Nathan Myhrvold

Formerly chief technology officer for Microsoft, Nathan Myhrvold is an unlikely cookbook author. Then again, his forthcoming six-volume, self-published Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking (The Cooking Lab, 2011) isn't your typical cookbook. An inventor, part-time archaeologist and wildlife photographer, and crusader against malaria, Myhrvold is also a passionate cook. He trained at La Varenne cooking school in France and cut his teeth at Rover's restaurant in Seattle. When he saw chefs embracing sous vide cooking, he realized there was a knowledge gap he could fill. That project mushroomed, and Myhrvold enlisted coauthors Chris Young and Maxime Bilet, veterans of Heston Blumenthal's restaurant, the Fat Duck. Together, they've created an epic treatise on the science of cooking. It addresses with equal vigor the gels and foams produced in experimental kitchens and subjects suited to the home cook—the science behind a good omelette, a juicy burger, and one of Myhrvold's passions, barbecue. Science never sounded more delicious. —Michael Laiskonis, Le Bernardin, New York City