tips for frosting cakes:

Dip a spatula spreader or frosting spatula (pictured) in hot water to make your frosting nice and smooth.  Frosting the cake while it is cold or even frozen helps you avoid crumbs in your frosting. 

1.  Make sure cake is cool/cold.
2.  Brush off loose crumbs.
3.  Apply a thin layer of frosting to seal in crumbs.
4.  Slather on the rest of the frosting and smooth it out.

oil:

Oil should be heated to the correct temperature before cooking. When you put food into oil, it should sizzle (have little bubbles or make a crackling sound). One way to tell your oil is heated is to lift the pan a tiny bit and look for ripples in the oil. Some have suggested splashing a couple drops of water in and see if it splatters.  After a while, you'll be able to tell just by how easily the oil swirls.

If you have non-stick and are trying to ease up on oils, a spray is fine, but you won't get the same influsion of flavor or crispiness in certain foods. They sell oil sprays and spritzers, or if you don't really care about health and aerosols, there's good ol' Pam.

I have actually used bacon grease or lard in the distant past for flavor, but go with olive oil and a lighter cooking oil otherwise (palm, coconut, walnut, peanut, safflower, grapeseed, or canola). I mostly go with olive for Italian, Mediterranean, or light American meals and mostly the lighter oil for everything else.  Many nutritionists recommend grapeseed or coconut.  Grapeseed is fairly pricey and coconut leaves a hint of its flavor in your food, which my family didn't like.  I discovered that canola oil is genetically modified and can hurt the environment. It's amazing how we try to progress, but what our grandmothers used was probably the best for us.

I use olive oil to sautee dark greens, roast red potatoes, or for salad dressings. It goes nicely with coarse salts (sea salt & kosher salt). Lighter oil seems to be better for white, gold, yellow, or russet (the regular brown) potatoes. For deep-frying, which I don't do often, peanut oil is good. Something common to Chinese cooking is to "season" a stainless-steel or iron wok with peanut oil the first time one uses it. Seasoning just means dipping a paper towel in the oil and then rubbing all around the inside of the wok.  You do something like this with cast-iron skillets as well.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Don't go for blends, "light" olive oil, or even "natural" olive oil, particularly for your salads or simpler foods. Go with "Extra Virgin" for quality and taste. As for the brand, I have a certain fruitiness I like in my olive oil. Use whatever you like. Just look to keep low on saturated fats and don't buy anything with trans fats.

how to boil water:

Put water in a pot large enough for the amount of water you're adding, then turn the heat up to high. When bubbles start rising to the top of the water, it's boiling. Sometimes one might throw salt in the boiling water to add flavor to the food being cooked. Scientifically speaking, adding some amount of salt raises the boiling point, yet people say water seems to boil more quickly with salt. It probably just gets to a rolling boil faster with the added impurities, making for a more violent boil. Not sure.

Most of the time, you'll need to reach a rolling boil to cook pasta or noodles or dumplings. A rolling boil means the water bubbles and rises so much it looks like it's rolling into itself.

Water does boil away, so in some dishes you'll have to take the reduction in volume into account. Likewise, the pot needs to be bigger than just the water if you'll be adding food to it. You don't have to stand over the pot, but don't let it boil dry or you'll stain or burn the pot.

I do not usually put a lid on a pot with only water in it. A lid helps it heat up faster; I just find it easier when I don't have to keep lifting the lid to see if it's boiling. Lids are important, however, for cooking many basic foods like rice and hard-cooked eggs.

eggs part 1:

Knowing how to use and cook eggs will get you pretty far.

Choosing eggs: I like Eggland's Best eggs. I will sometimes purchase cage-free and/or organic brown varieties if they're on sale, but I have found that the latter are not as easy to peel when hard-boiled. Just look at the expiration date to see which carton is freshest. I always buy large or jumbo for any recipe that calls for eggs. P.S. Unlike sugar, there is no difference in taste between brown and white varieties of eggs; it's purely cosmetic and genetic (I just found this out).

Storing eggs: Eggs should be refrigerated, but baked goods and other foods will often come out better if you let the egg get to room temp before using. I don't often do this, as it's not worth the risk to me (a germaphobe), especially in summer weather.

Cracking eggs: I tend to tap them right on the counter somewhere in the middle of the egg, but slightly toward the smaller end. It makes for a nice break I can easily get my thumb in. And for whatever reason, I never get eggshells in my food this way. Most people, I believe, tap the middle of the egg against the rim of a bowl or pan, take both thumbs and pull apart the egg shell halves while lifting them upward.

Mixing eggs: Poke the egg yolk with a fork (I use chopsticks) and stir. If you have just eggs in the mixing bowl, you can tilt the bowl and stir with a swift elliptical motion. I'll explain how to actually make scrambled eggs in a future post.