225m for a hit where there’s no atmosphere to slow it down. I wonder if something that would cause a that size of crater on the moon would even make it to the Earth’s surface, or if it would burn up before it hit.

at the cost of dirtying loads more little bowls

Little bowls are very easy to clean, especially if they just have something like chopped veggies in them.

If you dice your carrots while your onions are sweating, you don’t have time to throw the onion skins etc. in the garbage, or to put any unused onion in the fridge, etc. So, the mess just keeps expanding with each ingredient. And, the worst part is that as soon as you’re done, you want to serve the meal while it’s hot, so all the mess stays out on the counter until after dinner.

If you’re doing everything in one pot, that doesn’t matter too much because you only have one difficult thing to clean, the pot. But, if you’re making a meal with multiple pots and pans, and they’re all sitting dirty while you’re eating, it’s much more of a pain to clean them up after dinner. If you prep everything in advance, you might have a chance to give the pasta pot a rinse while the stuff in the frying pan needs a couple more minutes.

The bernaise sauce in particular wants to be served when it’s freshly made and hot

Who cares what it wants. You’re the chef, you take charge.

To a certain extent it depends on the recipe, but it also depends on how you approach things.

The best way to do most recipes is “mise en place”. Preparing everything and putting everything in its place and ready before any heat is turned on. That approach gives you the most down time to clean up while something is frying, or while water is boiling, or whatever. It also reduces the stress of the cooking because everything is ready to go. The down side is that it takes longer from start to finish, but it’s quicker to get finished once you turn on the heat. That’s why it’s used in restaurants. They spend a lot of the day chopping and getting sauces ready, and then when the guests arrive it’s much quicker to turn on the heat and actually do the cooking.

When I’m in a rush, I’ve done things like: start the rice (and literally put it on the back burner), then start chopping onions, throw the onions in the pan and start chopping carrots, toss them in, etc. If you know a recipe well you might know that you can chop a couple of carrots up in 2 minutes, and that’s how long you want the onions in before you add the carrots. It’s a streamlined way to cook fast, but it leaves a huge mess. It also tends to require more space because you don’t have time to put things away between steps.