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Wow . . . looks like a good gallon of stew. That’s a heck of a lot of mass, upwards of 15 pounds of 200° potential germ chow. Once you spoon out a few bowls for you and yours, what will you do with the rest? Leave it on the counter to cool down? Okay, but that could take 12 hours or more, and most of that time will be spent in the Zone. Not worried? Figure you nuked all the bacteria during cooking? You may have gotten most of them, but trust me: you didn’t get them all. And of course there’s the air, the serving spoon, the finger that you used to pull out the sage leaves, that sort of thing. Remember the Jurassic Park rule: life will find a way no matter how clever you think you are.

So you should put it in the refrigerator, right?

That’s a bad idea for a couple of reasons. First, even the best refrigerator models are designed to keep things cold, not make them cold. Sure, you can chill a few beers, but it could take ten hours or more to chill that stew. And since the stew is so hot, it will raise the temperature in the box, thus nudging every food present into the Zone—and that’s not good. What you need is a way to cool the stew before it gets filed in the chill chest. If it’s cold out—say, 35° F—you could certainly set the pot out on your deck, patio, or carport. That will cut a few hours off the time in the Zone, especially if it’s windy, but it will still take several hours. If you could increase the surface-to-mass ratio, thus exposing more stew to more cold air, you’d be onto something. So pour your stew into the largest, flattest pan you have. A couple of baking pans or a large roasting pan should do nicely. If you’re afraid bugs may come to call during this alfresco chill, simply cover with plastic wrap, but push the wrap down right onto the surface of the stew.

Okay, so what if it’s July?

There are several methods for “shocking” food down to a safe temperature quickly. Soup and stew pots may be placed directly in a sink full of ice water (not just ice: conduction, remember?). Frequent stirring will bring more hot food in contact with the side of the pot, and since heat always moves toward cold, the heat will abandon the soup for the ice slurry.

If no sink is available, you can also fill a large zip-top freezer bag with ice, suck out all the air, and push it right down into the goo. This method has the added advantage of being able to capture any fat that happens to stick to the side of the bag and solidify. When the ice melts, either in the sink or the bag, take the food’s temperature. If it’s not close to 40° F, start over again. You’ll be surprised how quickly the food cools down.

Of course, not all big hot foods are soupy or stewy. Large pans of braised dishes, large roasts, and the like can’t really be stirred, and bagged ice is impractical. For these I break out my trusty cooler, fill the bottom with a couple inches of ice, sprinkle the ice liberally with salt, and place the roasting or braising pan right on top. (As any home ice-cream cranker can tell you, salt can melt ice without raising its temperature, creating a liquid that’s actually colder than the freezing point.) Check in an hour or two and your thermometer will most likely clear you for fridge access.

Cooking

Improper cooking is the big daddy of thermal transgressions. It’s the one most often associated with large outbreaks of both salmonella and E. coli in this country. As important as proper cooking is, there has been some overreacting out there of late. A government Internet site I checked out recently stated that poultry must be cooked to a final internal temperature of 180° F, while another site suggests that all fresh pork cuts be cooked to 170° F. Both seem pretty silly since salmonella dies instantly at 165° F (14 minutes at 140° F will do the job too), and trichinae (the parasites responsible for trichinosis) die at 170° F. Here’s how I temp stuff.

• All poultry, game birds, stuffed meats and any previously cooked