So what makes a dish flavorful? We've all been to a dinner party where we reached for seconds simply to appease the host, but silently disagreed with the unappetizing (ok, offensive) taste. After several such meals, I started to wonder -- what is that makes some dishes taste good and others bad? How do we cook a dish that has ingredients that all have different degrees of doneness? How do we evenly season the dish to avoid some excessively salty and some excessively bland bites? After much experimentation, I found the secret -- layering. To cooking a dish well, you have to work in layers. And by definition, such a layering process is also modular -- i.e., you could simply replace one layer with different form and get a refreshingly different form of the dish. In my book, I explain the 3 steps that apply to cooking most dishes: the prepping, the cooking and the serving. Specifically, I break down the cooking step into other steps that identify layers in the process and add flavor along the way. To flavor a dish, isn't just about spices -- rather, it is about tasting the differing layers, the level of heat required to cook the dish and letting the dish rest to allow the flavors to come together. In other words, flavor is not just about taste, but also about texture, temperature, smell and several other attributes.