Along the way, he’s developed a particular affection for unpeeled citrus, which turns sweeter and takes on a lovely bit of char under the broiler. As a by-product of his culinary crush, Chris has converted most of his friends to broiler enthusiasts, too. It took some doing.

Paradoxically, Chris’s first cooking job, at Blue Pete’s in Pungo, Va., was working — wait for it — at the broiler station. So it’s perhaps not a complete surprise that at this later point in his culinary career he has rediscovered the tool.

Then, too, broiling has quite a bit in common with his first love, cooking over fire. There’s the obvious fact that it’s a method of high-heat cooking that uses direct exposure to flames. And there’s the less widely recognized fact that it’s unpredictable.

Like every fire, every broiler has its quirks and peculiarities. Different versions heat to different temperatures, and the distance between heat and rack varies from oven to oven. So, as with grilling, it rewards active involvement on the part of the cook.

You need to check in on the food often, moving it around if some parts are cooking faster than others, or moving it lower in the oven if the outside seems to be charring and the interior isn’t cooked through. As Chris says, “You have to keep an eye out, and you need to resort to your cook’s intuition sometimes, too.”