Typically, the thinner the gauge of a pan, the more intense the hot and cool spots that form on its interior, which can lead to uneven cooking.

Once you start thinking of different dishes in terms of how they're heated, you quickly realize that the key to successfully pulling off a big meal is to diversify. If you plan on five casseroles and a turkey, you're gonna run out of oven space. Don't do it!

I wasn't meant to be a cook. It's a profession I accidentally fell into one summer between college semesters while looking for an easy job as a waiter. Nobody would hire me as a server, but one restaurant, in desperate need of a prep cook, told me that if I could hold a knife, I could have a job.

An ice cream sundae isn't complete without a crunchy element.

When planning a Thanksgiving menu, it's always a balancing act between representing all the classics and satisfying all the members of your family.

Sometimes even a well-rested steak will lose juices when you cut into it. Sometimes a completely un-rested steak won't spill a drop. But as a general rule, resting meat for about one-third of its total cooking time guarantees that more juices will stay inside than on your cutting board or plate.

Tempura-style batters were originally brought to Japan by Portuguese missionaries in the 16th century.

See, tomato skins are really good at keeping tomato juices inside the tomato, but they have one defect: Moisture can escape from the tops, where the tomatoes were attached to the vine.

The perception of juiciness involves a complex jumble of things, including how quickly juices are squeezed out of meat fibers by our teeth, how much saliva we produce, and the ratio of liquid fat to water-based liquid.

Historically, almost every cookbook and chef have taught that when you're cooking a piece of meat, the first step should be searing.

Making sea urchin pasta is a lot like a toddler playing with Play-Doh: There are a million right ways to do it, and most of them are salty and delicious.

Mapo tofu is my favorite food in the world. We always have tofu at home. Like, a lot of it.

Like regular table salt, MSG can also help boost our perception of other existing flavors. Tomato soup with a pinch of MSG tastes a little more tomato-y. Add a dash to beef stew to make it taste beefier.

I like to cook my crepes in a little butter, which gives them a nice, golden-brown color and lacy-looking surface. I rub a thin layer into a preheated skillet, then wipe out all the excess with a paper towel.

One of the handiest features of crepes is that you can cook the pancakes all the way through and refrigerate them, to be reheated and stuffed later.

No matter how your breading or batter is constructed, it serves the same function: Adding a layer of 'stuff' around the item being fried means the oil has a tough time coming in direct contact with it, and thus has a hard time transferring energy to it.

My first restaurant job was Knight of the Round Grill.

Different hot sauces fulfill different needs, and I wouldn't want anyone to live in a world in which each fridge held only one bottle.

Panko crumbs have tons of surface area, leading to exceptionally crisp coatings.

Frying is essentially a drying process. Batters and breadings are formulated to dry out in a particularly graceful way.

After your knife and your cutting board, quality pots and pans are the most important tools in your kitchen, and a good set can run hundreds, even thousands, of dollars.

I came from a family of scientists. My father is a microbiologist and my grandfather is an organic chemist. I had a very science- and math-heavy childhood.

You can cook a limited number of sous vide recipes in a beer cooler, but if the person you're buying for wants to start cooking like the pros, they'll need a dedicated circulator that's designed to maintain the temperature of a water bath to within one degree.

Walk into any Japanese fish market, and you'll see neat rows of sea urchin roe sold in little wooden trays.