I've been enjoying this recent blog post from the New York Times, 100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do (Part 1). In this case, when the author says "restaurant staffers," he really means "servers," but I still found it entertaining. Some highlights:

No. 17:
"Do not take an empty plate from one guest while others are still eating the same course."

No. 31:
"Never remove a plate full of food without asking what went wrong. Obviously, something went wrong."

No. 36:
"Never reek from perfume or cigarettes. People want to smell the food and beverage."

And so on. Even though the item focuses on so-called "front-of-the-house" workers, that's still a part of the culinary arts. Indeed, most culinary arts programs include a class on dining room management.

So, what about you? Do you have any restaurant pet peeves?

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, which means it's just about time for the yearly flurry of articles from so-called "experts" offering the secrets to roasting the "perfect turkey." But here's one secret no one will dare share with you: The perfectly roasted turkey is a myth.

That's right, there's no such thing — it's a physical impossibility. The reason for this is a phenomenon I call the Poultry Paradox, which is responsible for every mouthful of dry, flavorless, overcooked turkey you've ever had to force down your throat.

Well, it's 2009, people, and it's time to stop the madness. We've landed a man on the moon and we can make a car run on canola oil. It's time to get a handle on the trouble with turkey.

How does food get hot? It's simple, right? Just put it in the oven or heat it on the stovetop.

But the way heat travels from something hot, like a flame or a pot of boiling water, to the food item we intend to cook, is a process called heat transfer, and the different ways this can be accomplished determines how the food is cooked and what the end result will be.

Learn more about the two main methods of heat transfer: conduction and convection.

First of all, why is it called "brown" stock? When you go to the store, you see chicken stock, vegetable stock and beef stock. There's no "brown" stock anywhere, other than the beef stock, which happens to be brown. Because beef is, well, brown. Right?

Not exactly. Yes, stock is made from bones, and beef bones are the most common bones used in making brown stock. But you could also use the bones of veal, venison, buffalo, moose or whatever. The reason a brown stock is brown is because we roast the bones before simmering them, and also because we add a little bit of tomato paste to the bones. The acid in the tomato helps break down collagens in the cartilage and other connective tissues, and also adds color to the stock.

Theoretically, you could make a white stock from beef bones. For a white stock, we blanch the bones, skip the roasting and don't use any tomato product. It's not what kind of bones you use, but what technique you use.

Here's the basic procedure for making brown stock. And here's some more info about making stock:

• The Basics of Stock
• How to Make White Stock
• Basic Chicken Stock Recipe

There are relatively few hard-and-fast rules in the culinary arts. Like other art forms, the culinary canon merely offers tried-and-true techniques that, over time, have been shown to produce favorable results. Besides, it'd be impossible to incarcerate every chef who served some sort of "deconstructed" dish, or included any kind of "foam" on a plate of food — we simply couldn't build the new prisons fast enough.

Even so, this laissez-faire attitude doesn't extend to food safety. This is one area where following the rules isn't optional. And with good reason. Doing things the wrong way won't just result in bad food — it could make someone sick.

A classic example of this is thawing a frozen turkey. There really is a right way and wrong way — many wrong ways, actually. And while turkey season is more than a month away, you might be surprised to learn that thawing a 20-pound turkey safely and properly could take the better part of a week. So you see, it's never too soon to start planning for the big day. Find out how NOT to thaw a frozen turkey.

If you want to make sure that your breads and other baked goods turn out right (or at least give them a fighting chance), the first thing to do is make sure you're measuring out the flour properly.

Most of the recipes that you, the home baker, are likely to encounter, call for flour to be measured in cups. And therein lies the problem — because a cup is not always a cup.

Let's say you take your measuring cup and scoop it into the bag of flour. Is that a cup of flour? In a way, yes.

But now, let's say you sifted out a pile of flour and then carefully spooned the sifted flour into a measuring cup until it reached the 1-cup line. That's a cup, too, right? Well, yes — it's certainly closer to a cup than what you got by scooping the flour out with your measuring cup. But let's be honest: isn't all that sifting and spooning just way too much trouble? (Hint: Yes, it is.)

The solution is frighteningly simple: Weigh your flour. Get yourself a digital scale, and the next time a recipe calls for a cup of flour, just weigh out 125 grams. You'll be right every time. One cup of all-purpose flour weighs 125 grams.

Nice, right? No more worrying about sifting, scooping or spooning. Plus, a digital scale is much more useful than that old flour sifter, which you can now happily donate to the Smithsonian Museum of Antiquated Baking Tools.

Carrot soup is a lovely autumn dish that you can prepare in less than an hour using nothing but a soup pot and a blender. Vibrantly colorful and aromatic, this carrot soup recipe is thickened with potatoes, making it warming and satisfying.

For a bit of variation, try sautéeing some minced fresh ginger along with the onions and garlic. Or, after puréeing, add some fresh thyme leaves before bringing the soup back to a simmer. You can even stir a little hot cream into the soup just before serving.

Finally, the soup can be thickened with rice instead of potato. Just substitute 1 cup of uncooked rice for the potato, and simmer the soup until the rice is soft, then blend and serve. Here's the purée of carrot soup recipe.

This basic pizza dough recipe is enough to make three small pizzas, and you can prepare it using a food processor or stand mixer.

If you're using a food processor, use the dough blade (if you have one), and follow the recipe as written. If you're using a stand mixer, you can combine the yeast, sugar and water directly in the mixer bowl. An instant-read thermometer is handy to make sure the temperature of the water is 110°F. Give the mixture a few spins with the dough hook and then let stand for five minutes before adding the flour, salt and oil.

If your oven has a "proofing" setting, you can use that. Otherwise, set the bowl somewhere warm, like on top of your oven, or anywhere that's about 85°F. Here's the basic pizza dough recipe.

Butternut squash is a delicious autumn vegetable that can be used in all kinds of dishes. Roasted and puréed, it can be served by itself as a side dish. But it can also be incorporated into soups, pasta and risotto dishes, and even pies and other desserts.

To make butternut squash soup from the purée, just add stock, simmer for a bit, then blend until you achieve the consistency you like. You could also make ravioli with the purée as the filling. Or consider my always popular banana bread recipe: just substitute about 1½ cups of the butternut squash purée for the bananas and marvel at the results.

And did I mention, it's delicious as a side dish just the way it is? However you decide to use it, this roasted butternut squash purée recipe is where it all starts.

We've been talking about grinding our own meat here lately, and some time ago I wrote a review of the food grinder attachment for the KitchenAid stand mixer, which is the tool I use for grinding meat.

You can also grind stuff like fruits, vegetables, bread and hard cheeses in the thing, though I've only ever used it for meat. And of course, the attachment will only do you any good if you already have a KitchenAid stand mixer.

Here's my review of the food grinder attachment.