disillusioned

It feels like you might be over-thinking the NP-hardness of the baked potato problem here. We regularly cook 4-6 baked potatoes in our microwave, skin-on. Jab a fork in them a few times before placing them in the oven and setting it to roughly 20 minutes. If your microwave is a bit fancier, you press the "baked potato" button and it measures the off-gassing accumulation of steam as the potatoes cook and adjusts the cook time automatically. This method works shockingly well for totally cromulent baked potatoes.

Similarly, the microwave is absolutely our secr... (read more)

This point hits even harder watching the linked video of her demonstrating her recipe. She's earnest, she's done an absurd amount of hard work, scientific-method-style research, and compiled her findings for people she's trying to help more easily feed themselves. 

I get the cheap shot from the title, because on first blush... it's objectively a "saddest timeline" cookbook, if you will. But the actual contents (and the point of this post) are interesting and well thought out. Just bought a copy myself, and only half jokingly for my wife!