For me it’s time signatures in music. I grew up playing instruments, played in several orchestras, etc. But no matter how many times someone tries to explain time signatures to me, it makes no sense. I don’t understand why people place such importance on it. To me, notes have a pitch and a duration, maybe some dynamics. That’s it. I don’t understand why people try to needlessly complicate it. It doesn’t give you anything.
My wife will hear a song and go “Oh neat, it’s in 5/8.” And I’m like “How tf do you know that, and why does it matter?”
You may note that I did mention that I have my mise en place before I start cooking. My struggle is entirely in your Step 1: Read the recipe. Making the recipe I can do, I cook and bake every day. Reading it is the struggle.
My ideal cookbook would look like python documentation: “This
functionstep has these inputs and these outputs. Here is the typical use case.”I mean…they do that already?
Every recipe I’ve seen will either be written “in a large bowl mix flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder.” Meaning all of the ingredients you’ve portioned out. If the recipe calls for the same ingredient in more than one step, it will say so. “Mix 2 cups of flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder in a large bowl.” Then it’ll specify “add remaining flour” or “add 1 cup flour” in some later step. Some might also mention that in the ingredients list, like “1 1/3 cup sliced strawberries, 2/3 cup for cake, 2/3 cup for topping.”
I just wish 99% of the web page around the recipe would fuck off. I want a ONE SENTENCE description of the dish as it might appear on a restaurant menu, the time to prep and cook, the yield/portion size, the parts list and procedure. I don’t want a fake story of someone’s travels or family life, I don’t want a geography lecture, and if you’re going to write a long form essay on the process a la the script for an episode of a cooking show, put that AFTER the recipe itself, not before. Let me see the damn parts list in the top mile or so of the page.
That’s fine for cooking, where I’ll have it all in front of me, but doesn’t help with reading. I just can’t visualize it, or maybe I just can’t remember it.
See, that actually IS helpful to me, and probably why I prefer certain recipe websites to cookbooks.
Possibly related question: Are you one of those folks without a mind’s eye? What’s the space catholic term for it? aphantasia?
No, I have a mind’s eye. If the recipe says “stir until the sauce reaches a creamy, glossy texture” I can picture it perfectly.