Book Review – Cooking for Geeks

About the Book

Are you the innovative type, the cook who marches to a different drummer—used to expressing your creativity instead of just following recipes? Are you interested in the science behind what happens to food while it’s cooking?

Then Cooking for Geeks (O’Reilly Media, $34.99 USD) is for you.

More than just a cookbook, Cooking for Geeks applies your curiosity to discovery, inspiration, and invention in the kitchen. Why is medium-rare steak so popular? Why do we bake some things at 350° F/175° C and others at 375° F/190° C? And how quickly does a pizza cook if we overclock an oven to 1,000° F/540° C? Author and cooking geek Jeff Potter (@cookingforgeeks) provides the answers and offers a unique take on recipes—from the sweet (a “mean” chocolate chip cookie) to the savory (duck confit sugo).

“Readers of Cooking for Geeks will be much more comfortable walking into the kitchen, picking up a frying pan, and trying something new after reading the book,” says Potter, who has been cooking since he was a child growing up in California. “Cooking for Geeks shows you how to have fun in the kitchen by blending science with cooking and takes a playful, quirky approach to teaching you how to be a better cook.”

This book will help you:

• Initialize your kitchen and calibrate your tools
• Learn about the important reactions in cooking, such as protein denaturation, Maillard reactions, and caramelization, and how they impact the foods we cook
• Play with your food using hydrocolloids and sous vide cooking
• Gain firsthand insights from interviews with researchers, food scientists, knife experts, chefs, writers, and more, including author Harold McGee, TV personality Adam Savage, chemist Hervé This, and xkcd

“There’s really no book out there like Cooking for Geeks—it’s science textbook meets cookbook, written to appeal to anyone who’s curious about how the details work in the kitchen,” says Potter. “And it’s not just for technical geeks—anyone who wants to do more than just follow a recipe will enjoy the book.”

1. Chapter 1 Hello, Kitchen!

   1. Think Like a Hacker

   2. Cooking for One

   3. Cooking for Others

2. Chapter 2 Initializing the Kitchen

   1. Approaching the Kitchen

   2. Kitchen Equipment

   3. Kitchen Organization

3. Chapter 3 Choosing Your Inputs: Flavors and Ingredients

   1. Smell + Taste = Flavor

   2. Tastes: Bitter, Salty, Sour, Sweet, Umami, Others

   3. Adapt and Experiment Method

   4. Regional/Traditional Method

   5. Seasonal Method

   6. Analytical Method

4. Chapter 4 Time and Temperature: Cooking’s Primary Variables

   1. Cooked = Time * Temperature

   2. Foodborne Illness and Staying Safebacteriadanger zone rulebacteriafoodborne illness andbacteriasurvival temperaturesdanger zone rulefood safetydanger zone rulefood safetyfoodborne illness andmarinating meatsmeatsmarinatingmeatstenderizingWell, safer—there’s no such thing as 100% safe.

   3. Key Temperatures in Cooking

5. Chapter 5 Air: Baking’s Key Variable

   1. Gluten

   2. Biological Leaveners

   3. Chemical Leaveners

   4. Mechanical Leaveners

6. Chapter 6 Playing with Chemicals

   1. Traditional Cooking Chemicals

   2. Modern Industrial Chemicals

7. Chapter 7 Fun with Hardware

   1. Sous Vide Cooking

   2. Commercial Hardware and Techniques

1. Appendix Cooking Around Allergies

   1. Substitutions for Common Allergies

2. Appendix Afterword

3. Appendix About the Author

4. Colophon

About the Author

Jeff Potter has done the cubicle thing, the startup thing, and the entrepreneur thing, and through it all maintained his sanity by cooking for friends. He studied computer science and visual art at Brown University.

Additional Resources

For an article on Jeff’s recent talk at HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth 2010), see:
http://gizmodo.com/5589621/livehope-jeff-potter-cooks-for-geeks.

To follow Jeff’s blog and see more information about the process of Cooking for Geeks, see:
http://cookingforgeeks.com.

My Take on the Book
As a guy who likes to cook, but ha had no formal training, this book was a great addition to my collection. The book provides expert tips for the beginner to expert chef in all of us. I am greatly looking forward to trying out a number of the techniques and recipes within the book!

One of the things that I did like about the book was how well the author writes for his audience. Though there were some recipes that were on the simplistic side (hamburgers), it also moves to the more complex (Salmon Gravlax) or other such dishes. Yet, even in the more complex dishes, he provides a step-by-step analysis and instruction so you are cooking like a pro!

This post was written for O’Reilly Media who provided the complimentary item in exchange for my honest review.

Book Review – My Teenage Werewolf: A Mother, a Daughter, a Journey Through the Thicket of Adolescence

About the Book

MY TEENAGE WEREWOLF will find a captive audience in mothers of daughters and daughters of mothers. It is the craftily-written story of Lauren Kessler’s quest to understand her mercurial daughter Lizzie as she comes up on her thirteenth birthday. At first Lauren sits down with all the best Amazon.com-ranked parenting books but soon finds that reading is not enough. She needs empirical evidence. She needs to experience Lizzie’s life. She needs to follow her—everywhere.

With Lizzie’s approval—which is often as shocking as what follows—Lauren sits in on her daughter’s classes, observes her in gym, watches her practice with the school band, attends track practice, even participates in a wrestling match, and ventures online into the world of teen chat rooms. What the experiment produces is not only an intimate scrutiny of a pre-teen but an open, honest process of introspection.

My Take on the Book
As a father of two girls, I was particularly interested in what this mom learned about her daughter in today’s ever-changing world. I know that by the time that my eldest gets into her teens the world will be a very different place, but I thought it would still be an eye-opening experience, and I was not mistaken.

This book, while written from a parent’s point of view is very ethnographic in nature.  The author does a great job at bringing you into the everyday life of her daughter. I was amazed at the access her daughter gave her to her life (especially as a teenager).

Overall, this book was enlightening and gave me some definite insights into the thought patterns of a teenager and what a parent might be able to do to better connect with them as they go through these years! I would highly recommend this book to others!

If this book sounds like one that you would like to have as a part of your own library you can find it on Amazon!

This post was written for Viking Adult Publishing who provided the complimentary product in exchange for my honest review.

Three New Office 2010 Plain & Simple Books from Microsoft Press

The Microsoft Press has just released some amazing, user-friendly books for MS Excel 2010, MS Office 2010 & MS Outlook 2010.

Microsoft® Office 2010 Plain & Simple
by Katherine Murray

This colorful, no-nonsense guide uses easy-to-follow steps and screenshots, and clear, concise language to show the simplest ways to get things done with Microsoft Word, Excel®, Outlook®, PowerPoint®, Access®, Publisher, and OneNote®.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• Create documents, Web pages, and other publications
• Organize your e-mail, calendar, contacts and tasks
• Build spreadsheets to analyze and visualize data
• Set up a simple database
• Capture notes with ink, voice or text

Microsoft® Excel® 2010 Plain & Simple
by Curtis D. Frye

This full color, no-nonsense book shows you the quickest ways to solve a problem or learn a skill, using easy-to-follow steps and concise, straightforward language. You’ll analyze, manage, and share information in more ways than ever before.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• Manage your financial data and personal expenses
• Get started quickly with prebuilt templates
• Create formulas and functions to do the hard work
• Sort, filter, update, and copy your data
• Use charts and graphics to bring data to life
• Collaborate with colleagues by sharing spreadsheets online

Microsoft® Outlook® 2010 Plain & Simple
by Jim Boyce

This full color, no-nonsense book shows you the quickest ways to manage your email and schedule appointments, using easy-to-follow steps and concise, straightforward language. You’ll learn how to stay productive and in touch with all of your personal and business networks.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• Send and receive messages, files, and photos
• Set up e-mail filters to weed out the junk
• Manage your contacts and stay in touch
• Keep track of your calendar and manage your tasks
• Read RSS feeds right from your inbox
• Jot down e-notes and keep a journal

My Take on These Three Books

These books were filled with amazing material that answered any question that I could think of about the Microsoft programs. The Office book alone was a comprehensive overview of most all of the MS Office Suite programs, while the other two books were much more in-depth examinations of the programs themselves.

The books not only explained the issues and concerns in layman’s terms, but they also included many pictorial diagrams that led the reader through a visual explanation to explain the issues as well.

I know that I will be keeping these books close to my computer for those ever prevalent issues and questions that I have about these programs. I know that you too will find these to be valuable additions to your home.

This post was written for Microsoft Press who provided the complimentary copies in exchange for my honest review.

Book Review – How To Choose The Best Preschool for Your Child

About the Book

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