Conversely

By the way, it turns out that salted water boils at a (ever so slightly) higher boiling point than plain water.

Yep, salted water gets colder and hotter--it'll freeze something or boil it faster. It's like those words that mean one thing and also the opposite (you know, like livid?). Though evidently, the impact on the boiling point is not nearly so impactful on your cooking time as on your cooling time. Oh well.

So, if it's pasta for dinner--salt the water and cover the pot (which can cut boiling time by as much as half).

If that's not enough, the Salt Institute (did you doubt it?), has a veritable plethora of tips on the uses and benefits of salt, including:

Improving coffee - A pinch of salt in coffee will enhance the flavor and remove the bitterness of over-cooked coffee.

Testing egg freshness - Place the egg in a cup of water to which two teaspoonfuls of salt has been added. A good egg sinks; a doubter will float. (If we could only try this with our dates.)

Preventing mold - To prevent mold on cheese, wrap it in a cloth dampened with saltwater before refrigerating.

Color-matching nylons - Good nylons that don't have a match can be made the same color by boiling them a few minutes in a pan of lightly salted water. (Which begs the question of what to do with bad nylons. Put them in the corner?)

Salt. Is it in your kitchen?

Cold is the new heat

No, really. The New York Times said so. And I thought beets were the new spinach.

Evidently the new must-have appliance is the Antigriddle by PolyScience, which freezes things instead of cooking them. Kind of like a freezer, but not. Now you too can have ice cream pancakes for breakfast. Or something like that. Although the Antigriddle page on Polyscience's website is currently broken, I'm sure every household will soon have an antigriddle parked between their microwave and the toaster.

No article on cold cooking or freezing would be complete without mentioning the Mpemba effect, of course, whereby hot liquids were observed to freeze faster than cold ones. I'm not going to go into it again folks, but wrap your heads around it, it's a fact, Jack.

What about making the simple act of making cool things cooler? The trick to that, evidently, is salt. (And you thought it was ice. Ha!) Ice water, my friends, can only reach 32 degrees--you know, water's freezing point?--and still be liquid, which limits how fast it can cool something down. Salted water, for molecular reasons I am definitely not going to go into here (read the article for the details), has a lower freezing point, so it gets colder without getting solid, meaning it can cool things down faster. According to the NYT, a warm bottle of wine in a regular ice bath chills in about 30 minutes, while in a salted ice bath it chills in about 15 minutes. Nice!

I'm baaaack...

{Well, that was rather an unplanned break... but here we go, back on track, as they say.}

Let's talk Batman--The Dark Knight, which is breaking all sorts of movie records...
1. biggest opening weekend: $158.4 million
2. fastest movie to reach $100 million (2 days)
3. fastest movie to reach $200 million (5 days)
4. fastest movie to reach $300 million (10 days--6 days faster than "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," the previous champion)
5. fastest movie to reach $400 million (18 days--25 days faster than the previous record holder, "Shrek 2")
6. best first 4 days: $182.9 million
7. the opening $67.1 million Friday broke 3, count 'em three, different records: the biggest ever opening day, single day and Friday on record
8. best Sunday ever: $43.6 million
9. best non-holiday Monday gross ever: $24.5 million
10. best midnight sales: $18.5 million (handily beating 2005's Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith at $16.5 million)

But, really, let's talk the Joker. Heath Ledger's the Joker, to be precise. He's much more interesting--more interesting than the broken records, and more interesting than Batman. Ledger's performance is the linchpin of the movie; he is mesmerizing. He is irrational, unpredictable, psychopathic, insane and he is coherent, enthralling, nearly hypnotic. He is villainous in a way that defies reason, slippery and amoral, and also intelligent and crafty. He is the darkest reflection of the dark side of Batman; and for that alone he must be vanquished.

Batman has always been a cipher. And the movies about Batman either played to the inscrutability of the figure or the easy camp of the story's characterology (TV's Eartha Kitt and Cesar Romero come to mind, let alone Jack, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jack, Jim Carrey, Jack - I rest my case) or both. Except for "Batman Begins." What made that film different, and so good, was the window, or glimpse, it offered into Batman--and Bruce Wayne's--soul. Christopher Nolan created a real person, with real demons, albeit a real person who just so happens to be a billionaire with a secret identity. Still.

In the Dark Knight, this middle chapter, there is not much story for Bruce. From that standpoint, the movie is not terribly interesting. It serves, it seems to me, for Batman, simply as a set up for the third, and, I would assume, final chapter. But there is plenty of story for the villain (and for the audience)--and Heath Ledger in that role sinks his teeth into the story without chewing up the scenery. Impressive.

The legacy that he leaves, that the Joker leaves, scars Batman. Although the Joker is apparently defeated, it's at a cost to Batman. Christopher Nolan doesn't take the easy way out, and he doesn't let his heroes take the easy way either. And that makes for good movies.