For Future Reference

Since D started blogging about her cooking adventures on the road, the response from our readers has been tremendous. As a result of all their prodding and praise, she has decided that her first writing project will be a cookbook. (It will not be titled To Serve Man. Sorry, I tried.)

Anyway, one of the ideas we bounced off our friend Carol was including a "quick start guide" with the cookbook, like all those pamphlets that come with consumer electronics so you can start using the damn thing without wading through a 200-page manual. During that conversation, the subject of dice also came up. D isn't convinced, but I believe there is an untapped market for, shall we say, procedural meal generation, and not just for fad diets. As shown here:


penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/12/10

Seriously, though. Some of our friends approach cooking as if it were some arcane alchemical ritual, whose actual mechanism is shrouded in impenetrable mystery, and which might conjure forth some hideous demon if you dare to vary a given recipe. But they're all geeks, so here's what I propose: hammer home the Food + Heat = Cooking thing, so they're down with the science, and then tweak the terminology so they're using "ingredient classes" and "flavor modifiers." Now we can build an MMO! <Colbert>VENTURE CAPITAL, PLEASE.</Colbert>

Did I mention that, while at PAX, I saw an Iron Chef America game for the DS? It appears to be a rebranded ripoff of Cooking Mama, and Alton's hair looks terrible. I hope his agent gave someone an earful.

~CKL