1.   When the heat is at the correct temperature, food cooks more evenly.

2.   As the food cooked, Maduk and Riak taught me an African card game, cackling gleefully each time they won a hand.

3.   First, there was the hunger strike by patients at a Naples hospital protesting bad food cooked in rusting pots.

4.   Food cooks better in a round container than in a square one.

5.   Foods cook faster on a covered grill because the heat is confined and more intense.

6.   Foods may cook more slowly, or more quickly, than the recipe indicates, depending on their fat and water content.

7.   Food cooks more quickly and efficiently in ovens when air can circulate freely.

8.   Food cooks with more moisture in a grill pan because steam collects between the ridges and the base of the pan.

9.   In a wood oven, the fire burns on one side of the dome-shaped baking chamber while food cooks on the other.

10.   It builds on the fact that food cooks faster when cut into small cubes or slices.