Re: Serial, concurrent, parallel

Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:

 
Imagine, instead, someone (sous chef?) running out to BUY some potatoes
for the meal and:
- coming home empty handed ("they ran out of potatoes")

I have had a similar scenario when cooking for two of us in my van for
12 days.  My companion was in the early stages of dementia and things
kept going 'missing', only to turn up next day in the most unexpected
places.  That included items of food, so changes to a planned meal had
to be improvised as I went along and I had to always bear in mind what
to do if something we had bought for supper just wasn't there when I
needed it.

Although cooking on a one-burner diesel stove in the back of the van is
a serial affair, it mimics a parallel one when several different items
have to be heated up or kept hot at once.  I sometimes found I was
literally operating my hands in parallel, getting ready to take
something off the stove with one hand whilst preparing the next item to
go on it with the other - then a quick swap-over.

--
~ Liz Tuddenham ~
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