Cooking with your Computer

Cooking with your Computer.

The start of Mary Berry’s Bakeoff on the television has inspired this article.  Cooking programmes are so popular on TV, but you may not realise that if you google “recipe” on the Internet you will have literally millions of recipes to choose from.  I find that I rely less on my cookery books nowadays and more on the web, as I can refine my search for a specific dish and find exactly what I want very quickly.  In fact quicker than when I am looking through my books.

It is very interesting to look through and compare different recipes for the same thing.  I am the type of cook who doesn’t stick closely to recipes, and likes to be creative.   Web recipes are easy to compare quickly. 

I find that the BBC Good Food recipes are very reliable.  All the celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver, Nigella and Delia also have recipes online.  It makes me wonder why people buy recipe books!

Recently I have found that the Guardian newspaper does articles on

“How to make the best …”.  I used this recently for tiramisu but they also cover lots of other recipes.  The articles compare different ingredients that can be used and the researcher does all the hard work in experimentation before coming up with a knock out recipe.  They are exactly as described- truly fantastic recipes that really work.

If your recipe goes wrong, you can google your problem and find the solution to it.  Have you ever found that you don’t have a particular ingredient?   You can find out if one ingredient could be swapped for another.

You can also download Apps to your smartphone for recipes.  I have one called “What’s for dinner?”  It gives you inspiration when you are in a hurry.  There are also websites where you can list the ingredients you have and you will be given suggestions for recipes to cook.

If you are not an experienced cook you may find that you can learn a lot from videos of chefs cooking your particular recipe.  You Tube have lots of great clips, which are entertaining to watch from a variety of places.  There are chefs who start their rise to fame on You Tube.  One such is Yo Yo Max 12, who has a channel dedicated to experimental baking and has lots of very interesting ideas.

There are disadvantages to cooking using a computer however.  One of these is that you may risk damaging your computer by having it in the kitchen.  You may get flour or liquid on it and make it all dirty.  It isn’t a good idea to cover your laptop keyboard in dirt as it will drop through the keys and into the working parts and fan.  I use a cover on my Mac keyboard to prevent this. 

It is probably a good idea copy and paste the recipes you plan to use into a Word document and print them out.  You can then compile a folder of your favourite recipes and make your own cook book.

If you are following recipes from You Tube, you will need to pause the programme frequently.  It may be a good idea to watch the whole thing first so that you have an overview to make it easier for yourself.

So if you are itching to be on the Bakeoff, use the power of the Internet to help you!  Don’t forget that you can order your ingredients online too.

The Downside of Smartphones

The Downside of Smartphones

Last month I wrote about smartphones and all the wonderful things you can do with one.  They do have a downside however, and I thought it would be interesting to write my thoughts on the matter!

I'll admit it; I use my smartphone all day long.   I check my email, texts, Facebook, apps for weather, look up addresses, listen to music and podcasts, take photos and call people with mine!

I'm not the only one who looks at my phone all the time, but I am an older user, so am also very aware of situations when they are not appropriate.   This is not the case with everyone.   I turn mine off every night, and switch to silent in restaurants, cinemas, theatres and during lessons!  I also try not to walk and text, and when with friends, would put my phone away.

In a study of 1,600 managers and professionals, Leslie Perlow, PhD, at the Harvard Business School, found that:

• 70% said they check their smartphone within an hour of getting up.
• 56% check their phone within an hour of going to sleep
• 48% check over the weekend, including on Friday and Saturday nights.
• 51% check their phone on holiday.
• 44% said they would experience "a great deal of anxiety” if they lost their phone and couldn't replace it for a week.

She has written a book entitled “Sleeping with your smartphone”, How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change the Way You Work.

It is not uncommon to reach for the phone as the first thing to do on waking, or to use a phone while on the loo!  (I wonder sometimes about the germs on them- this certainly is a negative!)

The amount of time that people are spending looking at their phones and their intense relationship with them raises the question 'why?’  We really have to ask what is so compelling about smartphones?  The answer is probably that they are addictive.

Computer technologies can be addictive because they're "psychoactive."  That is, they alter mood and often trigger enjoyable feelings. 

Email, in particular, gives us satisfaction due to what psychologists call "variable ratio reinforcement." That is, we never know when we'll get a satisfying email, so we keep checking, over and over again. It's like gambling – we are waiting to get a pleasurable result. 

Smartphones, of course, allow us to seek rewards (which includes photos, videos, news updates) anytime and anywhere.

This type of behaviour is not harmful until the addiction means that the phone is never turned off, and the person using it is always in a state of readiness in case it chimes or beeps because an email or a text or some other message or Facebook updates appears, and they are constantly checking.   Email protocol deems that they should be answered quickly, but 24 hours isn’t so long to wait- it doesn’t have to be instant!

Sleeping with a phone next to your bed can cause disruption to sleep as it may at any time make a noise, but is also emitting radiation, which could perhaps lead to health problems.

Walking while texting is dangerous and could lead to road traffic accidents, as people are distracted.  (They are also less likely to hear cars if the phone is being used as an iPod).  Texting while driving is not uncommon and so many people still use their phones without adequate hands free, and there have been some really tragic accidents.

I can’t help feeling a little sad when I look around me, especially amongst groups of young people when everyone seems to be looking at their phone rather than engaging with those around them.   Also being parted from a smartphone can cause some people huge anxiety.

Perhaps those of us who are heavy users should try one phone free day a month.  Maybe even take a holiday where there is no signal or Wi-Fi!