Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/dining/food-delivery-apps-doordash-uber.html
This is horrifying in every possible direction.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/dining/food-delivery-apps-doordash-uber.html
This is horrifying in every possible direction.
Right, but I don’t really know how to explain why you don’t like something. It doesn’t doesn’t appeal to me. It’s not fun. I don’t care about playing with knives (I hated woodworking in school, btw).
Yeah, that aspect is somewhat interesting, I would definitely consider reading a book about it. Trying to learn by own practical experience in this day and age seems like a bit late to the party, though.
In the end, cooking is just an ends to a means of eating.
So tired of hearing this dumb fuck argument. Ordering food =/= fastfood. The amount of people that seem to think their little bit of homecooking can compete with professional chef’s is laughable.
Totally fair and thank you for the elaboration.
I’ll counter this point with: I think we’re in a golden age of home cooking. YouTube alone is a gold mine for technique development and refinement. That won’t do anything for your lack of interest though.
Well that’s good, because I’m not talking about fast food; I don’t eat fast food. Ever. My point was about knowing what you’re putting into your body, knowing how it was sourced and prepped. Dining out is at least three layers of abstraction from that knowledge. I’ve spent a lot of time working in restaurants, including high end ones. Apart from zero-compromise, prix-fixe, tasting menu establishments, recipes are always built to a price point. More restaurants than not use Sysco, First Street, or other nasty industrial sourcing. Most restaurants source their meats directly or indirectly from IBP/Tyson because they cornered the market on meat at scale*. And that’s before factoring in time-saving shortcuts, like not washing produce and using Sysco bases. For just one example on the sourcing risks, at high end restaurant where I worked the pantry cooks had to wear gloves to receive and sort the produce because the pesticides and container treatment gave them rashes.
*IBP used to be a reliable, quality source despite being CAFO meats, and what I used in my own charcuterie business. After the acquisition by Tyson, shit went downhill almost overnight. I closed up operations because sourcing at that scale was no longer possible for me.
A chef is a cost engineer and inventory manager. But I get your point: Sturgeon’s Law absolutely applies to most people’s kitchen results.
I see what you mean. I’m in Europe where restaurants and food are generally better regulated. Switzerland specifically has very strict laws for labelling the origin of meat, for example. A lot of the non-chain restaurant will source their ingredients locally. I don’t think the quality is much different than buying the expensive ingredients from the super market.
I guess the best option (health-wise) is only buying fresh produce from the farmers market and such, but that requires a whole other level of effort in the shopping department (and I don’t enjoy shopping either).
Ah, gotcha! That right there is an enormous game-changer, and I’m agree with everything you say here. The US food chain is straight-up toxic. You may know this already: the US allows food treatments that are outright banned in most other countries. My travels in Europe were a revelation; I can eat things over there that invariably sicken me here, most notably bread and raw eggs. I would probably dine out more too if I lived in Europe. :D
It definitely can, and you are showing your inexperience with cooking by making this argument. Cooks are people who are professionally trained in cooking, but you know what, most processes involved in cooking are the same whether you are a professional or not, so amateurs are perfectly capable of achieving the same level of perfection as cooks for a whole range of basic elements of cooking.
You seem to be unable to imagine that people can have opinions that differ from your own. You seem to have the need to have even the most basic concepts explained to you. even though lots of people have already done so numerous times in this thread alone.
Oh, honey. That “healthy” restaurant you order from isn’t actually healthy. They are poisoning you with fat, salt, and sugar, and that’s what you think food is supposed to taste like. All you’re eating is dopamine, nothing actually good for your body.
For the science of cooking book and website . Its an interesting subject
Edited to add this book which i think is better than the one I previously linked to