I'm like your brother; I innately understand cause and effect when cooking; I can see something in a restaurant, and mimic it on the first try with reasonable results.

a fellow programmer shared that not everybody understands cooking like that, that the causal relationships, understanding of temperatures, or additions of flavors.

He was reading this book. "The Science of Cooking" https://www.amazon.com/Science-Cooking-Peter-Barham/dp/35406...

In a way, cooking is like coding; we can all learn through a bootcamp or tutorial, but for some of us it clicks really quickly.