sense at the supermarket of what I have and what I need.

3. Stews and soups, seared meats, pastas, rice and stir frys, and salads and sandwiches, tacos and nachos, occasionally sushi. Oats and eggs for breakfast, fruit and cheese/crackers for snacks.

4. I prefer meats and veggies and fruits.

5. a) The basic mirepoix (celery, carrots, onions) adds a good base to many dishes. Prepping it takes ten minutes. Throw into a pot or pan, saute, and start adding other ingredients. Potatoes and rice and meats and it's an easy stew with water. Adding other veggies and meats without water is an easy stir fry. b) I try to grocery shop only every two weeks. It forces me to finish things in week 2 that need to be finished.


1. I cook because it's fun, and I got into it when I was about 12 and taught myself by watching cooking shows and reading cook books. I even considered it as a career path (and got the chance to meet Bobby Flay!)

2. I plan ahead, but a lot of times I'll just make what I'm craving to eat.

3. Being in LA with great weather, and being a fan of southwest inspired foods, I like using the grill as much as possible. Steaks, chicken, fish, pork, burgers etc.

4. Not really. Everything in moderation, even moderation itself ;)

5. Depends on your working style. I like to generally make everything at once when I feel like doing it. But I also like making sauces, rubs, marinades, etc and I like making those ahead of time to use when I want them. The best resource for good recipes is definitely foodnetwork.com


1. I cook because it's cheap. Sometimes I cook for the ladies... err, well, actually just the one lady:my gf

2. Sometimes. Depends how fancy we're getting. No weekly meal plan

3. Simple/fast/practical meals, specifically stir fries and salads. We want to get into shakes (we just bought a blender)

4. trying to follow Paleo

5. best life hacks? Get a cook! Or use a service like BigOven, Gobble, AmazonFresh/GoogleShoppingExpress,TheStoneSoup (5ingredients, 10min recipes) or just be disciplined about developing good habits! BigOven, for example let's me find stuff to cook fast. It's on iOS, Windows, Android and it even lets you import from text. Only thing I hate about the service is the fact you're locked in because there's no way to export your data...


Why do you cook? Is it to save cash or is it recreation?

Neither- I cook for control & quality. My family has dietary issues that mean eating out generally has consequences. I have found that not only can I help protect them from bad ingredients, but I also end up making better meals for them because I am dedicated to meals that are compatible with their food restrictions.

I do not plan ahead.

Chicken, Fish, Steak, Pork in that order. I tend to grill vegetables and try to tumble through something different every day. Also leafy green salads, typically w/o dressing.

I don't follow any diets.

Life hack: Rubs are important. Don't overcook or over-salt. Study this ingredient pairing chart. https://i.imgur.com/jSp9j.jpg


1. For fun, because I like the food and I like it when others like the food, because it lets me try (and learn about) cuisines whose home cooking I wouldn't otherwise get to try. Also because I find it relaxing (sometimes!) and a way to unwind. It requires skill and some creativity and lots of little things to learn and get better at -- but at the same time, a lot of simpler routine steps which you can perform while giving your brain a chance to decompress and your mind to wander a bit.

2. Not systematically. I think a lot of the fun of it is seeing what you can make with the ingredients you have lying around and an art to supplementing the set of ingredients with things which will open up possibilities. Also fun to see what's marked down in the supermarket and figure out something you can do with it. That said I'll usually have one or two meals in mind for a week's shop (although might change my mind mid-shop depending on what's on offer). And it certainly helps to keep certain staples around that you know you can rely on for a lazy dinner if you don't have the energy for something more involved.

3. I like to change it up although certain things I keep coming back to in mild variations. Various indian curries, stews (particularly keen on persian and turkish), pasta or polenta with something homemade (fresh pesto, some kind of ragu, simple tomato sauce, putanesca, garlic prawns...), a classic english roast on a weekend, chinese stir-fries, attempts at thai and vietnamese, chilli, pulled pork, something vaguely spanish with chorizo and beans, or vaguely north african, salad, fish, stuffed veggies...

4. Not really. An occasional short-lived attempt to cut down on carbs and meat.

5. Don't rely too much on recipes, use them to bootstrap your intuitions about ingredients, the principles behind different cuisines and formats of dish. Try things, fail. Even if you fail most of the time it'll still be edible and perhaps even tasty. Taste things (obvious but bears saying). Learn about individual ingredients and how to use them, herbs spices and seasonings in particular. Seek out new exciting ones. Visit ethnic shops. Make use of the freezer: leftovers, stock, sauces, bargains which you snap up close to expiry. Know what freezes well and what doesn't. Get a rice cooker, they're great. Don't bother with a slow cooker, they create mush and dry meat. Stews are a great way to practise -- hard to screw up too badly, one pot, chance to try out various seasonings and cuisines and get a feel for what works together. Get the flavour thesaurus, great little book.


> 1. Why do you cook? Is it to save cash or is it recreation? Or something else? Cooking gets me very concentrated in a way other than programming. It feels like a harmony of concenstration and relaxation.

2. Do you plan ahead? Like a weekly meal plan? Yes, mainly so won't I have to go to the grocery store more than once a week. I also make sure I don't buy too much so I won't have to waste food.

> 3. What kind of things do you cook usually? Ecnhiladas with guacamole , Salmon,

4. Do you follow any diet? Atkins, Slow Carb etc. I am trying to eat exactly what my body needs. The exact amount of carbs, fats, ...

5. Do you have any life hacks, tips to be more productive as a cook? Look up some of the 'pro' ways to use a knife. It makes cooking more fun.


1. Equal parts saving money; a desire to have full knowledge of what I am feeding my family; feeling unpleasant after eating takeout/prepared food; relaxation; the intrinsic pleasure in practicing a developing skill.

2. In my head when I'm shopping. This is good because it's easy, but doesn't do much for expanding my repertoire.

3. Generally meals prepared stove-top in one or at most two pans.

4. Nope.

5. If you're making up dishes, less is more. Don't add a huge variety of ingredients just because you have them. Pay more attention to temperature and timing than quantities of ingredients. If you over-salt a sauce, dump in two halves of a raw potato. Don't buy store-ground beef; instead, pick up a london broil cut and grind it at home.


Habitually, since marriage (25+ years), four days a week, Thursday through Sunday, we cook.

1. It is by now largely out of habit, but both of us enjoy cooking. 2. Thursday and Fridays are often leftovers, or something quick. Saturday and Sunday are usually decided in a five-minute phone conversation before my wife goes to the store on Friday. Midweek there might be brown rice and broccoli or something with lentils. 3. This can be seasonal. During the warm weather, hamburgers once most weeks. During the tomato season, pasta with cold tomatoes etc. at least once every other week. Stews in the winter, etc. My wife is good with desserts--pies and cakes. 4. No. 5. Think about the leftovers when you plan the meals.


1. Now that I know enough to prepare food that tastes better than most restaurants, eating at home is a way to choose healthy ingredients, save money, and eat well.

2. Not enough. I buy meat in advance and freeze it, so that requires at least a day or two planning for thawing.

3. A broad range, but I focus on salads, meats, and grains.

4. Occasionally, I drop dairy or become vegan, but mostly I'm a happy omnivore.

5. Learn simple techniques (knife skills, cooking at different temperatures, etc.) and have the right tools. Start with a sharp knife and a good steel pot and pan, then add a cast iron skillet (none of this needs to be expensive). After that, nothing is more fun in cooking than parsing a good recipe until you understand it inside out.


1. I enjoy performing the motions to a satisfactory result. I enjoy sharing that result with others. I enjoy (sometimes) creating new things.

2. Sometimes I will go shopping having a specific meal in mind, other than that -- no.

3. Something fast, so I won't be eating fastfood or prepared meals. Something elaborate, so that I can make an event feel more celebratory. Something nostalgic, so that I get to remember how things used to be. Mostly it's something fast though.

4. I try to minimize processed foods and maximize fish consumption. Really that's about it.

5. Don't over-do it. It's a bit like sculpture, where you take away from the base; only you add to the base. Don't be afraid to mess it up, but plan accordingly.


1. 3 reasons that I cook: healthy ingredients, better taste, time saving.

2. I don't plan ahead. Some may find this as not organized, but I think it's a creative way/art in cooking. My brain even feel satisfied. I often go to the super market once a week with my wife and buy ingredients that we both like.

3. I cook things that fit my available ingredients.

4. I don't believe in strict diets as it's time consuming and expensive most of the time. I try to eat low carb, less sugar, less fat, more vegetable and fruits.

5. My 3 life hacks:

   + Eat when hungry (avoid over-eating to not get more fat)

   + Rest/exercise when tired (replenish your energy, get your fat to work, stay energized)

   + Work hard+smart


1. i enjoy cooking; it's a nice relaxing hobby, and i like the food i cook 2. no, i usually decide what i want for dinner and pick up ingredients on the way home from work, or plan something using the contents of my fridge 3. there's seldom a 'usually'; i like variety. if i'm tired and just want a quick dinner, though, it's usually rice and a vegetable curry, or a single chicken thigh marinated for 30 minutes and then baked with rice and vegetables (both of which i can prepare without thinking about it and know it will taste good) 4. nope 5. mise en place is more helpful than you'd think. prep everything first, then start cooking.


1) I cook because A) It's something I am terribly passionate about B) It's a creative outlet for me, where I allow myself to try new things, and encourage myself to fail. C) It's a form of meditation for me. When I cook, I sometimes lose hours of time and get away from the rest of the world.

2) Yes I will generally plan 1-2 meals a week, the rest I try to cobble together from what's in the fridge (hence #1B)

3) It varies greatly. Recently I've been BBQ'ing (duh)

4) No

5) I felt I became a good cook when I started to try new techniques and ingredients and was willing to fail / overcook / make flavorless crap. Once I figured out some techniques, I was able to make up recipes on the spot.


1. Both. I come from a family of cooks so it comes natural. Plus, if your watching the weight, best way to combat hidden fats/sugars/carbs found in prepared meals.

2.Eh, kinda. More like I buy ingredients for the week and cook based of those ingredients.

3.From kimchi fried rice to tuna salad. Try to keep some variation. Currently mastering cooking proteins.

4. Not by the books. I do have a macros (macro-nutrient) plan I follow and cook accordingly. I have done paleo and vegetarian for brief moments as well.

5.Prep, prep, prep, prep,prep. This can be as simple as dicing onions for the week on weekends to checking an ingredient list. Prep time is the biggest deterrent from cooking. Reduce this and it's wonderful.


1. Recreation. Cooking is the most fun one can have with their pants on.

2. When I can plan, I try to plan 2-3 days ahead. Back in Finland I would drop by the butchershop and request the cuts a few days in advance if I was making something special.

3. Slow food. Cheap meats where the chewy bits get liquefied after 4-6 hours of slow heat. Use herbs as condiments where possible.

4. I try to go for reduced carbs, but it's not a hard goal.

5. Mise én place. Use steel cookware and bowls for everything you can. Avoid plastic like the plague: oils of all kinds have nasty tendency to bind to plastic surfaces. Makes them nearly impossible to clean properly.

There are two items you can't live without: chef's knife and an immersion blender.


1. A variety of reasons. The result of a tasty, nutritious meal is probably the main motivator, followed by challenge factor (I push myself to cook a somewhat wide variety of dishes), followed by cost. I pay for quality ingredients but still probably come out ahead on cost.

2. Most of the time, I plan a week at a time, but that might only be three or four dinners, as I plan on leftovers and usually eat out once a week. I keep a running list of meal ideas next to the week's plan on a whiteboard in my kitchen.

3. I try to stick with seasonal vegetables and that often guides my meal choices. I cook for/with vegetarians, vegans, and people with various allergies these days, which sometimes changes my plans; I get more latitude when cooking for myself. Green curry (with paste made from scratch) is the dish I'm most often asked to cook for groups; pulled pork and braised leg of lamb are also quite popular. I try to rotate through various protein sources during each week (including meatless), and while meat is often a star of my meals, they're mostly vegetables by at least a 2:1 ratio. Oh, and there's usually one meal per week that's stir-fry to use up lingering veggies.

4. No specifically named diet. I began to cut back on breads and sweets a couple of months ago to help shed a few errant pounds (I'm moderately fit at 135 lbs now), but other than that I generally eat what I want. I never drink soft drinks, rarely drink alcohol, and choose snacking carbs wisely.

5. I feel like most productivity hacks are geared towards squeezing every bit of efficiency out of one's time. While there are some useful common-sense ideas — establishing mise en place, caring for your equipment, etc. — I usually encourage people to tackle efficiency from the other angle. Instead of fretting about doing a lot in a little time, slow down a bit and carve out plenty of time to make a meal well. Meat needs time to get tender, bread needs time to proof, etc. The main thing I encourage new cooks to do is invest in spices, because having a solid core set of them makes a huge difference in the quality of results and new cooks are sometimes hesitant to try recipes that call for spices they don't have on hand.


I cook all the time and always found it to be just an extension of designing.

1) I cook because food is fundamental to life and me and my wife want our kids to understand food.

2) No but we have often talked about it. My mom did it with us, perhaps I will take it up.

3) Everything from Coté de Beuf & Fish to Lasagne and more advanced french dishes.

4) As a matter of fact I am on a diet currently (low carb) but I am not religius about it. Instead i work out a lot.

5) Don't learn recipes learn the underlying methods (the difference between being a script kiddie and a proper developer). That way you will understand why things work the way they do and you will always be able to make something good and healthy whether quick or slow.


You seem to have a whole lot of replies, which is inspiring because no one in my office cooks, but I'll add in my experience:

1. I enjoy the act of cooking.

2. I go to the grocery store every 3 or 4 days and plan my meals accordingly. I have a general idea of what I would like to eat the next few days but pick up whatever is available and seems good.

3. Every breakfast is oatmeal, banana, almonds and milk. Most lunches are whole grain break, turkey/chicken/etc, vegetables. My dinners are wide ranging but a lot of Mexican food, from the coast and yucatan, chili, steaks, some whole grain pastas.

4. No, though I try to avoid any processed food and really like lean meats, fish, and whole grains.

5. Slow cooker


1. When i'm cooking, I imagine. Potato turns into evil enemy of meat. Onion becomes a fearsome hero. And I - this is the collapse of the universe, when everything comes to an end. I'm a hacker.

2. I know one thing - if you gonna work hard - you have to not eat at all. Only coffe or a bit fastfood.

3. East Asian cuisine. I'm russian. I must.

4. Meat diet is my best. Meat at breakfast, meat at dinner and supper. My vegans friends go to fuck himself.

5. Only life hacks: baking powder - decrease time of cooking twice (meet, vegetables any organic food), MSG - taste of any food become more amplitude. And, of course, sprig of greenery - and your dish look like from restaurant.


1. Recreation.

2. A bit of both. Tend to plan to buy big cuts of meat, whole chickens, fish and seafood from the local market. The rest comes from Ocado (online grocery deliveries in the UK) and we order pretty much the same things each week - pasta, vegetables, rice, herbs, all the other little ingredients. We add to that as we see we're getting low on things in the kitchen.

3. https://pinboard.in/search/u:kjw?query=recipe

And then more mundane stuff - stick all the remaining veg in with pasta, pasta bakes, lasagne, pizza (so easy to make from scratch.)

4. No.

5. I don't aim to be a productive cook.


1. Several Reasons. It definitely saves money. But, also it's something our family loves doing together.

2. Every sunday, we choose 4 to 5 recipes to make (and shoot for ingredient overlap) for dinner. Then basically, some staples for breakfast. We use Plan To Eat (www.plantoeat.com) to do all of the planning and shopping list generation

3. Weekend dinners and lunches are usually 1+ hour dishes. Weeknights are usually ~20 - 30 minute dishes.

4. My wife likes to lean Paleo, but for health reasons, I have to eat relatively vegetarian. So, somewhere between those.

5. Plantoeat.com has been really useful for us. (but look forward to whatever you're doing on cucumbertown.com :-))


1. I love to cook for fun. 2. I like the creative side of cooking, so no planning ahead. We get a vegetable CSA box which makes things interesting and a challenge each week to cook with new veggies. 3. I slow cook meats a lot and use a lot of tomatoes, potatoes, garlic, and onions in dishes. 4. No diets. Unprocessed food as much as possible 5. Many have mentioned it, but be organized, get a good knife, and find a good pot/pan. Have a few basic tools and just create - I have cooked on stones on backpacking trips and made my own spoon once out of a tree branch, but a good sharp knife is tough to find.


1. I'm a bit of a foodie and eating out all the time was getting tiresome.

2. Yep, and I also cheat a bit, several of my weekday meals are provided by plated.com. I love to cook but don't enjoy the shopping very much.

3. Classic european stuff (think Julia Child) but lately I've been experimenting with more asian stuff, like Korean BBQ.

4. None, of late I've been hitting the gym several times a week to keep the extra pounds at bay.

5. Not really a hack but http://www.americastestkitchen.com is an awesome resource. They do all the experiments I wish I had time for.


1. for recreation, to improve my cooking skills, and to not eat sandwiches/pizza all the time 2. I used to contract a basket of seasonal vegetables that would come weekly. I had to cook what I got. While this may sound suboptimal, it was a great experience for various reasons: I got to learn about new veggies I had never eaten before, I had to find and try new recipes to do away with the leftovers, and last but not least I always had some main ingredients to start with so I didn't stress on coming up with ideas for lunch 3. anything mediterranean/asian/not greasy 4. nope


1. I cook primarily for control over a lot of factors (taste/health/cost/ingredients). I find the process enjoyable but it's not my primary motivation.

2. I make rough meal plans for about half the week and then have a large stock of things like broth, rice, beans, pasta, frozen vegtables and fish that don't spoil and are very versatile.

3. With a toddler I like to make dishes I can cut out a portion and then spice up the remainder. Favorites are soups, rice/cous-cous salads, and pasta.

4. No diet.

5. Stock a few items like in bulk and learn to master them (I keep a lot of broth, canned tomatoes, canned beans, pasta, and grains).


> 1. Why do you cook? Is it to save cash or is it recreation? Or something else?

i cook because i love it and it's much cheaper/healthier than eating out every day.

> 2. Do you plan ahead? Like a weekly meal plan?

me and the wife usually plan for the next 2~3 days.

> 3. What kind of things do you cook usually?

meat, chicken, fish, vegetables in general. try to avoid high carbs

> 4. Do you follow any diet? Atkins, Slow Carb etc.

we are doing keto (low carbs) right now.

> 5. Do you have any life hacks, tips to be more productive as a cook?

my only tip would be cook -- you will learn a lot by simply doing and getting stuff wrong (like how much salt/pepper, or how long you need to leave x in the oven).


1. I love cooking (and always have).

2. Most of the time, I will plan my meals the same day that I cook them. If I'm making something complex, or with ingredients that are more difficult to find, I will plan ahead.

3. Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Mexican, and French are my most common major types.

4. I try to be healthy, but find myself slipping back into the 'snack at night on high carb/high fat diet'.

5. Learn how to make your own stocks, memorize some basic flavour combinations that you love (ie - canned tomatoes and stock are a major base), and always follow recipes precisely the first time that you cook them.


Cooking great dishes for people you love is the one of the best things you can do to express your feelings. I have an Italian bloodline, and remember my "nono" saying that you should always try to eat, drink and breath well - how can you live well doing such essential things carelessly?

Start with simple recipes for dishes you like. After some time you will start to mix recipes and get creative. Just use the fresher, top quality ingredients you can find and you will probably do well. Try to grow some vegetables, nothing like fresh herbs and condiments.


1. Equal parts save money / I love eating freshly cooked food (I cook lunch in the morning before going to work)

2. No, just buy enough food for week, and choose as the week progresses.

3. A combination of protein + carbohidrate + vegetables

4. I follow the guidelines of a nutrologist I regularly see. It's a combination of calories cutting and eating a variety of foods. The idea is to lose weight while still eating well.

5. Always clean your kitchen before going to sleep. Leave frozen meat/poultry thawing overnight. If you have a kettle, use it to boil water instead of heating it in your pan.


1. For fun. For interaction and sharing with my lady. 2. I plan ahead only so far as when I'm actually buying groceries. Maybe sometimes I'll find a recipe or produce a list of stuff to try. May buy things for 2 or 3 days worth of meals. 3. All sorts of things. From bbq, vegetarian, thai, indian. We both enjoy all sorts of food. 4. No diet really. I prefer vegetarian but we eat most anything. 5. Prep everything before you actually cook. That way you can clean as you go and not be a total tornado train wreck in the kitchen.


1. Recreation & health. My cooking tends to be more expensive than a simple (unhealthy) takeaway meal.

2. No. I always decide on the day itself.

3. I seriously enjoy Jamie Oliver recipes (they tend to be simple, as in: throw all kinds of nice spices together) and Indian food.

4. Paleo-ish. No sugar, limited amount of carbs.

5. Watch Jamie Olivers cooking show. Plan ahead in order to save money and make your life easier.

Cooking is a wonderful skill that you develop throughout your life. I started at age 18 and am now known for my delicious cooking by my friends and family while I am only aged 24.


1) Because I like to eat. Take out is boring (even in London so many options, but you get stuck). Don't know what goes in the food. Plus the fun of making something yourself that tastes way better. I guess primary reason is for quality/taste.

2) Kind of, a weekly meal plan where we roughly think ahead of what food we are going to eat each day. Like chicken one day, cod the next etc.

3) Meat pretty much, and some veggies

4) Keto usually

5) I love the good eats series, some nice hacks in there. Get a cast iron pan and never wash it. Best thing to cook meat with.


>> 5) I love the good eats series, some nice hacks in there. Get a cast iron pan and never wash it. Best thing to cook meat with.

This.

I always make t-bone/porterhouse steaks just like he does in that first episode, and they always come out fantastic. That said, it always smokes the house up something fierce.

There's probably a good half centimeter of carbon on my skillet. :)


1. I just like controlling what I eat. So when I cook I tend to be more vegetable heavy which isn't available in restaurants.

2. I tend to look at pictures of what other people are eating on Facebook as inspiration (modernist cooking, serious eats, food lab, etc). I don't plan ahead as I usually cook what is in the farmer's market that week.

3. Pretty much all cuisines. More on the American/Vietnamese side though.

4. The 'just eat food diet'

5. Using a pressure cooker. Having a sharp knife. Watching youtube videos of other recipes.


1. I get grumpy if I don't cook. Guess that makes it relaxation

2. I used to when I had a stable living arrangement. Planning helps a lot with keeping costs down and maintaining a balance.

3. I specialize in mince meat and pasta, I also like making pizza from scratch and stew always goes over well.

4. Yes, a South African diet with lots of meat.

5. Make something many times. I've made pizza a lot and I learn a lot every time by trying out different things. And don't fall for the 'everything needs to take long' mindset chefs have.


1. To feed my family the freshest and highest quality food I can, to know where my food comes from, and what goes in to making it.

2. Sometimes, but often it's adhoc based on ingredients on hand.

3. Whatever is fresh and in season.

4. organic and local.

5. Think about the second meal you will get from your ingredients. Leftovers from a roast chicken can go in to chicken enchiladas for example. Some herbs like sage, thyme and rosemary are incredibly easy to grow. (and hard to kill) Fresh herbs make a huge difference in flavor and aroma.


1. Because it gives me pleasure

2. Maybe. Sometimes. Sometimes I just cook up whatever

3. Here's my recipe archive, where I store recipes that I am proudest of: http://forkthecookbook.com/chewxy

4. Try to follow paleo, but damn, pastries are too good sometimes. Sometimes even the thought of white bread and butter makes me crave some

5. Mis en place is probably the most important thing when cooking. People call it a hack, but it's just being prepared.


I cook for health, enjoyment and relaxation. I do strict paleo, which makes things pretty simple: omelette and bacon for breakfast, meat and vegetable for dinner, no lunch, but fruit and nuts as desired. If I'll be short on time to cook, I make a big batch of stew or curry and tupperware it.

Probably the biggest time burn is the "JIT food inventory", leading to a grocery run probably 4+ times per week. I've become too spoiled on fresh meat and fish. :)


1. For fun, to save money, to eat fresh meals the way I like them and it's another thing to build 2. This is the difficult part that I hate, but I've been using Fitly (fitly.com) for grocery delivery with recipes 3. All kinds of stuff 4. Vegetarian, sometimes vegan 5. To me it's all about knife skills. Get a decent knife set (doesn't have to be the best) and practice your technique and you'll be able to get pretty far.


1. Im pretty good at it. My friends think im restaurant level. At least i can cook better meal myself than any non gourmet restaurant. 2. Nope, i decide on that day. Go shopping right after. 3. I can cook whatever my friends like to eat. Usually i prefer stews, pastas, risottos. 4. Nope, i can eat anything without gaining weight. Im in my ideal weight right now. 5. I dont think about productivity at all. I just enjoy good food.


1. To save cash and recreationally. I would like to buy a house and cooking cuts my meal costs in half. It is also something I do with my SO

2. No. I live next door to two different upscale grocery stores (talk about luck). I just go nextdoor daily.

3. What kind of things do you cook usually?

4. I eat little junk food. I have a milk allergy. I also eat a lot of meat. This is due to having powerlifting as one of my hobbies.

5. I eat a lot of tacos, steak and rice, chicken. etc. It is easy and fast.


Curious, what is your cost per meal, approx? I live next to Whole Foods and buying ingredients daily usually makes the meal ~$7-$10, which is about the same as buying a pretty healthy prepared meal.

I do think buying/cooking in bulk will save money but that's harder to plan for and I don't have many recipes to cook in bulk.


I live next to a wholefoods and a wegmans so this is a good comparison. The things I buy bring my average meal cost to about $5. If I eat out (chipotle or something) it is $10.

I eat simply. One thing I love is wholefoods preseasoned chicken. It's about 2.99 a pound and serves 3 meals (2 dinners, and my lunch for the next day).

I should also note I eat around 3100 calories per day.

edit: I should also note. cooking for more than 1 meal at a time brings my average cost per meal down quite a bit. Even if it is only 2 meals.


1. It is relaxing and I can make food that is less greasy and tastier than takeout

2. I only cook on weeknights, so I buy fresh veggies based on what I am cooking

3. I usually cook Indian vegetarian and this includes a lot of dal's

4. No

5. Following recipes strictly may not work out so learn to improvise on the fly

And now my turn! I saw some malayalam on your FAQ page (വെള്ളരിക്കാപട്ടണം) - may I ask what that means? I can read a bit of tamil and that does look similar. Also, where are you based?


Thanks for looking into this.

Velarikapattanam in colloquial terms means a land where anything can happen.


that is interesting. Velarika is the tamil word for cucumber too


I do not cook very often, but when I do, I love doing bread and/or pastries using yeast... It is kind of fun 1. It is just for recreation 2. Nope, sometimes I just wake-up with the need to cook something. 3. All sorts of things, but I find using yeast fascinating... My best so far Kugelhopf 4. Nope, but maybe I should. 5. I have special technics to cut the vegetables... Carrots are my all time favorite...


If only I could get the swirly baking pan.


1. I like it when i actually know what is in my food. Also, it saves some cash.

2. I don't have a fixed plan. I usually decide on the same day what i am going to eat.

3. Pasta + veggie tomato sauce, Baked veggies, plain Salmon, Chilli Con Carne, Plain Zucchini with salt and pepper. Overall i tend to stick with stuff that doesn't need too many ingredients.

4. No

5. Don't entirely rely on recipes. You will get a feeling on what proportions are right.


I like to cook for recreation but prefer to memorize recipes than follow them and dislike planning ahead. Incidentally that's what helped prompt me to create these illustrated recipes http://www.taskandtool.com/blogs/recipes with the goal of making losing my place in a recipe a thing of the past.


1, I cook because it is another place where I can demonstrate my creativity.

2, I used to. But as I have cooking experiences (more than 5 yrs), I can cook with whatever in my fridge and make decent dishes.

3, I am Japanese and many Japanese cook anything even at home.

4, No.

5, Many good practices in programming are applicable to cooking. That is, focus on one thing at a time, understand and maintain your tools well, keep your env clean, etc.


1. I cook because it's fun. I try not to do it every day, because then it does feel like work. But I try to cook often enough that I feel like I'm accomplishing something, either saving money, spending time with my family, and better health.

2. I try to make plans, but they rarely work. I need to be more diligent about my planning.

3. It usually involves chicken and vegetables.

4. Not really.

5. For me, it's all about timing.


1. Assuming backing counts: to get control over the gluten in the bread, while still having actual bread. Cook: can't trust the crap and fat in those instant meals. 2. Not until the food is almost gone :) 3. Bad tasting stuff, getting better at it though. 4. Not eating anything that gets my guts upset. 5. Slow cooker, toss it in and go hack something else.


1. I don't live in the US (the Netherlands) and cooking is considered the norm here.

2. No, just a couple of days when I do groceries.

3. I don't eat too varied, generally pasta with sauce; rice with chicken, veggies and some sauce; homemade hamburgers or baked potatoes with meat and veggies.

4. No.

5. Rinse your pans and pots quickly after cooking but before eating as it makes dishes much easier and less messy.


1. I cook recreationally and to save money both.

2. Not usualy. Most of my cooking is pretty spur of the moment.

3. I like to experiment so it's a wide variety. Italian, Tex/Mex, American comfort food... Whatever.

4. The only diet I follow is Eat when I'm hungry, stop eating when I'm full.

5. Keep a cooking diary. Note what worked/didn't work and what you want to try with a recipe next.


1. money is a factor, sure, but I like my cooking better than most things I can get out if I have time. 2. no, not really. I buy things I like and think I should eat. 3. meat, fish, vegetables mostly 4. somewhat low carb, more vegetables than grain anyway. 5. a good chest freezer and making more than you want so it's easy to reheat later!


1. I cook becase food is important to me and food outside is not the same.

2. I plan ahead as far as shopping goes, that is all.

3. Due to the lack of an oven right now I usually cook Chinese, Indian, Thai, salads.

4. 95% veg diet. Did 14 years at 100% previously.

5. IMHO good cooks don't need to intellectualize, they love ingredients and use what's available.


1. Why do you cook? Is it to save cash or is it recreation? Or something else?

I cook as another creative outlet, as a way to relax and a way to put a break between work and personal time. It's a nice ritual to come home and cook a quick dinner, or take the time to make a big meal on a weekend and try something new.

Cooking for myself is also much cheaper most of the time, especially this time of year when we get so many great vegetables in season.

2. Do you plan ahead? Like a weekly meal plan?

I tried to do a weekly plan, but it just didn't work for me. I like to buy groceries for 2 days at a time, at most, and I enjoy the trip to the store to see what's looking good and inspires me.

The only real planning I do is to keep a well organized list of posts and recipes in Evernote that I want to try at some point.

3. What kind of things do you cook usually?

This summer I've been cooking a TON of fish and fresh corn succotash(like a cooked corn salsa). In the cooler months I love making a universal broth for ramen, braising greens ,etc and have it on hand for a couple days. And lots of simple roasts with a primary protein like chicken or pork and a ton of vegetables.

Food52 and Saveur are my go-tos for great recipes and a little inspiration. If you're looking for something simple and jsut starting out, I recommend sidechef.com for great beginner recipes and tips from start to finish.

4. Do you follow any diet? Atkins, Slow Carb etc.

I like the slow carb foods and naturally gravitate towards that without having to follow a real plan. Beans, lentils, proteins and a ton of vegetables are always staples on my plate at home.

5. Do you have any life hacks, tips to be more productive as a cook?

Just like exercise, reading, social time, it's all about how you prioritize. Cooking can be a quick 10 minutes to make a simple frittata, or several hours for something more elaborate on a weekend.

Personally, if I'm working from home, I schedule a break to start cooking dinner in the afternoon. And I usually cook enough to have leftovers to play with for another day or two. It saves time and money to make larger batches.

Other hacks are focusing on one-pot dishes and the slow cooker in the winter. I love putting a bunch of stuff in the slow cooker in the AM and coming home to a done meal at the end of the day with no additional work needed.


> 1. Why do you cook? Is it to save cash or is it recreation? Or something else?

This is a baffling question to me. Why would you not cook? People have been cooking their own food for hundreds of thousands of years. Is there some kind of modern, better alternative that I'm unaware of?


Out of curiosity, where do you live? (inner city, urban, suburban, rural, wilds, etc...)


Urban, in Europe.


1)

- because it's fun, and I really like to eat what I cook

- cooking for a girl and being told it tastes good is one of the things I live for

- it's the only occasion where I can eat really well.

2) typically I recognize a nice occasion or it catches my whim a few hours to a day before the act.

3) a big-ass stir-fry, with or without a bit of meat

4) no

5) cook simple


5. Clean while you're cooking. Cleaning a big pile of dishes after dinner is not fun!


1. Recreation. I love chopping, stirring, mixing, tasting. I'm doing keto and it's easier to stay on track cooking at home.

2. No. Usually I start with "what sounds good?"

3. Primarily Mexican and Italian dishes and lots of salads.

4. Keto.

5. Learn to use a knife properly.


I live in NYC and have not cooked in 18 months. I miss it, but it is just too damn convenient to eat my food from a restaurant/deli/bodega. I even turned off my gas, because I never used it.


> 1. Why do you cook? Is it to save cash or is it recreation? Or something else?

Cooking is an old human activity--and I mean OLD! It's easy to forget what you are in this day and age. Tilling, growing, harvesting, cooking, and eating together helps me remember.

> 2. Do you plan ahead? Like a weekly meal plan?

I've tried that. No.

> 3. What kind of things do you cook usually?

Veggies. Sometimes I'd pick a random vegetable that I didn't know the name of, then take it home, figure out what it is called, check the indexes of a couple paper cookbooks, google it, see the types of things people make with it, and then throw out all that research and just try cutting it into cubes and baking it in a shallow pan with other veggies I'm more familiar with. :)

Turnips, parsnips, rutabaga!

Radishes, beets! A dozen types of kale. All the brassicas. Heirloom tomatoes (the flavors vary a great deal).

Most of these things are harder to prepare than the contemporary American Standard veggies: tomatoes (two types), broccoli, lettuce (two types), peppers (three or four colors), cauliflower, carrots, etc. And they all have richer flavors.

Personally I think that mustard greens make a great lettuce replacement for a burger. Just rip the stems out first if you find this too ... chewy.

I also slow cook different hunks of meat with veggies and different curries. I visited an eastern grocery of some kind a while back and took advantage of their promotional pricing on curries. With the types I got, it seems that you're suppose to COOK with the stuff, rather than adorn what you cook. I'll put half a cup of cinnamon-based curry into a slowcooker with a pork roast and some hours later I have heaven in that pot, heaven that falls apart when you put a fork to it.

Oh, bread machines are awesome. I've only made a couple of loafs so far... Super easy.

Speaking of bread, industrial-scale bread is terrible. It turns into dense material in your gut. Get some bread that isn't completely homogenous--if it's too hard for you, try warming it or moistening it. Soak it in butter, or milk, or soup. (Don't those things sound sort of familiar?)

> 4. Do you follow any diet? Atkins, Slow Carb etc.

Wut? I like butter. And bacon. Does that count? Wait, I also like my butter on bread, and bacon in my salads.

> 5. Do you have any life hacks, tips to be more productive as a cook?

Remember: cooking is older than the internet. It's older than your favorite economic system.

The recipes that have survived across time are not just tasty, they are also easy and cheap (but maybe not quick). The food species that have survived across time are themselves tasty, easy, and cheap. For both, you might need some knowledge to utilize them... And you'll certainly screw up a few times. But, you can be sure that people with less resources (perhaps including mental resources) successfully ate these things--keep at it and you'll not just catch up to your predecessors, you'll exceed them.

If you are the sort of person who carefully peels garlic, try this tactic whenever you encounter some hard or annoying work in the kitchen: ask yourself, what would a cave person do? Yeah, the husks just fall off when you smash the garlic. The same is true for a variety of veggies. I also find that for some leafy greens, ripping them produces better results than cutting them.

I've said a lot about OLD things. Before someone associates me with that whole paleo diet thing, let me point out that I'm not following a fad, I'm following my stomach and common sense. I'm also an emacs user. :)

ALWAYS wash your greens as if you'd just submerged them in a muddy rain puddle--get into the nooks and crannies with running water and your fingers. It's not just about the E coli, it's also about the actual mud and grit. Plants come from dirt!


Clarification: When I said: "The same is true for a variety of veggies."... I meant:

The same concept appears to apply well to a variety of kitchen situations. I certainly didn't mean that you should experiment with smashing different veggies. :) Though...


Ideally this is the message people should understand, but not that case when you factor in living in a city and time is a valuable currency.


> the husks just fall off when you smash the garlic.

Oh, the looks i get when i show someone that is really that easy :)


Another trick (that really only pays off if you're using a huge amount) is to put them in a pot with a lid and shake the shit out of it. The husks get ripped right off!

I never actually do it because A) it takes a lot of shaking and B) you have to clean the pot, but I could see it being worthwhile if you were making a bunch of chili or soup or something.

http://www.thekitchn.com/smart-tip-peel-an-entire-head-of-ga...


It just so happens that I have ten garlic cloves at home. I'm going to try this tonight! :)


1. I've always like the idea of cooking, but rarely got around to it. Then I had kids. Now that I need to provide a good healthy meal every night and it's harder to eat out, I had enough incentive to get over the hump of novice cook. Once I got a bit more skill, it got easier and a lot more enjoyable.

I find the physical, analog, informal nature of cooking helps balance my otherwise too-logical, too-digital life. I love working on my technique. Chopping vegetables is my Zen activity.

2. My wife and I try to do a weekly meal plan so we can do most of the shopping on the weekend. In practice, we often forget. Fortunately, we live really close to a few grocery stores, so quick frequent trips aren't too bad.

During the week, we tend to do easy stuff (breakfast for dinner, grilled cheese, burgers, burritos, etc.) since time is limited between I getting home from work and the kids going to bed. We do bigger cooking or try new recipes on the weekend and often have friends and family over.

3. This summer I've done a lot of grilling. I'm still learning, so I tend to iterate on a small number of areas instead of trying lots of everything. Grilled whole chicken, breakfast, burgers, salmon, and steak are our go-tos. I make a decent bibimbap but it's a lot of prep work. We aren't very adventurous because we have young kids, but they do enjoy eggs en cocotte and some other random stuff. I make the best croque madame I've ever had.

4. No. My wife and I did a Whole 30 a while back, but usually we just try to eat something from all of the food groups. The Whole 30 was generally awful, but it did get me to realize that carbs have a net negative on my diet, so I try to reduce those now -- less baked goods and desserts mainly.

5. Take notes. I learn a lot every time I try a recipe, but I don't make the same thing ten nights in a row. If I don't write down what I learned, I won't remember when I make it again two months later. So, now, I keep notes for each recipe I do. I have the recipe (with my latest revisions) and then a series of "lab notes" describing what I did each time, how it came out, and what adjustments I should make.

This has been hugely helpful. I have a handful of things now that I feel are "mine" and are much better than the original recipe I found. Seriously, my grilled "thirded" chicken is off the hook.

Some other basic but really good advice:

- Mise en place! Clean and organize before you start putting stuff on the fire!

- Put a wet paper towel under your cutting board.

- Keep your knife sharp and work on your technique.

- There are youtube videos for everything. I can cube an entire watermelon in < 2 minutes now and my diced onions could be used as a measuring tool.


Random question: Do you have any suggestions for learning better knifework/technique? I feel like I'm SO SLOW at chopping anything and there has to be a more efficient way for me to work.


For me a good 90% of it was actually realising my knives were pretty blunt. Or rather, realising just how sharp a knife could be. Once I had that sorted, everything just started going so much smoother as the blade wasn't getting stuck, being deflected on the way down or only cutting partially through.


Yes! It doesn't matter how expensive your wedding registry knives were, they will become dull. Once you have a sharpening kit, you realize that the difference in knives doesn't really matter that much -- you just have to sharpen softer steel more often (neglecting balance and preference). Sharpening my knives is my Zen activity.

Don't ever put knives in the dishwasher. Ever. I have proof after a visiting family member put one of my very sharp knives in the dishwasher and there are three visible nicks.


Try out different ways to slice stuff. Different permutations of longitudinal, diagonal or cross cuts yield different shapes. Try getting regular shapes after cutting a big carrot cross, then lengthwise-diagonally. The resulting triangle-wedge shapes are great for dipping (hummus!). If the carrot is thick enough, "bisect" the wedges.

Speaking of carrots, use a potato-peeler.

If you're thinking of getting a knife-set, instead, consider spending your money on a single quality chef's knife. If you later find you need a different type of knife for some particular task, just get a cheap one, but your chef's knife should be proper quality.

Also, I'm going to echo darkarmani's advice (well, it should be a decree), to never ever put your good knives in the dishwasher. Ever. Keep them out of there.


This book was somewhat helpful: http://www.amazon.com/Knife-Skills-Illustrated-Users-Manual/...


Obviously keep your knives sharp, although I'm quite lazy about this :)

Big knives are easier to cut with. Move the food around and pull the knife towards you through the food, so your dominant hand is just repeating the same slicing motion (which also reduces the likelihood of cuts). Some foods like to be cut a particular way, pay attention to the grain and try to stay at right angles to it.


1. Make sure it's sharp.

2. Watch videos. I watched a lot of Jacques Pépin. He's my hero.

3. Practice. Focus on good technique, not speed. Speed will come naturally.

4. Seriously, make sure it's sharp. Hone frequently.


If you can take a class. I've taken a few (amateur) cooking classes over the years with mixed results. The knife skills class though was invaluable.


If your are in San Francisco, Bernal Cutlery offers knife classes, as well as the San Francisco Cooking School.


I recommend using a square of that foam cabinet liner stuff under your cutting board. It has more grip, you don't have to throw it out every time, and works far better for large cutting boards.


> you don't have to throw it out every time

I use the paper towel as the discard pile (i put the towel half-under the board). Then when I'm done i just crumble it up and wipe down the counter.


> you don't have to throw it out every time

I usually use a paper towel to wipe off some other thing while I'm cooking so then I just reuse it under the board.

> works far better for large cutting boards

My cutting board is decently large and I haven't had any slipping problems. I have stone countertops that have a bit of texture, to it seems to grip pretty well.


Is it possible to get to take a peek at some of your notes (if not personal)? Will be invaluable to my research.


Sure, here's a few:

Shrimp Etouffée

    - 6 tbsp butter
    - 1 cup white onion, finely chopped
    - 1/2 cup celery, finely chopped
    - 1 cup green onions, finely chopped
    - 2 teaspoons garlic, minced
    - 4 tablespoons flour
    - 1 cup whole tomatoes
    - 2 cups fish stock
    - 2 teaspoons salt
    - 1 teaspoon black pepper
    - dash of cayenne
    - 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
    - 1 1/2 cups crawfish meats

    In a large saucepan melt butter and sauté onion, celery and shallots until tender. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more. Stir in flour and stir constantly until golden brown. Add tomatoes and brown. Blend in stock and simmer 10 minutes. Add salt, pepper, cayenne, Worcestershire sauce and crawfish, cook slowly 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve with hot rice

    From: http://www.brennansneworleans.com/r_crawfishEtouffee.html

    -- 2013/02/24

    Absolutely delicious. Possibly the best étouffée I've had. The roux seemed thin
    so I added another 2-3 tbsp. It ended up thickening a bit over time, but the end
    result was about right I think.

    There was a bit of oil on top and it was pretty heavy, so I'd reduce the butter
    a bit. Maybe by 2 tbps. (Updated recipe above.)

    Used medium-grain rice because I wanted something pretty sticky. I liked it, but
    Megan thought it was a but too gluey.

    -- 2013/03/24

    Used 6 tbsp of butter this time and 4 tbsp of flour (updated recipe above) and
    it came out great. Possibly a bit too salty, but otherwise excellent texture and
    taste. Got rave reviews.

    -- 2014/02/18

    Came out great, except the roux was a bit lumpy. I sort of dumped the flour in
    all at once and ended up with some little balls of flour. Make sure to add it
    in slowly and stir vigorously at first.
Potato and Leeks au Gratin

    ingredients:

    8 cups sliced peeled potatoes (1/4-inch slices)
    3 medium leeks (white portion only), cut into 1/2-inch slices
    2 tablespoons butter
    3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
    1/2 teaspoon salt
    1/8 teaspoon pepper
    1-1/3 cups 2% milk
    1 block (4 ounces) Gruyere or Swiss cheese, shredded
    1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

    crumb topping:
    - 1/3 cup dry bread crumbs
    - 2 tablespoons butter, melted
    - 1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

    directions:
    - Place potatoes in a Dutch oven and cover with water. Bring to a boil. Add
      leeks; return to a boil. Cover and cook for 5 minutes. Drain and pat dry.
      Place in a greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish.
    - In a large saucepan, melt butter. Stir in the flour, salt and pepper until
      smooth; gradually add milk. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or
      until thickened. Stir in cheese and nutmeg until cheese is melted. Pour over
      potato mixture. Toss bread crumbs and butter; sprinkle over the top.
    - Bake uncovered at 350° for 20 minutes. Sprinkle with cheddar cheese. Bake
      another 20 minutes or so until the cheese is golden.

      Yield: 12 servings.

    -- 2012-09-28

    Didn't have a Dutch oven, so just boiled the vegetables in a pot. I boiled them
    too vigorously, and by five minutes they were soft enough that the potatoes
    were falling apart a bit. I didn't know how to "pat dry" and entire pot of
    vegetables, so I just left them to drain in the colander while I made the sauce.

    I covered the baking dish with tin foil.

    It came out OK, if a bit bland. It was pretty soft. It didn't have that crispy
    golden top you want. It was more like "boiled vegetables in cheese sauce".

    Next time, I should use more pepper and salt. I didn't measure this time and
    while I thought I was generous, I think it could have used more. I guess the
    potatoes can absorb a lot.

    Also, I think it might work better to boil the potatoes whole and then slice
    them. It will take longer to boil, but they may end up a little firmer.

    And then maybe cook for a shorter amount of time (after all, the potatoes and
    leeks are already cooked) and leave it uncovered the whole time.

    -- 2012-10-20

    Cooked it uncovered this time and it came out miles better. Also seasoned the
    béchamel much more, which helped a lot. I did twenty minutes uncovered, added
    the cheddar, then another twenty minutes uncovered.
Pralines

    From: http://www.southerncreations.com/Pralines/pralines.html
    http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/creamy-pecan-pralines-recipe2/index.html?oc=linkback

    Ingredients:
    - 1- 1/2 cups sugar
    - 3/4 cups light brown sugar, packed
    - 1/2 cup + 2 T. Half and Half cream
    - 1/2 stick unsalted butter
    - 1 1/2 cups pecans
    - 1 teaspoon vanilla
    - 1/4 tsp salt

    (Emeril's):
    1 cup light brown sugar
    1/2 cup granulated sugar
    1/2 cup heavy cream
    4 tablespoons unsalted butter
    2 tablespoons water
    1/4 teaspoon salt
    1 1/2 cups chopped pecans

    Directions:

    1. Combine all ingredients except the pecans and vanilla in a heavy saucepan.
       Stir until it comes to a boil, then turn heat down to a low boil. Stir
       occasionally and sparingly; spoon mixture up on sides of pan to melt any
       sugar that hasn't melted.

    2. Cook until the mixture reaches 239 degrees with a candy thermometer. Remove
       from heat. Stir in the vanilla and the pecans. Stir until the mixture begins
       to thicken and becomes creamy and cloudy. Spoon onto waxed paper to harden.

       If it starts to harden too quickly, stir in a couple of tablespoons of hot
       water to soften.

    -- 2013/12/17

    Tried Emeril's "Creamy Praline Recipe" first. It came out OK, but grainy. His
    recipe doesn't say to avoid stirring while it's boiling. We liked this recipe
    more. We added a bit more nuts because we felt normal pralines were too much
    sugar.

    The dash of salt was my addition and is a big help. Maybe try sprinkling a bit
    of salt as they cool?

    You have to work pretty quickly to spoon them out before it gets too hard. If I
    need to make a lot, I wouldn't do a double batch: it's better to just make
    consecutive batches instead.

    -- 2013/12/18

    On further sampling the next day, the first batch of pralines also came out
    quite good. Not at all grainy. Not sure about the second batch since most of
    those got sent out.

    Also, I should try making these with crumbles of maple bacon.

    -- 2014/09/18

    Tried making pumpkin spice ones. Tossed pecans in:

    - 2 tbsp corn syrup
    - 2 tsp vanilla
    - 3 tsp pumpkin pie spice

    Baked them for about five minutes at 350° F then followed the recipe as usual.
    They were assertively pumpkin spice tasting (good) but also incredibly sweet
    (not so good). The spice ended up coming off the pecans when they were mixed in
    the pralines. Next time, probably add the pecans after the praline has cooled
    and is ready to pour.


This is incredible. Can I please connect with you via email? Mine given above in the post, last line.


Sure, mine's in my profile. I can't promise I'll be very useful or have much time, though. :)


Didn’t get anything here http://d.pr/i/181Km. Sorry about bothering too much.


i don't make myself take notes, but if i'm working on a recipe i try to make it every 1-3 weeks so that i remember the lessons as i iterate. notes sound like a great idea!


> Put a wet paper towel under your cutting board.

What's this good for?


It keeps the cutting board from slipping and moving while you use it.


1. I cook most days. I mostly make baked chicken and a vegetable dish. The main reason is because its hard to eat cheap + healthy in my area (NYC).

2. I usually shop for 3 days in advance.

3. Baked chicken, veggies

4. Low carb, high protein


“The main reason is because its hard to eat cheap + healthy in my area (NYC)” this is something that worries me. Frozen meals/junk food is much cheaper when you add “time” as a cost. Impairs impulsive decision making.


Hey, Cucumbertown looks really cool. Can you talk a bit about your tech stack and major design decisions? I'm thinking of something similar for a different niche.


1. Its delicious 2. Not really, i just take care that i have enough ingredients to be spontaneous 3. Fish (personal preference) and meaty stuff 4. No


I have to say that 4 Hour Chef has some great tips and tricks when looking at hacking cooking.

Especially things like knife skills, gear and prep.


Cooking is a stress reliever. I've cooked my whole life. Baking however is like a vi user forced to use emacs :-)


I've been really digging TomatoSherpa.com.


Stir-fry random is a miracle.


(1. why?) Well it does save cash :) I only consider it recreation when I have friends over. The main reason, however, because it's normal. Probably a cultural thing (not judging!). In the Netherlands (or at least in my circles), it'd be considered "weird" if you eat out (or takeout) more than once or twice a week. It's just considered normal that people cook, like doing laundry. Also means it's not going to be fancy always, sometimes it's just fuel and nutrients (some/any combo of vegetables, proteins and carbs). I also believe it's more expensive to eat out than in the US, relative to cooking from basic ingredients (or maybe vegetables are cheaper, I dunno). I can make tasty dinner for about €5-7 (two portions). Getting something healthy readymade for you is at least €10 (one portion).

(2. planning) Remember that article a while back about "people sized cities" (or something like that)? In NL, if you live in a medium-size town, a supermarket is never farther away than a 5 minute bicycle ride. My closest one is less than 200m, the next (bigger) one is 700m. But I'm lucky :) There are people that do weekly shopping of course, usually either big families or people that live out in the country, where the nearest supermarket is a cardrive away (like in the US). Besides shopping-planning, if I cook for myself, I usually make at least two-three portions because it's really the same amount of work as making one. Also you can't buy many kinds of fresh ingredients in single-meal amounts. So I do need to plan ahead to be able to eat all that stuff before it goes bad. Sometimes that means having weird dinner-type things for breakfast. I hate throwing food away, but I try not to be too hard on myself if it means I ate healthy stuff, but messed up on the planning.

(3. what do I cook) Everything. My staple go-to meals, however are some kind of pasta-vegetable-salad (fusili pasta, cherry tomatoes, any kind of salad vegetables, cucumber, paprika, shallots, etc, any cheese, salami, bacon, eggs, olives etc whatever I have in the fridge + dressing from mayo+mustard+honey) and broccoli + fried tempeh or organic sausages. Also, brussel sprouts. These last two vegetables seem (for me) to cover most nutrients I've been missing when I feel I haven't been eating healthy. At least I feel better immediately :)

I also love cooking weird and/or special stuff. I could write a whole series of posts on that. And I did, but the stories/pictures are spread over many different parts and ages of the Internet.

(4. diet) Not really. I did paleo/keto for a while, twice, it was fun, tasty and really interesting to find your body can go into a different "mode" (ketosis) for energy. However I found that my physical condition for running improved a great deal when I added more carbs to my diet. I probably did something wrong, cause many people seem to be able to do sports just fine on keto diets. Anyway, these days I just don't eat a lot of carbs. I find I have to pay attention to eating enough (sorry I'm probably weird), both calorie-wise and nutrients (as I said, broccoli/sprouts).

(5. hacks and tips) I have zillions. Get a good knife. Learn how to use your microwave effectively (it cooks broccoli and many other things to perfection, if you know how--I'll explain if asked). Dishwashing machine. Check out the kitchen-tools section in shops every now and then, see if there's any tools that may make your particular way of cooking easier. If you don't have bbq tongs, get them, even if you're vegetarian. Fresh ginger keeps for a long time in the freezer. Get to know the chemistry behind cooking, preparing food, nutrition, etc. Watch Alton Brown's series Good Eats, it'll not only teach you loads of basic cooking techniques, but also the how & why behind these techniques, and even the chemistry/science of it. Plus it's entertaining. Just pick some random episodes on topics you think are interesting. I guarantee you'll learn something useful from every one of them. Many can be found on YouTube.


More hacks and tips!

- Pay attention to the fact that just because you removed food from the heat source, doesn't mean it'll stop cooking immediately. Cooking with heat is a chemical reaction, and it requires both heat-energy and time. This is the biggest part of cooking effectively with the microwave (which can add energy to food a lot faster than the food can "handle". if you nuke something at 700-800W or higher, try giving it at least as much time "off" as you spent putting energy into it. The heat's already there, the food just doesn't know yet what hit it). But it also goes for cooking pasta, rice, eggs or meat. Generally you can cook many things until they're not-quite-done, let them rest, and they'll be perfect. If you cook them until done, they'll often end up overcooked. Err on the side of undercooked with a slight "bite". Definitely for vegetables and pasta, but if you're not scared and know what you're doing, also meat and eggs.

- Presentation matters. Sure if you're just feeding yourself, who cares. But if you can manage in any way, make your food look nice. There's a huge psychological component to taste and flavour, and it's just a fact that nice-looking food just tastes better. If you don't believe me, try blue food-colouring on anything, and see if you finish your plate.

- On a similar note, slice stuff finely. Get a good knife. If your ingredients are larger than half a spoon, ask yourself why. This is not a hard rule, if there's a good reason forget I said anything. Broccoli gets mushy if sliced too finely and many meats just need their shape. Shape is important. I mean stuff like onions, paprika (bell pepper), tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, etc. Makes for more comfortable eating.

- TASTY MEALS usually have a balanced combination of all the basic flavours: sweet, salt, sour and bitter. While preparing food, taste it, and spend a moment tasting which of the flavours is not sufficiently present. Add a bit more of some ingredient that prominently has that particular flavour. Bitter can be hard to find. Try spices. This is especially important for salads, dressings or sauces.

- Some fresh ingredients don't need to be refrigerated. This of course depends on the climate where you live. Paprika, tomatoes, onions, garlic. Eggs in NL keep fine outside the fridge, but I heard in the US they wash off some protective layer or something.

- If your (dried) spices smell or taste like sawdust, throw them away. Also try to get basic spices, and mix them yourself. Check out the ingredient-list on sauce or spice-mixes you like (for instance, teriyaki sauce = oil + salty soy sauce + garlic + ginger + black pepper + rice vinegar + something sweet, honey, sugar or molasses syrup + MSG. use stick blender and a glass jar. taste. adjust flavour balance. then marinate your salmon in it, or something)

- Get a couple of different vinegars: wine, apple cider, rice, and blank vinegar. The last one can also be used for cleaning (blank vinegar is basically water + acetic acid, which both evaporate, meaning it shouldn't smell like vinegar when dry). IMO, balsamic vinegar is overrated and usually has a lot of "extra ingredients" (unless it's a really nice one, aged in a barrel, try/hint getting those as a present or something :P). You also need lemon juice and possibly lime. Try using wine sometimes, it's not quite as sour, but can add amazing flavour. Red or white wines go into different types of dishes. If you use the "wrong" kind, it usually still works, but won't be as good as it could be.

- Keep a supply of basic ingredients that are versatile in many dishes: onions, shallots, garlic, black pepper (from a grinder please), many different spices, sweet soy sauce (ketjap manis), salty soy sauce, honey, mustard, ketchup, MSG (yeah really, just a pinch sometimes is excellent), eggs, rice, pasta (fusilli is the only one you need, goes with all types of pasta dishes--yes the shape matters, think surface area + chunk size), worcestershiresauce (vegetarians: contains anchovy), frozen spinach or kale, corn starch (always dissolve in cold water first), flour, concentrated tomato paste. You almost never really need "kosher" salt, but pay attention to the amounts "kosher" flakes are different than small grained tablesalt.

I think that's all I have to say on the subject. (Ha!)


1. Cooking is fun, and I like to eat delicious, debatably healthy food. Also, my wife hates cooking. She bakes sometimes, but the stove top is mine exclusively.

2. I plan meals out in the grocery store. Who knows what will catch your eye for a fun meal until you're right there looking at it. Grocery shopping is a weekly thing.

3. There are about a dozen meals in my arsenal that my wife loves, half of which my daughter will eat too. They're mostly typical American meals like chili, casseroles, burgers, and various pastas. So I cook those most often. Asian foods, particularly stir fry, are something I like to play with when I'm just cooking for me. Asian cultures have some amazing dishes from the simplest ingredients and procedures.

4. Diet? I don't understand why people without serious health issues diet. Eat what is delicious, in moderation.

5. I don't have any life hacks. Just prepare your ingredients before starting, try to time the steps for potential parallelization, and don't wander off without setting a timer. Those I hope are common sense, but many people don't seem to get it. Oh, and freeze just about everything for later. Freezers are underrated.


this is almost exactly the same as me - uncannily so. the asker should 2x all these data points in their tally.




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