My metafilter is sometimes bitter and dense. Is there anything I can add to it to make it lighter?
July 16, 2010 12:51 PM   Subscribe

cooking.stackexchange.com is the first non computer based Q&A site in the ever expanding stackexchange universe. If you want to know how to chop onions without crying, find out what a roux is or find the best meat replacements for vegetarians, then this may be worth a look-see.
posted by seanyboy (26 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
Chopping onions without crying: wear contacts.

Meat replacement for vegetarians: food that is not meat.
posted by gurple at 1:04 PM on July 16, 2010


I've a feeling that this I've done a really bad job of saying what this site is, and why people should go there. Le Sigh. This is what happens when you think something is so awesome, you don't have the words for it.

I wrote this post out a couple of times, but it was all too pepsi blue, so I only went and edited the meaning out of it. Damn my cursed fingers.

I see this as potentially being the *only* place to go to with those really tricksy cookery questions. In my imagination, I can see questions answered by mad-scientist-types who've spent years working out some minor technical side of cookery and who are waiting for the exact right question.

If someone else wanted to post about this, and they could do so without making a hash of the job, I'd be happy to have my post deleted.
posted by seanyboy at 1:15 PM on July 16, 2010 [1 favorite]


It's like AskMe but with scores and you can ask as many questions as you want and its free.
posted by smackfu at 1:17 PM on July 16, 2010 [3 favorites]


Then there's the whole stackexchange ethos, which is kind of interesting, but which I couldn't fit into words, and just ended up jammed strangely on the end of a cookery post.
posted by seanyboy at 1:17 PM on July 16, 2010


Plus, because it's still classified as a beta-site, they have this weird "being built" theme. That's interesting??? But I don't know if I want to talk about that side of things or the fact that they have instructions for cooking pork scratchings.
posted by seanyboy at 1:19 PM on July 16, 2010


I see this as potentially being the *only* place to go to with those really tricksy cookery questions.

Ah, eGullet, how we miss you. But the Chow forums are certainly up there on the "tricky cookery questions" list, no?

(I like this post. I didn't know there was a cookery stackexchange and I find the technical ones to be not that interesting, so I'm checking it out now!)
posted by mendel at 1:21 PM on July 16, 2010


The stackexchange domain is pretty weird once you move outside the technical realm.
posted by smackfu at 1:28 PM on July 16, 2010


These stackexchange sites seem to be the popularized version of the more professional "overflow" sites.

Compare the Mathematics stackexchange which is mainly high school and early undergraduate math, with Math Overflow which can involve bleeding edge math.

I would be interested in a Cooking Overflow site that was more professional or scientific but I don't think the field has advanced far enough for one.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 1:35 PM on July 16, 2010


MonkeySaltedNuts: I think there are only two Overflow sites, stackoverflow and mathoverflow.
posted by madcaptenor at 1:39 PM on July 16, 2010


So they had a terrible idea ("let's use scorecards to fix the problems of human nature online!") which worked despite itself on StackOverflow because programmers were desperate for something better than mailing lists. They tried to expand it beyond that domain, and watched it fail horribly.

(Meanwhile the older StackOverflow answers are now suffering from terrible bitrot as the skewed voting system means there's no incentive to go back and keep them up-to-date, and newcomers can't vote down or even comment on the crap that would otherwise inspire them to register.)

Nevertheless, despite one of the principals banging on for a decade about how you never take venture capital, they took venture capital, and suddenly we're beseiged with masses of what could be great Q&A sites choking to death under the weight of the counter-productive scoring system and nasty, nasty interface.

But hey, there's venture capital involved, so don't let community damage and terrible software stop you. Let's have a site for web design, that's hot! And computer games! And cooking! And ... I dunno, babies? Moms are hot.

Thank God Matt isn't up for selling MeFi. This is a cautionary tale of precisely what would happen next.
posted by bonaldi at 1:41 PM on July 16, 2010 [5 favorites]


All true. I like the hand-drawn icons though.
posted by smackfu at 1:42 PM on July 16, 2010


I like this site, it answers questions I'm way too embarrassed to ask my friends any more. I don't have any tricky cookery questions, I have questions like 'if it asks for kosher salt and I don't have any can I use salt salt'.

Being a non-cook for 35 years totally sucks.
posted by shinybaum at 1:43 PM on July 16, 2010


chop onions without crying? easy!. fridge em before you chop em, and sharpen your knife. easy!
posted by bam at 2:52 PM on July 16, 2010


The inability to explain the stackoverflow (stackexchange) ethos has always puzzled me.

It's intimidating for newcomers, which is weird when the ostensible mission of your site is to educate people. If people are too scared to engage in your site, how can they learn?
posted by achmorrison at 3:09 PM on July 16, 2010


I CLICKED ON THE LINK AND NOW I CAN'T GET OUT! It's StackOverflow for FOODZZ!
posted by goblinbox at 3:15 PM on July 16, 2010


mendel: Where did egullet go? Did I miss it disappearing, I would be very sad.
posted by darkfred at 3:21 PM on July 16, 2010


darkfred: I'm misremembering, I think. Some well-known-and-loved food forum closed its doors a while ago but if it's not eGullet I can't remember which it was!

I just realized that a cookery SackExchange is going to be "geeks posting about cooking for points" which maaaay not work out as well as I might hope.
posted by mendel at 6:25 PM on July 16, 2010


for the record even if mefi HAD an edit button I would not fix that typo which I assure you was entirely accidental
posted by mendel at 6:26 PM on July 16, 2010


Bake at 400 degrees for 1 hour, then move your souflee to the Community Wiki.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:34 PM on July 16, 2010 [2 favorites]


I have questions like 'if it asks for kosher salt and I don't have any can I use salt salt'.

Yes, just use half as much by volume or the same amount by weight.

Of course, you should really always weigh kosher salt anyway because different kosher salt brands have different densities because their flake sizes are different. Two popular brands (Diamond and another one I can't remember) have about a 40% difference in density, for example. So if the author of your recipe used a different brand of kosher salt than you do, your dish may come out over or under-salted. I learned the hard way (salty chocolate chip cookies) that Alton Brown uses a less dense kosher salt than I do, so now I always adjust his salt measurements down by about a third or so.
posted by jedicus at 10:42 PM on July 16, 2010 [1 favorite]


Well I like it. I always have trouble sorting through the crap (vague explanations, spamtastic sites) when I google these kinds of questions, so having one site for them will be much easier for me. And if someone gives a vague answer, you can ask for more info or vote them down.
posted by harriet vane at 3:02 AM on July 17, 2010


Hey it's like Ask Metafilter but the favourites are calle d'points' and accepted answers are called accepted answers, and you can sort the thread by favourites. But we hate them because they're trying to 'use scorecards to fix the problems of human nature online'.

Screw the haters, I ove these sites when I can get quick answers, wait a bit to get a thorough answer and the best answers right at the top.
posted by Space Coyote at 9:06 AM on July 17, 2010


(I also love being able to go back and edit my typos)
posted by Space Coyote at 9:12 AM on July 17, 2010


No, it's like Ask Metafilter, except you can't mark a favourite until you've had 50 favourites of your own, and you can answer questions when you join up except you can't comment on answers until you've had 75 favourites, and you can't say that an answer's wrong until you've had 64 favourites, and you can't upvote an answer until the moon is in the third phase, and you can edit other people's answers for them if you don't like what they said, because actually it's a wiki not just a thread and ... yeah, it's totally like Ask Metafilter.
posted by bonaldi at 8:00 AM on July 18, 2010


I just realized that a cookery SackExchange is going to be "geeks posting about cooking for points" which maaaay not work out as well as I might hope.

Typical answer: "According to Alton Brown..."
posted by smackfu at 6:16 AM on July 19, 2010


"I have questions like 'if it asks for kosher salt and I don't have any can I use salt salt'."

Yes, just use half as much by volume or the same amount by weight.

Of course, you should really always weigh kosher salt anyway because different kosher salt brands have different densities because their flake sizes are different. Two popular brands (Diamond and another one I can't remember) have about a 40% difference in density, for example. So if the author of your recipe used a different brand of kosher salt than you do, your dish may come out over or under-salted. I learned the hard way (salty chocolate chip cookies) that Alton Brown uses a less dense kosher salt than I do, so now I always adjust his salt measurements down by about a third or so.


That's either complete bollocks, or the best satire posted on the site ever. As with all good satire, it's hard to tell the difference.
posted by dash_slot- at 5:00 PM on July 19, 2010


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