Re: Serial, concurrent, parallel

On 1/14/2025 2:12 PM, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

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.

I've learned to double-check the ACTUAL availability of ingredients
when baking.  Here, "extracts" tend to be packaged in the same little
1 oz bottles.  So, spying such a bottle in the cupboard SUGGESTS that
I have said extract on hand.  Unfortunately, I have taken to saving
the empty (glass) bottles as convenient containers in which to mix
extracts from concentrates (e.g., just add grain alcohol).
So, there are times when I go to reach for a bottle and find it awfully
*light* -- i.e., empty!  And, manage the panic by reaching for ANOTHER...
only to find it, also, empty!
Yes, I can mix up some extract on-the-fly, but, usually, I am at a point
where I need it *now*, not 3 minutes hence.  <frown>
Utensils *tend* to be better behaved -- unless SWMBO has taken it upon
herself to make something.  As I tend to (safely) assume *I* was the last
person to use the kitchen, if something isn't where it SHOULD be, I
will run through my most recent activities to recall when I last used it
and what might have become of it.  If, OTOH, *she* has intervened, then
all bets are off!
And, of course, rarely used items stress the memory:  where the hell did I
put the canoli forms?  When did I last use them?  (particularly difficult
to recall as I don't eat the things)
But, that makes it more of an adventure than a chore!  :-/

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.

I'm that way when making pancakes (w/sausage links).  Keeping the
sausage links from burning (and/or splattering grease), the skillet
greased (butter), the pancakes from burning all WHILE eating my
share of them (while cooking SWMBO's) is a juggling act.  And, like
the mashed potatoes example, not something you want to let get cold
as the appeal quickly fades with temperature.
[But, as mentioned before, I will eat the pancakes, THEN the sausage
links, then the second stack of pancakes, etc. while standing at the
stove instead of sitting down to a regular "meal".  I suspect trying
to make pancakes for MANY people seated at the same time would be a
bigger effort.]