It was just confirmed via Petes twitter account that while cooking and performing alchemy you'll be looking at the cooking or alchemy interface WHILE watching your character perform the task in the background in 3rd person (like the alchemy picture in OXM).

The Exact Tweets:

Q: @DCDeacon In the new OXM it shows a screen of Alchemy in 3rd person (which looks amazing). Is Alchemy only 3rd person now, or 1st as well?

A: @yanks4champs it's in the background since you're really just looking at the alchemy interface. Same w cooking, etc

Q: @DCDeacon Ok cool. So it's like the UI and when you're buying/selling from a merchant? Its a menu overlay over the real time background?

A: @yanks4champs right. So instead on just a menu w no backdrop, or just a table in 1st person, you see yourself working in the background

The 'ect' Pete added obviosly means this applies to other tasks such as wood cutting, smithing etc.

Nice. I like looking my character do things, i had a mod for that in Oblivion. svcks for those that want to exclusively play in 1st person though :shrug:

They can get over it.

I do indeed like watching my character do stuff as well. ^_^

Yea it's a menu overlay just like with bartering, lockpicking, cooking, the UI, etc. You can still see the background instead of just being buried in a menu. Good stuff Beth.

*Waits for the 1st person players to complain*

I would really love if it was in first person and there is an actual animation where you can see him work from a a 1st person perspective (moving things with his hands..etc)

Fine by me, while I prefer 1st person stuff, but its better then those menu's

Why would 1st person perspective complain? In every other TES game, making potions was just looking at an inventory screen. Now, you get to see yourself making it in the background as you look at that screen. This is epic!

Made me lol for some reason.

Let the immersion horde rages in

That would have been cool, but I definitely welcome the 3rd person perspective in the background. Fresh addition if you ask me.