{^ What is cooking?^ }

I know you’re eager to jump right in and start cooking,

but first answer this question: What is cooking?
If you’re my wife, your answer will be, “It’s that thing
you do when that crazy look comes into your eyes.” A great
chef might tell you that cooking is life. My mom would
probably say that it’s a chore, while my wife’s aunt would
tell you that cooking is culture, family, tradition, and love.
And, yes, cooking is all of those things, but here’s a more
technical way to think about it: Cooking is about
transferring energy. It’s about applying heat to change the
structure of molecules. It’s about encouraging chemical
reactions to alter flavors and textures. It’s about making
delicious things happen with science. And before we can
even begin to understand what happens when we grill a
hamburger, or even what equipment we might want to stock
our kitchen with, we have to get one very important concept
into our heads first, as it’ll affect everything we do in the
kitchen, starting with which pots and pans we use. It’s this:
Heat and temperature are not the same thing.
At its most basic, cooking is the transfer of energy from a
heat source to your food. That energy causes physical
changes in the shape of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, as
well as hastens the rate at which chemical reactions take
place. What’s interesting is that most of the time, these