3 ideas
Ilin builds the whole book as a trip around a single room: the tap, the stove, the kitchen table, the cupboard. At each stop he treats a familiar object as an unsolved puzzle and poses a chain of questions such as why water puts out fire, why bread has holes and why a stove draws.
A stove draws because the column of hot gas in the chimney is lighter than the cold outside air, so the heavier air pushes in through the firebox and drives the smoke up. A taller or hotter chimney means a bigger weight difference and a stronger draft. If the damper is shut before the fuel has fully burned, the harmful fumes have nowhere to go and spill back into the room.
The holes in bread are bubbles of carbon dioxide made by yeast as it feeds on the sugars in dough. The stretchy dough traps the gas, and oven heat makes the bubbles expand before the crumb sets around them. The result is a spongy structure instead of a dense flat cake, which shows a living process working inside an everyday food.