I never had a functional broiler until we bought our current house, so I'm weak on technique there. (We must have had one when I was growing up, but if so it's something I never learned about from my mother.) A few nights ago I decided to broil some fish. I like fish and have always baked it, but I like the taste of broiled when I've had it elsewhere so I figured I'd give it a shot.

I had a package of frozen fillets (just fish -- not breaded or otherwise augmented). I thawed it and followed the instructions on the package, which recommended broiling for 10-15 minutes. At 10 minutes it was nowhere near done; at 15 minutes it was still nowhere near done (I couldn't cut the piece in half with a spatula). At about 22 minutes I took it out; the edges were thoroughly done and the inside bottom was close to raw.

I wonder what I did wrong. I used the high setting and put the rack at the highest position that doesn't cause meat to set off the smoke detector (which is the second-highest setting available). The broiler itself works just fine for meat. Maybe I should have used the higher setting; it's probably the fat in meat that causes the smoke problem.

Oh well. Baked fish is tasty too.

I frequently hear the advice that when baking, you need to follow directions exactly. While ordinary cooking does fine with the "handful of that, pile of that, a little of this" approach, baking is different. Or so I'm told by people who probably know what they're talking about.

So why does every cookie recipe contain a phrase such as "drop on cookie sheets 2 inches apart"? 2 inches on center, or 2 inches edge to edge? Dammit, it matters.

There, I feel better now.

(I always interpret it as edge to edge, and then usually end up spending more time baking than I needed to because I can fit fewer cookies on a sheet.)