Lunch, and the System of the World

[justbeast]

If you came up to me and asked, my dear fellow, given two months, and given this budget for this size team, how do you build a web portal, a complex social networking site, say? And I could tell you. It would not be the One True Answer, but it would be solid, and following my plan you would have a decent portal at the end of that time span. I know

Comments

[jer_]

Clearly the solution is to get the AI to do it! :)

I feel your pain. Not about cooking, I'm passable at that, but at a host of "life" things; there's a section of living skills that I am ill equiped to understand fundamentally, so I rely on others to do them for me and hope that nobody notices that I'm "broken".

[justbeast]

> Clearly the solution is to get the AI to do it! :)

Is it bad that I read that and think, hmmm, you might be right...

[jer_]

For the past several minutes (since commenting) I've been sitting here pondering a meal-chooser code...I mean, following a recipe is no problem, the problem is selecting what to make, so it would seem that a really bare-bones AI could take into account things I feel like eating or things I have in my pantry and make the decision for me based on a loose rule set.

Hrmm...

(So, no, it's bad that we BOTH think that...hehe )

[justbeast]

Ahh, now that's a pretty good idea! I shall use that among my stratagems.

[justbeast]

Now that I think about it, I also have default meals for those emergencies. Except my list of meals is like.. two. So clearly I need to re-focus on this list, and expand it.

(Also, re broilered skirt steak - do you always keep meat on hand? Out of sheer curiosity, how often do you buy it? Like, a bunch for the whole week, or every day or so?)

[bodlon]

Semi-random internet stranger here.

I had a similar realization the last time I bought groceries. I looked down at my cart and thought, "Ye gods. I don't mind the Hot Pockets now and again, but this is a problem."

[justbeast]

*laughs* exactly! You understand how it is. I've had similar realizations!

[thewronghands]

The CSA was great for us this way, because we got an assortment of vegetables every week, about half of them weird. So it became a race condition to try to cook everything before we got the next week's box, or before it went off. We got a constant, pre-selected stream of healthy with a side of weird, and that made meals into "solve logistical problem with given resources" rather than "architect a solution, supply yourself, implement". That is easier.

It's only been a month since it stopped for the winter, and we both miss it already. We're totally doing that again next year.

Meal planning, the roleplaying game

[stakebait]

For who is in the mood for what, you need a series of elimination questions.

Mine usually go like this:

Specific preferred ingredient yes/no

Long or short (meaning how long can I stand to wait while it cooks)

Complicated or simple (how much energy do I have for cooking)

Meat or no meat

Hot or cold

Spicy or bland

cuisine of origin preference if any.

As for what goes together, two things are a big help -- my memory of restaurant menus and/or successful meals of the past, and the Internet. You can enter your main ingredients and be presented with a list of recipes that involve them, which may give you ideas even if they're not useable as-is.

It can also help to deliberately reduce your choices to prevent choice paralysis. If you have defrosted something, for example, then you need to use that thing up before it spoils. You have now reduced what do I want from the entire universe of food choices to "something that goes well with sausage".

My solution

[sinboy]

Frozen re-heatable stuff, home made pasta sauce, various quick cook meals like pre-fab turkey burgers, and a large freezer. If I plan it right, I should have 3 or 4 things frozen at any time, a quick-cook meal in the fridge, and the wherewithal at least once a week to cook something nice, and one day a week spent adding a large amount of containers to the stuff in the frozen section.

So - Cook in bulk once a week, cook not in bulk twice to three times a week, cook something quick like pasta or soup once or twice a week, and eat re-heated frozen stuff the other days.

Most of the frozen stuff is like what regyt says - stuff form a list of things we know we like. Chili, lamb stew, chicken soup, etc...

Edit - we haven't ben using it much of late, but we went through a period where our 8 quart pressure cooker was the best tool in the kitchen. It can make lots of food really quick. A rice cooker is a good thing too.

Re: My solution

[coffeehouse]

I do this like sinboy, my mother taught me as she was a nurse in the 80s when HMOs were taking over and she worked 16 hour shifts