Meat should be on both sides of the oven...

That is on top, and inside.

As long as you have a meat thermometer, you really can't go wrong with this method of cooking chicken, beef and pork.

1. Sear it.
Pour three seconds of olive oil into a pan, then turn the heat onto medium. Once you flick a bit of water into it and it sizzles, add your meat.

Let the meat sizzle for two minutes, then flip. Is the sizzled side brown? If not, flip it back after two minutes for an extra 60 seconds. Give the other side another 60 seconds if that isn't brown post-flip. A little bit brown is fine. Flecks of brown are fine. Just some brown is all you need.

2. Once you're done, but the entire pan into a preheated 400 degree oven. Check the temperature after 10 minutes.

This almost always works.

Rule No. 21: You can't mess up tilapia if you broil it.

The Washington Post wrote an article several years ago saying chefs sniff at tilapia because it's a flavorless fish that home cooks like because it's mild and doesn't have that strong fishy flavor of an orange roughy, for instance.

I plead guilty to that. One, who buys orange roughy at the grocery store? Do they even sell it there? Two, tilapia is cheap. Three, it's easy to cook. Four, f--- you, Food Editor, let me cook what I want.

Five steps to great tilapia:
1. Put fish on a broiler pan, making sure no piece touches the other.
2. Squeeze half a lime over the fish.
3. Salt and pepper the fish. (If you have it, just use lemon pepper. It has salt and peper in it.)
4. Drizzle (translation: pouring with your finger at the top of the bottle) olive oil over the fish.
5. Broil it for 12 minutes.

After 12 minutes, check to see if the oil has turned golden brown. If it has on all the pieces of fish, you're done. Enjoy, and write a nasty letter to the Post.

Rule No. 11: You MUST buy...

A broiling pan. Most people already have one. It consists of a tray with slots or holes to allow air to flow through. And then a pan to catch drippings. You use it to cook meat just below that REALLY hot cooking surface on the very top of your oven (or the bottom if it's a gas oven). Before you use a broiling pan, always spray both the tray and the pan with cooking spray.

Danger warning: Occasionally the broiling pan causes fires in your oven when a piece of meat makes direct contact with the broiler. You can usually just blow out the fire, so don't panic. But if the meat is so thick that it's touching that surface, most ovens let you set the broiler rack one level lower. (This would involve a sketch to explain, but it's not nearly as complicated as it sounds. In fact, none of this disclaimer is really necessary. Ignore.)

Rule No. 26: Always brine chicken breasts

Brining typically comes up once a year, in pre-Thanksgiving Food section articles about how not to dry out a turkey. I've had brined turkey, and it works. I've never brined a turkey myself because I don't like the idea of sticking raw poultry in a garbage bag. (Am I misspelling the verb form of "brine?" Spell check does not like it, and actually "brining'' does look odd.)

But let's forget about turkey for now. Brining actually is a great way to make chicken breasts stay moist after cooking, plus give some flavor to the otherwise bland taste of white chicken meat.

What you do:
Fill a bowl with water.
Put in two palmfuls of salt (doesn't matter what kind)
Stir
Put chicken breasts in the bowl. (Be sure to buy the regular breasts with bones. They cook better.)
Let them sit in the fridge overnight.

Pull them out of the bowl, and put on a plate. Put salt and pepper on both sides. Put them skin-side-down on a broiler pan. Broil the first side for 20 minutes. Flip. Broil for another 15. Check the temperature. Keep broiling until temp hits 160.