A Geek in the Kitchen

I love to cook. I don’t do it every day. But I enjoy it the way I imagine some people enjoy painting. I enjoy it the way I enjoy writing. (I’m not talking about heating up chicken nuggets here.) So I am absolutely thrilled that two worlds I adore – that of the foodie and the geek – are on a collision course. I think we can say unequivocally that with the launch of his six-volume, $626 Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking Dr. Nathan Myhrvold et al proves that geeks have not been downing Jolt soda and living on Doritos for quite a long while now.  Myhrvold was the first chief technology officer at Microsoft and is an inventor who holds over 250 patents. (The image above of spheres of tomato water enclosing drops of basil oil is from Modernist Cuisine.) Then he went on to study cooking with the thoroughness – and lab equipment – of a scientist. The printed result of his study is definitely on my wish list.

As if to confirm my geek-girlish excitement over this merger of two of my favorite subjects, I – a tech blogger who daily resists the temptation to write about food — was recently invited by Bosch to visit the company’s test kitchens in Scottsdale, Arizona. The event is tomorrow. And I am now gathered with a crew of my fellow bloggers in a delightful hotel nearby in anticipation. I’m told that we will be required to wear lab coats! I am giddy with excitement. I have already learned – over dinner — that Bosch makes an all-in-one washer and dryer (for sale in Europe), that induction cookers compete with gas for intensity of heat without actually heating the surface of the cooktop, and that large refrigerators are more efficient than small ones.

I’ll bring a camera to the lab tomorrow. I can’t promise the kind of photos Myhrvold manages in his encyclopedia of modern cooking. But then one set of his books costs more than my camera.