I visited the L.A. Times the other week and caught a glimpse of a first-rate, glassed-off test kitchen there among the cubicles. A staffer told me that every recipe printed in the paper is tested in it first. This inspired me to try the famous Russ Parsons dry-brining technique. (He got it from Judy Rodgers, she of the Zuni Café and the difficult-but-worth-it cookbook.) There was nothing to it—a sprinkle of salt, some absent-minded rubbing. Serving a bird just as juicy as Parsons said it would be, I felt a little coy, like one of those new mothers who claim that they barely noticed they were carrying a child.