Steingarten is the Simon Cowell of Iron Chef. He's such a jerk. I can't believe he gets paid to eat haute cuisine and spew his opinions.

Those were *unlaid* eggs, not *unhatched* eggs. And the stringy things weren't umbilical chords, those were fallopian tubes still connected to the ovaries.

How does the butter not just all melt away?

Looks more like a segment of well worn carpet.

I have yet to find a haggis "as long as my arm", that would make a trencher groan, as the poem says.

A great way to roast a bird is to do it over coals with a little tiny chicken, such as a rock cornish game hen. Snip the backbone out of the bird and remove the little purple bony thing at the top of the breast cartilage (split the top with a knife, and pop it out with your finger), season it, and let it warm up to room temp while you start your coals.

When your coals are started, put them in your barbecue off to one side (presuming that you use a Weber style kettle grill), and put the game hen (brined or salted) on the side where you don't have coals, with the dark meat closer to the coals skin side up, (since dark meat is more resistant to overcooking) and put the lid on. After about 10-15 minutes, turn the chicken skin side down, and turn it so the breast side is closer to the coals. After 10 minutes of this, put it skin side down on top of the coals to sear the skin for about 2-3 minutes, then return it to the indirect heat side for another 5-10 minutes. Test the meat to see if it's done. Rest the meat and serve.

BTW, I flatten the bird because it increases the surface area exposed to hot air in the oven; a whole bird, especially a trussed bird, has a cavity of cool air inside that takes a while to catch up. However, when I roast the bird on a rotisserie, I always truss the bird. The air cavity doesn't do much harm when the bird is being cooked by rotisserie.

Other good things to slip under the skin include sage and thyme, rosmary and garlic, and Montreal poultry seasoning.

I like to roast chicken by snipping out the backbone, removing the keel bone at the top of the breast cartilage, and flattening the chicken out. I grind black pepper on thin pan fried lemon slices (fried in butter) and slip those under the skin, and roast the bird in a 375˚ oven (preferably a brined, or at least a pre-salted and rested bird, warmed up to room temperature) with a probe thermometer in the thigh until the temperature is about 155˚F, letting it carry over to 160˚ without the heat of the oven. Rest the bird, and serve. A decent roasting rack is important, as it permits air circulation around the bird.

For crispy skin, dust the skin with cornstarch and cut little slots in the skin so the fat renders out and sizzles on the skin. The result is a crispy, slightly coated skin.

You can train pets to have restraint without hurting them. I don't think the lady doing this with her black lab would beat her dog.

There is an easier way: use a small scissor, and just insert the lower point of the scissor into the sand vein hole, and cut along the spine, with the shell on. You end up cutting the shell and the vein area open in one move. Removing the shell and the vein is trivially easy after that.