Most days I cook eggs 🍳 and then paint them 🖌. These are those eggs.
Lovely!
But, wait …what’s this?
My favourite condiment with fried eggs is marmite mayo (4 parts mayonnaise to 1 part Marmite).
Okay, now I think this officially qualifies as outsider art.
I am the programming equivalent of a home cook.
The exhortation “learn to code!” has its foundations in market value. “Learn to code” is suggested as a way up, a way out. “Learn to code” offers economic leverage, a squirt of power. “Learn to code” goes on your resume.
But let’s substitute a different phrase: “learn to cook.” People don’t only learn to cook so they can become chefs. Some do! But far more people learn to cook so they can eat better, or more affordably, or in a specific way.
Watch the prep time increase as you make more and more of a recipe’s ingredients from scratch.
I guess Carl Sagan was right. To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
Recipes inspired by The Left Hand Of Darkness.
I mostly stuck to Le Guin’s world-building rules for Winter, which were “no large meat-animals … and no mammalian products, milk, butter or cheese; the only high-protein, high-carbohydrate foods are the various kinds of eggs, fish, nuts and Hainish grains.” I did, however, add some hot-climate items found in Manhattan’s Chinatown for their space-age looks and good flavors (dragonfruit, pomelo, galangal, chilis, and kaffir limes).
Serve with hot beer.
I love, love, love Sam’s comparison’s between cooking and front-end development.
We should embrace the tools we have access to and appreciate our ability to learn, but also realize that maybe a gas stove or a certain design tools might not be for everyone. We have to find what works for our cooking or designing/coding style or the project/meal at hand.
Something to remember the next time someone describes an experience as “seamless” and means it to be positive:
This is the Amazon move: absolute obfuscation of labor and logistics behind a friendly buy button. The experience for a Sprig customer is super convenient, almost magical; the experience for a chef or courier…? We don’t know. We don’t get to know. We’re just here to press the button.
I feel bad, truly, for Amazon and Sprig and their many peers—SpoonRocket, Postmates, Munchery, and the rest. They build these complicated systems and then they have to hide them, because the way they treat humans is at best mildly depressing and at worst burn-it-down dystopian.
What would it be like if you didn’t have to hide the system?
This is a great idea—the Brighton Cookbook Club:
You know when you get a new cookbook, but you only ever end up using two or three recipes from it? Coming along to Cookbook Club means that you’ll get to try a whole range of recipes from one book to see what you fancy, maybe broaden your palate, and have a jolly fun evening meeting others while you’re at it!
Good writing. Good design. Good food.
A PDF to download and read that is both funny and fascinating.
This beautiful piece of writing from Steph is making me hungry.
Léonie is collecting some recipes from web geeks. Here’s my contribution via Valentine Warner.
I am very disappointed that the internet didn’t tell me sooner that Steve Albini has a food blog.
So just in case you didn’t already know: Steve Albini has a food blog.
Valuable advice from Slowtron on cooking perfect longpork.
A gorgeous adaptive (though not quite responsive) design …and it’s all about food.
Y’know, I think this comparison actually makes a lot of sense.
Aza Raskin on the UI failings of kitchens.
"Tuna Casserole Ingredients: 1 large casserole dish Place the casserole dish in a cold oven. Place a chair facing the oven and sit in it forever. Think about how hungry you are. When night falls, do not turn on the light."
I'm hungry.
Detailed instructions for a delicious-sounding meal from a fellow Brightonian.
This recipe from Ted looks like a keeper.