I would love to read some of this out of curiosity, but certainly can’t justify $625 for it. The man sounds amazingly smart.
Chris
Fascinating. Have always been a fan of Harold McGee’s books.
Interesting.
Very interesting…
And on sale at Amazon for USD 467!
http://www.amazon.com/Modernist-Cuisine-Art-Science-Cooking/dp/0982761007/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1297779128&sr=8-1
My young cousin asked for money instead of gifts for Hanukkah, so that he could buy Myhrvold’s book. He was just accepted to the CIA, so I expect he will make good use of it. At least I know where to find a copy to look at. I can’t justifying a $600 book describing techniques that I will never use, and requiring equipment that I will never own.
Check out a 36-course menu they did for various writers and chefs (e.g. David Chang)
Pretty insane. Quite a few courses use a centrifuge. Only $20,000.
Liquid nitrogen is probably a pretty basic ingredient for this guy!
I wonder if Eric every knew this guy when he was at Microsoft?
Chris
I knew of Myhrvold when he was an up and coming theoretical physicist. He was at Cambridge a few years after my year at DAMTP (Hawking’s department). While I was working on my PhD at Texas, my recollection of his papers during those years is of a brilliant guy. Seemed to follow a similar trajectory as another brilliant physicist, Stephen Wolfram.
His cooking treatise doubtlessly lives up to the highest standards of scholarship. Hopefully, there will be an e-version.
PROBLEM #3: You love Neopolitan-style pizza, but don’t want to invest in a brick oven.
SOLUTION: Make an oven out of a steel sheet.
Get a ¼-inch-thick sheet of steel from a metal fabricator (Google a local one), have it cut to the size of your oven shelf and insert it in the rack closest to the broiler. Preheat the oven at its highest temperature for ½ hour, then turn on the broiler and slide your pizza onto the metal plate. It should emerge perfectly cooked in 1.5 to 2 minutes.
Not sure I believe this, I think you need something porous to put your pizza on?
I believe it; it is exactly the same thing that Heston Blumenthal described in his ‘search for perfection’ book. (Although he used an upturned frying pan rather than a steel plate.)
I might just have to give it a try… I have a friend in the metal business.
I couldn’t resist, so I just pre-ordered a copy. Looking forward to its arrival (mid/late March)…
I pre-ordered a copy too. exactly the kind of technique books i love. ordering a piece of steel for my bluestar too.
Arrived yesterday!
OMG. Squared.
A.
That’s fast! It is not even supposed to be out until Monday. Amazon said mine will arrive later this month, but I guess that is because it has to travel to Europe.
Have you read through it yet? (There will be a test…)
Nice review.
May have to get the set when I retire and have time to read it
The full first edition is already sold out; Amazon put me on a wait list for the 2nd print. It is supposed to be arriving in May. Oh wel, that’ll bring me two months closer to retirement…
Just made the pressure-cooked Chicken stock.
While I’ve been using the PC’er to make stock for a couple of years, I’ve not used the high ratio of meat to water or the 90 minutes at pressure that this recipe uses. The result is quite tasty and in the end it process saves me the time of further reducing I normally do.
NPR just did an interview with Nathan Myhrvold.
It has some cool pics from the book posted too.