If you bake all the time, just leave your butter on the counter so it's always ready.

Butter that is too warm won't aerate properly when beaten with sugar, leading to a decidedly un-fluffy result.

Only bake one type of thing at a time. Even when it seems like you're killing two birds with one stone, baking multiple recipes at the same time in one oven presents a tricky balancing act.

Always use liquid measuring cups to measure liquid and dry measuring cups to measure dry. Especially when measuring flour, accuracy is important, so using only dry measuring cups - or better yet, weighing on a scale - is key.

Even though they have long shelf lives, chemical leaveners will lose potency over time. If the only box of baking soda you have around is the one that's been absorbing odors in your fridge for the last few years, it's probably a good idea to get a new box just for baking.

Always deep fry in a nonreactive, heavy pot with high sides, like an enameled Dutch oven. A heavy pot ensures even heating which means more even cooking.

Deep-frying properly requires you to keep the oil at a precise temperature range depending on the food. If you're frying in more than an inch of oil you really should invest in a deep-fat thermometer so you can monitor the temperature and know when to adjust the heat.

Because deep-frying requires a high volume of oil, it's okay to reuse the oil a couple of times for economy's sake. When the color or smell of the oil starts to change, it's time to discard.

People are always asking me baking questions - from strangers DMing me on Instagram, to friends I don't otherwise talk to anymore texting me, to my own mother and sister calling me on the phone demanding answers.

Replacing white flour with whole wheat generally makes baked goods denser, drier, and more crumbly because the germ and bran in whole wheat absorbs more water.

Only advanced bakers should endeavor to adapt non-vegan recipes to be vegan, or gluten-full recipes to be gluten-free. There are all sorts of tips and tricks when it comes to subbing vegan ingredients for eggs and dairy, but it's tricky to say the least.

Heaven is a bowl of creamed herring and onions. Ditto whitefish salad. But the real object of my desire for all things gilled is gefilte fish.

I don't discriminate when it comes to dumplings. Give me a generous plate of pretty much anything wrapped in a starchy, doughy casing and I will dive in with pleasure. But one star in the dumpling universe shines brighter than the others: the humble pierogi.

Pierogies are textbook comfort food.

I enjoyed the whole process of learning and was always happy when autumn came and school or college started up again.

Throughout his life, Dickens cared passionately about orphans.

When I wrote about Mary Wollstonecraft, I found that here she was, in the late 18th century, going to work for the 'Analytical Review.' What was the 'Analytical Review?' It was a magazine that dealt with politics and literature.

Dickens was a part of how the whole celebration of Christmas as we know it today emerged during the 19th century.

In 1843, everybody was hungry, unemployed, and conditions were very bad.

I know it sounds pathetic, but I don't know who I am.

All the people I have written about remain with me - perhaps they are my closest friends.

I had forgotten until I looked up old notes that I sold the film rights of my first book, a life of Mary Wollstonecraft: there was a lunch, a contract, a small sum of money, then nothing.

Biographies are, in their nature, far more difficult to make into films than novels, because novels come with plots constructed and dialogue written, whereas I don't invent dialogue for my subjects or plot their lives for them.

Biographers search for traces, for evidence of activity, for signs of movement, for letters, for diaries, for photographs.

I think people are always saying things are 'over.' Fiction has been regularly 'over' since the 19th century.

Everyone finds their own version of Charles Dickens. The child-victim, the irrepressibly ambitious young man, the reporter, the demonic worker, the tireless walker. The radical, the protector of orphans, helper of the needy, man of good works, the republican. The hater and the lover of America. The giver of parties, the magician, the traveler.

Why do we read biography? Why do we choose to write it? Because we are human beings, programmed to be curious about other human beings, and to experience something of their lives. This has always been so - look at the Bible, crammed with biographies, very popular reading.

The book doesn't end when you finish writing it.

I would like to have a more social life than I have.

Essentially, I spent most of my childhood with my mother and my older sister, and I suppose I had rather a romantic vision of how things might be if there were men around; I saw myself in a country house with six children and a garden. That has never been achieved - and I still regret it.

Historians will handle a much wider range of sources than a biographer and will be covering a broader spectrum of events, time, peoples.

Biographers use historians more than historians use biographers, although there can be two-way traffic - e.g., the ever-growing production of biographies of women is helping to change the general picture of the past presented by historians.

Poetry was one of the things that interested me most as I was growing up. I used to write it in my head all the time. I still think the very greatest pleasure in life is to write a poem.

People who attack biography choose as their models vulgar and offensive biography. You could equally attack novels or poems by choosing bad poems or novels.

I continually get more information about a subject after the book has been published.

I think it's about as likely Jane Austen was gay as that she was found out to be a man.

Writing Charles Dickens' biography is like writing five biographies.

I always feel sad when I come to the end of a book.

I sometimes think that, since I started writing biographies, I've had more of a life in books than I have had in my real life.

After Shakespeare, Dickens is the great creator of characters, multiple characters.

Writers often feel obliged to adopt some sort of public appearance.

Dickens had more energy than anyone in the world, and he expected his sons to be like him, and they couldn't be.

Dickens belongs to the English people.

The whole world knows Dickens, his London and his characters.

As he approached his 28th birthday in February 1840, Dickens knew himself to be famous, successful and tired. He needed a rest, and he made up his mind to keep the year free of the pressure of producing monthly installments of yet another long novel.

By the time I went up to Cambridge, I was extremely quiet and well behaved, although I now meet people who remember me as not like that at all.

One of my most vivid memories of the mid-1950s is of crying into a washbasin full of soapy grey baby clothes - there were no washing machines - while my handsome and adored husband was off playing football in the park on Sunday morning with all the delightful young men who had been friends to both of us at Cambridge three years earlier.

Writers don't make good spouses. When I am writing, I'm not a good wife. I shut myself away, and all my emotions are directed towards what I'm trying to write.

I've behaved badly in my life. I hope I haven't behaved as badly as Dickens! In a way, if you're a woman, you're not in a position to behave as badly, because you don't have the economic power.

I would perhaps like to go back to writing small books about obscure people.