Cooking For Engineers

It's not every day I have to go find out what "orthogonal" means, but having found Michael Chu's "Orthogonal Thought" blog (http://www.orthogonalthought.com/blog/) and drifted from there to his website, Cooking For Engineers, I felt obliged to find out. Sadly, now I know, I still don't know. But good grief, Jim, I'm a cook, not an engineer.

Cooking For Engineers has been created for those who have the ability to be both things simultaneously, lucky people that they are. And the result is a foodie fansite that's so neat and tidy, you could cut yourself on the edges.

Everything here is very square, in a geometric rather than a sociological manner. The photography is rarely less than excellent and the text, even when enthusing over a recipe, is crisp and to the point. So, well, I guess I'm implying that this is very much a site for men who clear their desks before the end of the day and don't think a slide rule is a playground regulation. I wouldn't know, somehow I've never made friends with one of those guys but I think I've seen them, from afar.

If you're comfortable with the lack of clumsy exuberance that infuses other, less precise cookery sites then there's plenty to learn and study here. You may find the tone just a touch deprecatory, as in this, from a book review:

"In the cholesterol entry, it starts off with "A soft, waxy lipid (a type of fat)..." which is also kind of wrong. Since cholesterol is fat soluble it is a lipid, but fats are type of lipid, not the other way around. Vitamin A is a lipid, but is not a fat. Similarly, cholesterol is a lipid but not a fat. But, here I'm nitpicking..."

But you have to admire the thoughtful precision that imbues even a simple task such as splitting a muffin:

"Meanwhile, I had taken my English muffins and halved them with two forks. Using a knife produces a smoother finish on the muffin halves which doesn't toast as well or produce the famous nooks and crannies for sauce and dressing to fill."

Wonderful attention to detail. I will, however, take issue with the description of English muffins as "resembling crumpets." I'm English. They don't. A crumpet is a crumpet and as Wikipedia says, an English Muffin only "bears a *vague* resemblance to a crumpet." But there, now I'm starting to nitpick, it must be catching.

I did enjoy my trip around this site, though I didn't have time to explore the attached forum and I've bookmarked it for a return sometime soon. It has a different flavor from other foodie sites but that's a compliment. An engineered one, but a compliment all the same.

I LOVE this site. It takes a different approach for people with very logical minds like mine. If you like to cook but your more logical than creative this is the site for you!