accompanying     burst   of  flavor?    That’s   why     I   keep

kosher  salt    next    to  my  stove   and cutting board   and a

large-crystal   sea salt    on  my  dining-room table.

• To be fair, “cook” is a pretty generous term. Spatula-
  wielding monkey is more like it.

† McGee was not actually the first to debunk this theory, but
it was the first time anybody took real notice.

‡ Alright, Smarty-Pants. Yes, at high enough temper-atures,
metals will melt into very dense liquids, and yes, Even
Smartier-Pants, mercury is a very dense metal that is liquid
even at room temperature. Got that out of your system?
OK, let’s move on.

§ I just made this fact up.

¶ Fuzzy logic is an obscure branch of logic used in control
theory, artificial intelligence, and rice cookers—the only
thing that these three have in common.

Yep—it’s totally safe to use metal bowls in a modern

microwave. Just don’t throw any foil, fork or other sharp
objects in there: pointed objects can cause electrical
arcing.

** Remember levers from fourth grade? Class 3 is when the
fulcrum is at one end (that’d be the hinge in the tongs), the
load is at the other (yep, that’s the food), and the effort is
applied in the center (where you grip the tongs). It’s a
much better design than scissor-like class-1 lever tongs,
which have very limited gripping power and don’t open