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Short-Term Memory

By Andrew Womack in Letters From the Editor —

Recently I was faced with a crisis. Not a major crisis, but one where skill and memory were of utmost importance. This steak is supposed to be cooked to temperature, but the thermometer reads 40 degrees, though it’s cooked, ready, even, even edible, possibly. What! What?

The thermometer is broken. There’s no way to fix it. Dinner is doomed. The steaks, doomed to overdoneness.

WAIT. I just read something about this.



Cook’s Illustrated,

I remembered, I retrieved the issue of the magazine, and the meal was saved. Er, saved to a better fate than mere cooking skill would’ve left it.

Some weeks before, I saw a sign above a toilet with funny quips and ‘Didja Knows?’



Ha! That 20 percent must be the part that’s worth remembering.