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3 tips to write (or re-write) cook-friendly recipes
Working from home over the past year, I have been using the extra time to cook some new dishes. This venture has led to encounters with numerous food blogs, recipes, TikToks, Reels, and YouTube videos with interesting ideas for new concoctions and I’ve found that how well the recipe or the video is structured often predicts how chaotic or smooth the cooking experience will be. Even though most of the time the final result ends up good, the cleaning experience afterward isn’t nearly as homogenously good. Moreover, when following a badly designed recipe, I’ve found myself getting so stressed and antsy that I’ve had to occasionally pause my cooking to step away and take a breath.
Based on my observations while cooking and educational training in Human Factors Psychology, I decided to compile a list of suggestions for writing more user-friendly recipes. For those of you who aren’t producers of recipes but rather consumers of them, perhaps this can serve as a useful guide to rewrite a recipe before you dive into your culinary adventure.