240: A Gamer in the Kitchen

[RemoteControlRox]

A lovely article. I'd never seen the connections before, but it makes sense.

I often find myself getting frustrated when preparing dinner with my dad when I'm back home--often enough, I never really get to do very much. It's a bit like he's hogging the game.

 

[likalaruku]

Guess I can't argue with that. Everyone in my family who can cook plays video games, even my granny, who plays strategy & city builder games for 8 hours a day.

 

[eels05]

I cook for a living and have been gaming for years and the only similarities I've noticed is the problem solving aspect,how to move almost robotically forward building knowledge based on making mistakes.
Also I find the hand eye co-ordination gained from gaming helps maintain the pathways between hand and brain.
Other than that cooking for a living is fucking hard.Gaming is enjoyable,so maybe I just dont want to see any similarity..but maybe my perpective has been blurred over the years.

 

[PlasticTree]

Cooking isn't really something that interests me, but I definitely liked this article. Nice.

 

[Iuchiban2525]

It's comforting to know there are other gamers that share my passion for cooking. So many subsist on fast-food and packaged meals, which I find incredibly depressing. You lose so much in that lifestyle, most notably flavor, variety, and health.

That, and a wiser man than I once said "If you want to land yourself a girl, you're going to need to learn how to cook up some bait."

 

[SonicKoala]

Is it just me, or would this article not look out of place on a website actually dedicated to cooking? Regardless, it was very well written, and I never realised how similar video games and cooking can be (given the right attitude, of course).

 

[Erana]

Is it just me, or would this article not look out of place on a website actually dedicated to cooking? Regardless, it was very well written, and I never realised how similar video games and cooking can be (given the right attitude, of course).

Oh,this article would most definitely fit in such a site. I think the key here being the nature of the Escapist itself. While people tend to call it a gaming site, its really all about the gamer. And though I had always thought there was a shared set of skills in gaming and cooking, I never quite realised the correlation in how playing your favorite game does feel like catering your own Christmas party.
I've always felt this nagging sense that gaming is just some form of me trying to be a rebellious young woman, but I can't ignore the sense of satisfaction that you can get from games- which I had reserved only for activities of production out of bias.

 

[Cannorn]

BRAVO Great article,
I'm a foodie gamer and agree whole hartedly
I love cooking almost as much as I love eating and i'm always looking for tips and improvements to my existing repetoir.

I do however balance the practical with the obbsessive, for example whilst one celebrity chef described his Sunday roast ritual and his Brining process for the chicken took place over about 3 days!
Whilst I'm sure the results are something special, I'll usually restrict myself to sub 1 day processes.

I often spend an entire Sunday preparing and cooknig a Roast to prefection which is then devoured in under a half an hour but it's worth it!

I think home made Fried Turnip Paste is the only thing I'll dedicate more than a day to and that's making enough bulk to make it worth it.

My god I'm hungry now.

 

[Hristo Tzonkov]

You must be as good with knives as a friend of mine who got stabbed.In my brief experience of making salads,home made bread,steaks and various local dishes I cut myself once because I was trying to bend a piece of iron from a can in two and it jumped and sliced my middle finger.Cooking is a slow and careful thing for me at least and it's gonna be done whenever it's fucking done and it will taste good but I'm not gonna rush and cut myself.

Also fuck me for necro-threading xD.

 

[Deviluk]

Great article, I can totally relate! I love to cook and I love to game. Fortunately I live with my girlfriend now and I always have someone to impress with my cooking, not to mention her family and friends. They're not so impressed with my Starcraft ranking, after all.

Also I find they both share a management quality. RTSs make you constantly check several things at once, make decisions for different times, whilst focusing on the main battle. Not unlike cooking!