No-one ever sat down to a recipe; we sit down to meals. Yet most cook-books and sites have recipes, not meals.
Cooking meals is a big scheduling hassle: the steaks are already well-done but the water for the peas is still cold, or the guests are arriving just as you see the footnote – "leave to set for at least twelve hours" – on the dessert. Yet I have never found a book or site that does meal scheduling properly to ensure everything arrives at the right time.
Too many cook-books and sites include stuff like "now roulade the encrustillions and blind-baste until clearly texturised". For those of us who had to do woodwork instead of domestic science at school, this is not very helpful.
This site addresses all three problems to provide – ta-da – "ThinkProof Cooking". It puts a set of recipes together as tried-and-tested meals. It provides a checklist of what ingredients you must either have or buy. It does the planning and scheduling for you, so you get a timeline telling you exactly what to do and when. It doesn't use any fancy terms or techniques.
People who want to use the little grey cells for important stuff other than cooking, like global politics or football. People who think the point of cooking is to produce a meal that works. People who like to have a drink while they cook, but then tend to get somewhat befuddled.
In preparing the site, various suggestions have been made of the personality types it will appeal to: "anal retentive", "anorak", "Haynes devotee" and "man" are all labels of which ThinkProof Cooking users can be justifiably proud.
You can use it for a variety of different meals: for the family, for friends, for posh.
Each guide contains six items:
· The overall menu for the meal
· The checklist of what you need to have or buy
· A pre-preparation list of things to do well in advance
· A preparation list of things to do an hour or so before you start to cook
· A timeline of what to do, and when, from cooking to serving
· Post-serving notes about the meal and any variations/substitutions
It's pretty obvious but, since it says "thinkproof" on the label, here's more detail on each of the six items in the guide:
Explains what type of meal this is (casual, posh, snack, etc); the food content of the meal; what booze you can drink with it (not a connoisseur's guide: it's red, white or beer); how many the meal serves and the serving time for the timeline; and the original source for the meal.
Everything you need for the meal, presented as a checklist to see what you already have and what you need to have as a shopping list.
A set of tasks to be completed (typically around lunchtime for an evening dinner meal).
A set of food preparation tasks (such as chopping, slicing) that you can get out of the way before the main cooking; plus a set of other timeline preparation tasks to make sure as much as possible is done beforehand: it tells you what cooking implements to get ready, what serving implements to get ready, what eating implements to lay out, and gives a final check on ingredients while you've still got time for a last-minute dash to the shops. The timeline table has tick boxes for those of us who like tick boxes.
A complete schedule of what needs to be done, and when, from cooking to serving the whole meal. There are five columns: the lovely tick boxes; the timing required to meet the serving time indicated under 'menu'; a more relative timeline; a blank column for you to fill in your own timing; and the cooking instruction.
A warning: all the timelines have been tried out and they work; BUT variations will occur. Some of these are likely to be very minor (e.g. different types of pans or ingredients from a different shop). Variation may be slightly more if you're not cooking on gas, but not much if you're using modern electric or halogen stove. If you're trying to use an Aga, one of those old electric stoves where you have to give the oven two months' advance notice, or a fire made from your ex-lover's CD collection, then you're on your own. If in any doubt, do a dry-run of the meal first for you and old Mrs Mullins next door and her cat.
An obvious point: if you want to cook for a different number of people, or make any significant changes to the ingredients, then the timeline will change. D'oh!
Reflections from site users and others on the meal, and some notes – showing a dangerous flash of flexibility and creativity – on ways to vary the meal.
I think it was me: Rick Heeks (that's Prof. Rick to you, pond scum) combining my expertise in managing some of NASA's largest space exploration projects with my years as a sous-chef in the world's greatest gastronomic citadels. Steph thinks it was her idea. Our lawyers are still negotiating the outcome of this disagreement. Talking of which …
If you follow these guides and you incur any consequent loss or damage then, as my lawyers would say, tough tit on you – you follow these at your own discretion and accept responsibility for all consequences therefrom.
Click here to give your feedback and ideas
http://www.thinkproof-cooking.com/about.htm & http://www.timeline-cooking.com/about.htm January 2010