My family and I are self professed geeks. The “why” and the “how” behind the object or activity needs to be discovered. So a book entitled, Cooking For Geeks is right up our alley. Jeff Potter, speaks geek in this science book about the kitchen and your food, and not only do you not have to go back to school to learn and be surprised on nearly every page, it includes many tasty recipes too.
The book features seven chapters (with my opinion of chapter highlights below):
- Hello, Kitchen! – Think Like a Hacker
- Initializing the Kitchen – Kitchen Equipment
- Choosing Your Inputs: Flavors and Ingredients – Tastes
- Time and Temperature: Cooking’s Primary Variables – Key Temperatures in Cooking
- Air Baking’s Key Variable – Leavening
- Playing with Chemicals – Traditional Cooking Chemicals
- Fun With Hardware – Sous Vide Cooking
Cooking For Geeks has been so much fun to go through. This would be a great book to use to supplement a FACS elective if you homeschool.
We’ve made a couple of the recipes, the Simple Beef Stew is simple…and delicious. And check out these Gingerbread Cookies. They were iced with the Gingerbread Cookie Frosting recipe and the kitchen ‘hack’ of melting the frosting in the microwave so that you can quickly dip the cookies and get a nice, thin coating. Easy, yummy and they look nice too!
What I really like about the book (well besides the geek factor), is that its binding allows it to open on a counter without flipping, so it’s useful in your kitchen while you’re doing what geeks do in the kitchen, experiment with your food!
The book is stuffed with interviews from chefs to scientists and many professions in between.
If you’re the kind of person that needs to know what makes Cheetos puffy, you need this book on your countertop!
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the products mentioned above as part of a blog campaign by O’Reilly Media. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own and this product may not have the same results for all people, please do additional research of your own when purchasing products mentioned in reviews. This post uses affiliate links.
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