Geek Cooking

Everyone eats, and most eventually learn to cook, at least a bit. Geeks just manage to do it in a  more technology-rich way than the rest of us. Engineers love to create things. They love to find new and different ways of doing things. Sometime they are just looking for more efficient ways to do things, like my father, who used workshop machinery to heat his coffee so he wouldn’t have to stop what he’s doing to make a kitchen trip. For a geek, gadgets rule, whether for the intended purpose or something else, like cooking. This can lead to some wonderful and/or scary kitchen adventures.


Wikitchen

The Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories made pretzels in all kinds of geeky shapes, like the symbols for infinity, pi, and the Mac command key.

Megnut shows us how to take a lot of recipes and find their average. That doesn’t mean we will find they’re average. She averaged a dozen chocolate-chip recipes. It’s pretty geeky. (via Wendell Wit)

Pimp That Snack! has step-by-step instructions for creating your own Rubik’s Cube Cake!

Dave Spencer at Instructables made a volcano cake for his son’s birthday. This cake had vibration, smoke, sound effects, and a lava flow (strawberry flavored)! It required seven boxes of cake mix. Then he posted the process of building the cake, hardware and all, and a video of the cake in action at the birthday party. (via Cynical-C)

Colin at Instructables made a Laser Cut Cake.

Susan Rodgers is a computer scientist at Duke. She’s also a mom, and loves to bake fanciful cakes and cookies for her sons in the shapes of their favorite TV and movie characters.

George Hart is an artist, teacher, and math geek. He decribes himself as “neither a professor of gastronomy nor paleontology, but I like cookies.” His website features instructions for creating Trilobite Cookies.

Blog of the Day: The Food Geek.

 Chicken in a Watermelon recipe, taken from an Easter Egg on the Buckaroo Banzai DVD.

Making clarified butter in an organic chemistry lab.

USB Barbecue. And the process of building it in pictures.

If someone on Slashdot posts a formula for pizza, you know someone else is going to post an argument about it! (via Wendell Wit)

Instructions for Microsoft's New TV Dinner Product

You must first remove the plastic cover. By doing so you agree to accept and honor Microsoft rights to all TV dinners. You may not give anyone else a bite of your dinner (which would constitute an infringement of Microsoft's rights). You may, however, let others smell and look at your dinner and are encouraged to tell them how good it is.

If you have a PC microwave oven, insert the dinner into the oven. Set the oven using these keystrokes:
mstv.dinn.//08.5min@50%heat

Then enter:
ms//start.cook_dindin/yummy\|/yum~yum:-)gohot#cookme.

If you have a Macintosh microwave oven, insert the dinner and press start. The oven will set itself and cook the dinner.

If you have a Unix microwave oven, insert the dinner, enter the ingredients of the dinner found on the package label, the weight of the dinner, and the desired level of cooking and press start. The oven will calculate the time and heat and cook the dinner exactly to your specification.

Be forewarned that Microsoft dinners may crash, in which case your oven must be restarted. This is a simple procedure.

Remove the dinner from the oven and enter:
ms.nodamn.good/tryagain\again/again.crap

This process may have to be repeated. Try unplugging the microwave and then doing a cold reboot. If this doesn't work, contact your oven vendor. The oven itself is obviously on the blink.

Many users have reported that the dinner tray is far too big, larger than the dinner itself, having many useless compartments, most of which are empty. These are for future menu items. If the tray is too large to fit in your oven, you will need to upgrade your equipment.

Dinners are only available from registered outlets, and only the chicken variety is currently produced. If you want another variety, call Microsoft Help and they will explain that you really don't want another variety. Microsoft Chicken is all you really need. Microsoft has disclosed plans to discontinue all smaller versions of their chicken dinners. Future releases will only be in the larger family size. Excess chicken may be stored for future use, but must be saved only in Microsoft approved packaging.

Microsoft promises a dessert with every dinner after '98. However, that version has yet to be released. Users have permission to get thrilled in advance.

Microsoft dinners may be incompatible with other dinners in the freezer, causing your freezer to self-defrost. This is a feature, not a bug. Your freezer probably should have been defrosted anyway.

Previously on Miss Cellania: Odd Cooking

Thought for today: The difference between chemistry and cooking is that in chemistry, you never lick the spoon.

humor jokes video funny cooking recipes geek technology

Stumble this! 

Comments

[Joe the Troll]

Now I know what they do up in Los Alamos.

[Mamacita]

This is just hilarious! A great idea. I love the Microsoft/Mac comparison.

[MotherPie]

There is an email from Johns Hopkins that keeps making the rounds about the dangers of plastic in the microwave. It is a good link.

I did the order-in-thing too much in NYC and only heated the leftovers. Cheers.

[Badabing]

I love that comment about your dad heating his coffee. I had an uncle that did the same thing.

[MotherPie]

Look! I'm can comment. Maybe it is a modem thing, being in a different location.

[Actor212]

My favorite "Fech" site (food tech) is still http://www.twinkiesproject.com/

The Twinkies Project

[Suzie-Q]

I think the worst cooking experience I ever had was when I was boiling eggs and forgot to turn them off. I went shopping and when I returned the eggs had blown up and were scattered all over the kitchen! What a mess! LOLMAO

[joated]

Love the Microsoft cooking directions.