Presumably, the all-too-common “abstract knowledge of physics is a separate magisterium from practical life skills” sort of cognitive failure, of which most people are guilty (myself included—though I have managed to train myself out of it, somewhat).
If you can think of a good ‘rationalist cooking’ post to write (well, call it ‘optimal cooking’, but you get what I mean) about applying the rationalist paradigm to cooking e.g. what cognitive habits are better and the sorts of blindspots people have, that would just be awesome.
I do have a “rationalist cooking” (heh) post in the works, as it happens, so I’ll take your comment as encouragement to finish it up and post it. (By the way, how does cross-posting work? Do I just manually copy/paste content from my blog, or is there some more fancy way?)
In the meantime, I can hardly do better than to recommend Christopher Kimball’s two books: the Cook’s Bible and the Dessert Bible. Kimball is already as close to a “rationalist cook” as you’re likely to find, and these two cookbooks are written with a very empiricist, question-all-assumptions, attitude; Kimball conducts taste tests, tries recipes in many ways, and consults with food scientists to figure out why things happen a certain way. The actual recipes then also (in addition to being very clearly written) come with “What Can Go Wrong” sections—notes about specific failure modes, and how to mitigate them. For anyone who likes to cook or wants to learn, I think these two cookbooks can advance your grasp, not only of cooking, but of rationality as well.
Face palm. Of course!
Now I’m wondering what the cognitive failure is that caused me not to automatically do that without it being pointed out.
Presumably, the all-too-common “abstract knowledge of physics is a separate magisterium from practical life skills” sort of cognitive failure, of which most people are guilty (myself included—though I have managed to train myself out of it, somewhat).
If you can think of a good ‘rationalist cooking’ post to write (well, call it ‘optimal cooking’, but you get what I mean) about applying the rationalist paradigm to cooking e.g. what cognitive habits are better and the sorts of blindspots people have, that would just be awesome.
I do have a “rationalist cooking” (heh) post in the works, as it happens, so I’ll take your comment as encouragement to finish it up and post it. (By the way, how does cross-posting work? Do I just manually copy/paste content from my blog, or is there some more fancy way?)
In the meantime, I can hardly do better than to recommend Christopher Kimball’s two books: the Cook’s Bible and the Dessert Bible. Kimball is already as close to a “rationalist cook” as you’re likely to find, and these two cookbooks are written with a very empiricist, question-all-assumptions, attitude; Kimball conducts taste tests, tries recipes in many ways, and consults with food scientists to figure out why things happen a certain way. The actual recipes then also (in addition to being very clearly written) come with “What Can Go Wrong” sections—notes about specific failure modes, and how to mitigate them. For anyone who likes to cook or wants to learn, I think these two cookbooks can advance your grasp, not only of cooking, but of rationality as well.
Ace. It’s copy-only. If there’s issues, do ping me in the intercom.