The Cooking Engineer

I'm a software engineer. The vast majority of engineers (regardless of engineering discipline) cannot cook. They are not unwilling, they simple are terrible home chefs. Microwaving food is not cooking. Throwing everything in the fridge that is about to go bad into a frying pan and dousing it with soy sauce is also not cooking (its also disgusting).

I think the reason engineers don't know how to cook is the result of time constraints, I know when I was studying, I was so busy that I saw food as just a means of telling my body to stop making noises. I remember eating pizza everyday of the week for 3 weeks. The guys at the pizza place knew what kind of pizza I was going to order and started making it when they saw me walking down the street.

Another reason I think engineers don't know how to cook is because they are generally affluent, and eat out. But they don't eat out all the time, so you have to wonder what in the world are they feeding themselves when they're not eating a $40 meal?

I think engineers by nature are people who like to figure things out. Whether its by trial and error or by "best practices". I find it funny why is it that Engineers aren't also great home chefs. I have a hard time with cook books. They're generally very bad at explaining why they do the things they do. Its a shock that anyone knows how to prepare a decent meal. Sometimes when I read cookbooks they sound like a witch creating a magic potion: "a dash of this, a tail of that, stir thrice and it should turn green!", good riddance. There must be some secret these pros know that I don't, or maybe they don't know, but I want to know.

I didn't always know how to cook. I used to think I did. Even my house mates thought I knew how to cook when I was in college. I was a one trick wonder, I could make fry rice.

To be honest, I was an inconsistent cook. Once in a while something worked out but I couldn't reproduce it if my life depended on it. Which as an engineer is a very worrisome thing, reproducibility is very important to me. Trial and error is also important, but its important because that's when I figure out what works and what doesn't, its important to remember so that the same mistakes won't be repeated.

Alas, this blog. After eight months of cooking and baking I feel I am finally ready to start writing about my trials and tribulations so that others can learn how to cook not merely cooking food.