At first this may sound like a dumb question, especially to some of you more experienced hands, but then I’m not writing this book to you. The simplest of recipes are full of terms that sound like Greek to the inexperienced cook. They throw words around like; sautéing, braising, blanching, and poaching, expecting everyone to know exactly what they are talking about. Well by the end of this chapter I’m going to try to make sure that you not only know what the most popular of these terms mean but how to actually pull them off as well.