Bourdain’s account of life inside professional kitchens is loud, honest and hard to put down. I read it for the stories, but it stayed on the shelf for another reason.

I love to cook, and the more I do it the more it rhymes with building digital products. Both start from raw ingredients and real constraints. Both reward preparation, timing and respect for whoever ends up on the receiving end. A good dish, like a good product, is mostly mise en place: getting the groundwork right so the execution looks easy. And both punish you the moment you stop caring about the details.

I also like to experiment. In the kitchen that means modern techniques with modern tools, a juice extractor, an air fryer, a sous-vide roner for cooking at low temperature with real precision. It’s the same instinct that pulls me toward new tools at work. Learn how something actually works, push it past the recipe, then see what else it can do.