cook is a rake extension with: 1. configuration file, 1. the ability to retrieve passwords from encrypted configuration files, 1. the ability to create files using Erubis templates, 1. the ablity to interact with both local and remote shells. Its main file is a traditional rake Rakefile, which has recipe commands. Each recipe is a collection of rake task files and associated YAML configuration files, allowing tasks to make use of extensive configuration information. The configuration is built up from the various fragments in the conf files assocaited with each set of rake tasks.