Blog

*tap* *tap* Hello, is this thing on?

First I’d like to thank Hugh for finally getting the website up. I wanted to play with the code, but he’s the Executive Producer and that sort of makes him the boss. It also means that he got to write the not-entirely-flattering bio entries on the about page. There will be a reckoning for this, I can assure you.

It’s true, and I was somewhat surprised to be reminded, that neither of the others has ever eaten anything I’ve cooked. On further reflection, almost nobody has eaten anything I’ve cooked. I’m pretty sure I’m a fantastic cook, but I have only my own and my girlfriend’s word for this. She, of course, is suspected of bias.

I should observe at this point that both of us are demonstrably still alive, so I must be doing something right.

I believe it was the mighty Tycho Brahe (of Penny Arcade fame, not the astronomer with the golden nose) who first observed that cooking is a geek activity, like programming. It’s creative, experimental, and—crucially—it’s mostly performed solo, which is a large part of the reason why no one has ever eaten my stuff. And, like all the best geek activities, it’s fundamentally rooted in scientific concepts.

I don’t cook the same way Hugh does. I don’t own a microgram scale or an automated stirred-water bath. I don’t even own a digital thermometer (or any thermometer at all after the filming of Season Zero). To my shame, I do sometimes “just whack a bit of it in”: but I do so while cursing the name of Jamie Oliver and everything he stands for, so that’s all right.

But while I prefer to judge my quantities by eye and by taste instead of pedantically measuring every last mote of seasoning, when I throw a handful of herbs into a pot I am adding stuff to other stuff with the aim of causing a reaction. The reaction I am hoping to achieve will result in food that tastes better. What I am doing is chemistry, and chemistry is science.

So cooking is a geek activity, and for too long it’s been co-opted by nongeeks of the type you see on the TV every day. It’s about time we took it back for ourselves.

That, as far as I’m concerned, is why we made Kamikaze Cookery.