LLM mise en place

2026-06-30

LLMs thrashed me so badly that I decided to learn how to cook. I'm still by no means practiced, but I've done a vodka fusilli a few times and gotten some good reviews from family and friends. What's weird to me, previously a programmer, about cooking, or perhaps cooking this specific recipe, is how much the setup phase matters compared to the cooking phase. The quality of my pasta and how well I cut my onions determine far more of the quality of my meal than any mechanical skill demanded of me by the stove. That's not to say I can't ruin the meal on the stove, just that it's not the only way I can ruin it and that it's harder to ruin it on the stove than I expected. I suppose that makes sense, but I'm used to a world where ideas, and by extension you the programmer, are the determinants of the quality of your work. And of course, that world is disappearing. The only things that Litechat's Rails revival via Claude Code needed from me were directions to save real samples of the LLM data streams. I'm no longer involved in the chemistry of the codebase. I just watch it simmer and check for taste.