{"id":8490,"date":"2017-12-07T10:28:25","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T09:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/?p=8490"},"modified":"2026-03-26T16:53:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:53:13","slug":"how-i-do-cooking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/2017\/12\/07\/how-i-do-cooking\/","title":{"rendered":"How I do cooking"},"content":{"rendered":"

If I start listing my interests, away from embedded software, there are a fair number. I have often written about photography<\/a>, but others include reading\/writing and food and drink. I have written posts in my \u201c6 of The Best\u201d series covering drinks<\/a>, food<\/a> and cheese<\/a> specifically. There has never been a list of my favourite 6 restaurants, as I probably do not have one! It might be a surprise to hear that I do not get very excited about eating out \u2026<\/p>\n

To my mind, there are 3 reasons why I might commonly eat at a restaurant:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I am traveling on business or on vacation and I need to eat somewhere.<\/li>\n
  2. It is a social event with friends.<\/li>\n
  3. The place is special in some way – typically offering food that I would not be able to prepare at home.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Of course, there also a fourth possibility: I am feeling too lazy\/tired to make food at home, but going to a restaurant as a result of this is very rare.<\/p>\n

    For #1 and #2, the restaurant is not particularly important – the food just needs to be at least satisfactory. It is #3 that troubles me. I have encountered too many places that are over-rated, over-priced or [commonly] both. They may do what they do well enough, but it is often no better than I could achieve at home [at much lower cost]. So often I encounter a restaurant, that people rave about, but I have a feeling that I am witnessing another case of \u201cthe emporer\u2019s new clothes\u201d.<\/p>\n

    I guess it would be different if I was not capable of cooking food or even just did not enjoy doing it. However, I do find food preparation quite rewarding. Although I cannot be bothered to go to any trouble, if I am alone for a meal [that is when Domino\u2019s Pizza comes into play!]. Libby is always appreciative and I often get the chance to cook for friends – maybe someone dropping by for a very casual supper or a group for dinner.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>I have been asked about how I get recipes and learn to cook things and how I organise myself. I strongly favor finding recipes online, as this leads into the way I work. I keep copies of interesting recipes in Evernote. When I am preparing a meal, I make a new note and copy the recipe [or maybe recipes] into it. This is now a \u201cliving document\u201d that I can \u201cscribble\u201d on – add check boxes, maybe timings and adjust quantities if I am scaling up or down. I later archive the note as a handy record of what I served. Normally, my iPad sits on the kitchen table, with the note open. I just need to be careful with sticky\/wet hands.<\/p>\n

    There are many standard dishes that I cook with no recipe, but other times I do need some instruction. With a new recipe, I normally follow it carefully the first time, but, as I get a feel for the way it works, I can \u201cplay tunes\u201d – adapt it to my needs. I have a great aversion to recipes that are too complex, of have ingredients that I do not recognise or just too many ingredients. Libby recently gave me a recipe book to address some of my issues. All the recipes have no more than 5 ingredients and they are not too complex to prepare. However, the author does take some liberties with these constraints. He assumes a very well stocked store cupboard. For example, who routinely keeps red wine vinegar?<\/p>\n

    This reminds me of an amusing practice in an up-market UK supermarket chain [that British readers will recognize]. They have a range of basic, own-brand products, that they call \u201cEssential\u201d. Many of them make sense – like bread, milk, various vegetables. But Essential quails eggs?<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    If I start listing my interests, away from embedded software, there are a fair number. I have often written about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71677,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[302],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-8490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-off-topic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10639,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8490\/revisions\/10639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8490"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=8490"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=8490"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}