Look into brining the chicken before roasting. That seems to make it a bit more forgiving, I think. Oh, and use a meat thermometer. Most other methods to test for doneness are hit-or-miss.

Use a bread flour. It has more gluten. “All Purpose” flour is a mix that has less gluten, so it will be suitable for bread or for cakes. You can buy “vital wheat gluten” to add to all purpose flour, if you wish.

YouTube has many videos showing knifework and other techniques. Watch them.

You have some great questions here! I applaud your search for knowledge and a better life through cooking!

What’s wrong with a rice cooker? In Asia, everyone uses them, as far as I can tell. Certainly Asian-Americans all use them. The Japanese have high tech rice cookers that rival their toilets for technical sophistication!

If you have a pressure cooker, you can make stock for soup. I keep a bag in the freezer, in which I put bones, onion ends, carrot trimmings, etc. I also buy chicken leg quarters (the cheapest meat-like thing in the store), and trim the meat from the bones. I re-freeze the meat in convenient portions, and use the bones…

Cook on the roof?

My parents used to have an aluminum rice pot that featured a strange ‘collar’ around the top. When closed, the lid was resting about an inch below the top of the pot. When the rice simmered, starchy water would spatter out of the lid, but would hit the collar and run back into the pot.

Flavor with drippings of whatever meat you were cooking. Keep the drip pan moist, and de-glaze the pan and strain out the drippings. If it’s a greasy food, you can use that grease instead of butter for your roux.

Buy cast iron and use them. If things stick, scrape the food off as aggressively as you like. Cheap non-stick pans are too thin, and don’t distribute heat well. Expensive ones are heavy enough that you may as well use cast iron. Overheated Teflon will release fumes that can kill your parrot. I try to avoid them. (the…

I once interviewed for a job in the employee training office of my university. I was to give a presentation on ‘why we need trainers’. I figured that audience participation was important, and so I came with three cutting boards, a bag of carrots, three knives and three peelers.

I cook my dry beans directly in canning jars.

Crock pots are good for cooking dal, since thick liquid-ish things tend to scorch if cooked in a pot that is heated on a stove. Otherwise, you’d have to put the pot in the oven for distributed heat.

By the way, something I have used when simulating a UI for software is Protoreto

Why? Why did you persist in writing ’less zebras’ and ‘less lions’ in the paragraph, and then switch to ‘fewer lions’ in your conclusion? You’re driving me crazy!

Indeed. Useful enough, when in their place, but you have to watch them like a hawk, or they’ll stab you in your sleep.

Scots-Korean?

Why doesn’t he have a swagger stick?

Yeah. It’s a pretty specialized demographic slice, now that I look at it. Probably covers only about a dozen people nationwide. That is a good point. I will definitely have to reconsider my usual recommendation that everyone get solar panels!

You do look good at 41. You’ve taken care of yourself. You might expect to live to be over 100. That’s plenty of time for a solar power system to pay for itself!