What happens is that in each clump you've got the gelatinization of starches, which happens very quickly at the surface of the clump and it kind of forms a protective skin around this dry hunk of flour.

The skin is forming because of proteins, just like if you cook milk or anything else that's got a coagulant protein in it.

Molecular gastronomy is not bad... but without sound, basic culinary technique, it is useless.

Flame is bad. Flame does nasty things to food. It makes soot and it makes deposits of various chemicals that are not too good for us. The last thing you really want to see licking at your food while it's on a grill is an actual flame.

If you really love stuffing, wait until the turkey comes out of the oven, add some of the pan drippings to the stuffing, and bake it in a dish. That's called dressing, and that's not evil - stuffing is, though.

I think in the end there are only 20 or 30 tenets of basic cooking. It's going at perhaps the same issue from different angles, from different points of view, from different presentation styles, that really makes things sink in and become embedded.

I like television. I still believe that television is the most powerful form of communication on Earth - I just hate what is being done with it.