Learning to clean — Cook 2 Code #3
just as a carpenter would if you seemed shocked at finding sawdust in his workshop
I hate watching most cooking videos. Most cooking videos are “fake”; cooking is 80% prep/cleaning, while the actual cooking makes up only 20%; it’s the Pareto distribution or power law at its finest.
For example, I was learning how to make tortillas; I quickly reviewed the technique and blazed through the remaining video. I can afford to take shortcuts because I have the skills. However, the video was spotless like an IKEA showroom kitchen which is contrary to what making tortillas is really like.
As Marcus Aurelius says in Meditations:
“Anyone who understands the world will laugh at you, just as a carpenter would if you seemed shocked at finding sawdust in his workshop”
The truth is I’ve gotten better at cooking because I watched honest “messy” chefs like James Kenji López-Alt who uses a GoPro on his head. You can subtly see how the mess can save your cooking, something most people don’t consciously pay attention to.
Yes, it’s necessary to learn the techniques and fundamentals but the real challenge of cooking lies in balancing organisation and mess; this is the same challenge in coding.
I’m at the scrambled eggs stage of coding… eggs, pan and a spatula.
Simple days; but I haven’t experienced a real coding mess yet. Thus, I am keenly paying attention to how I handle mess at a smaller scale because I know when things get more complex, a large portion of my time will go to balancing mess and order together.
Word count: 248
Twitter: @bhavprajapati
Cook 2 Code: Learning code through my love of cooking. Read the intro here. Welcome — Introduction. Working with engineers and not being… | by Bhavin Prajapati | Cook 2 Code | Dec, 2022 | Medium
But why 250 words? I have another blog called Fiftytwo250 where I write random essays over the week, capped at 250 words or less. You can learn more about the blog at fiftytwo250.com and the introduction post on the premise of a word cap here: https://medium.com/fiftytwo250/welcome-to-52-250-e955e3ac962e
