[glaberficken]

Cooking is a great suggestion. Especially if you live with someone else (family, spouse, housemates). Making something delicious for other people to eat brings a great sense of accomplishment. If you have kids and you can make food that they love (that is still healthy), then this feeling of accomplishment will put you in the clouds.

You will also be able to set yourself challenges in the kitchen that are not unlike some "itches scratched" by programming. i.e.

- How can I make this dish in a simpler way and still have it taste great?

- What delicious thing can I make using only the ingredients I happen to have laying around?

- What is the most delicious thing i can make with the fewest ingredients?

=)

[brootstrap]

i often try to explain programming to a layperson with a cooking analogy. Programming is like cooking with a recipe. You've got your ingredients at the top (input data, variables etc). Then you've got the processing (slicing, cooking, stirring etc). Eventually you pull all the ingredients together for some final output (a dish).

INGREDIENTS onion, whole tomato, whole jalapeno

GOAL: make salsa

    prepped_onion = chop(onion)
    prepped_tomato = roast(whole_tomato)
    prepped_jalapeno = roast(whole_jalapeno)
    
    salsa = blend(prepped_onion, prepped_tomato, prepped_jalapeno)