Saturday, November 22, 2008

Cooking: a mathematics lesson.

Story problem: You have invited your family to dinner. There will be a total of 10 adults, four kids (ages three to five), two toddlers, and two infants. Your menu includes baked pasta, two kinds; a salad of lettuce, persimmons, gorgonzola, and toasted pecans; fresh baguette; roasted broccoli and cauliflower; and deconstructed apple pie for dessert. Given these facts, solve for the following:
  • pounds of pasta 
  • quarts of tomato sauce
  • heads of lettuce
  • handsful of pecans to toast
  • heads of broccoli and cauliflower
  • pounds of apples
Extra credit question:  what is the area required in the refrigerator for the leftovers, even after you have packed up all of the remainder of one kind of baked pasta for the kids as they leave, if you overestimate each and every item on the menu? By a factor of two?  

I will say, in my defense, that (1) there will be no need to cook tomorrow, since there is plenty of food, including dessert, and (b) we had a swell time and everything tasted splendid.  Check with anyone.




6 comments:

  1. Um. 20? I am a vast overcooker myself. Perhaps 1 pound of pasta per person is extreme.
    Either way, you're my cooking and my NaPloBoMo hero. You're the only one I've followed that's kept up!

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  2. Yes, your accomplishments are legion. Good job with the pasta and blogging. It all sounds delicious!

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  3. what is deconstructed apple pie?

    here's my cooking my problem for the week: how to cook a sumptuous and varied Thanksgiving meal for four without ending up with way too much food or being driven crazy by my visiting mother in law.

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  4. extra, extra credit: how many different cooking methods?

    you toasted the pecans? you didn't buy the pre-toasted variety in a bag at costco or the organic market or albertson's?

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  5. deconstructed apple pie...yum...

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  6. fun! Lisa+Party+food=guaranteed good time.

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