
The Art & Science of Modernist Cuisine
Monday, March 21, 2011
Former Microsoft CTO, inventor, entrepreneur, and award-winning chef Nathan Myhrvold teamed up with world-class culinary artists and scientists Chris Young and Maxime Bilet in his Seattle experimental kitchen-laboratory to produce a revolutionary new cookbook that is an overview of the technologies and techniques of modern gastronomy.
In Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, Myhrvold, Young, and Bilet—scientists, inventors, and accomplished cooks—have created a six-volume 2,438-page set that reveals science-inspired techniques for preparing food that ranges from the otherworldly to the sublime. The authors—and their 20-person team at The Cooking Lab—have achieved astounding new flavors and textures by using tools such as water baths, homogenizers, centrifuges, and ingredients such as hydrocolloids, emulsifiers, and enzymes. It is a work destined to reinvent cooking.
Join Science & the City and moderator Padma Lakshmi, host of Bravo's Top Chef, for an evening of experimental cookery with the authors of the 43-pound tome that Tim Zagat calls "The most important book in the culinary arts since Escoffier."
A Modernist Cuisine recipe will be sampled during the Q&A, and a reception will follow with the opportunity to place orders for shipment of Modernist Cuisine. Those who order will receive a book plate pre-signed by the authors.
Panel Agenda
Moderator
Padma Lakshmi, Bravo's Top Chef All-Stars
Speakers
Nathan Myhrvold, PhD, Intellectual Ventures
Maxime Bilet, The Fat Duck
Chris Young, The Fat Duck
Reception to follow.
Speakers
Keynote Speaker
Nathan Myhrvold, PhD
Intellectual Ventures
Dr. Myhrvold is chief executive officer and a founder of Intellectual Ventures, a firm dedicated to creating and investing in inventions. In addition to stimulating the invention of others, Myhrvold is himself an active inventor, with nearly 250 patents issued or pending-including several related to food technology. Before founding his invention company, Myhrvold was the first chief technology officer at Microsoft. He established Microsoft Research, and during his tenure he oversaw many advanced technology projects. He left Microsoft in 1999 to pursue several interests, including a lifelong interest in cooking and food science.
Myhrvold competed on a team that won first place in several categories at the 1991 World Championship of Barbecue, including first prize in the special pasta category for a recipe that Myhrvold developed on the day of the contest.
After working for two years as a stagier at Seattle's top French restaurant, Rover's, Myhrvold completed culinary training with renowned chef Anne Willan at the Ecole De La Varenne. In addition, he has worked as Chief Gastronomic Officer for Zagat Survey, publisher of the popular Zagat restaurant guidebooks. Through his many visits to the world's top restaurants, Myhrvold has become personally acquainted with many of the leading Modernist chefs and the science-inspired cooking techniques they have pioneered.
Myhrvold is himself an accomplished practitioner of Modernist cuisine. He has contributed original research on cooking sous vide to online culinary forums, and his sous vide techniques have been covered in the New York Times Magazine, Wired, and PBS's "Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie" television series.
Myhrvold's formal education includes degrees in mathematics, geophysics, and space physics from UCLA, and PhDs in mathematical economics and theoretical physics from Princeton University. In his post-doctoral work at Cambridge University, Myhrvold worked on quantum theories of gravity with the renowned cosmologist Stephen Hawking.
Speakers
Maxime Bilet
The Fat Duck
Maxime Bilet received a BA in creative writing, literature, and visual arts from Skidmore College. Bilet then graduated with highest honors from the Institute of Culinary Education in New York. He completed a stage at Jack's Luxury Oyster Bar and was quickly hired to the head chef position there by Jack Lamb. Moving to London, he accepted a stage with Heston Blumenthal's development team at The Fat Duck. Just prior to joining the culinary team as head chef for recipe research and development at The Cooking Lab, Bilet trained as sous chef to open the London branch of Auberge de L'Ile.
Chris Young
The Fat Duck
Chris Young opened the experimental kitchen at The Fat Duck and worked under world-famous chef Heston Blumenthal to oversee development of his most innovative dishes. Young completed degrees in mathematics and biochemistry at the University of Washington. He left behind his doctoral work for a job as commis chef at one of Seattle's top-rated restaurants, and quickly earned a reputation for his ability to apply science and technology in the kitchen.
At The Fat Duck, Young expanded the experimental kitchen from one to more than six full-time chefs. He also coordinated the work of several consultant scientists. Beyond developing new dishes for The Fat Duck's menu, Young was responsible for managing the recipe development for the critically acclaimed first and second seasons of BBC's Perfection: With Heston Blumenthal. Young has also written extensively on the science of food and cooking for The Fat Duck Cookbook and has published scholarly research in the Journal of Agricultural Chemistry and Food Science.
Young has been an invited speaker at the Culinary Institute of America, University of Washington, University of Reading, the British Society of Food Flavourists, and various food companies.
Moderator
Padma Lakshmi
Bravo's Top Chef All-Stars
Padma Lakshmi is an actor, model, food writer, and jewelry designer, who currently hosts Bravo's Top Chef All-Stars. She has hosted two other successful cooking shows—Padma's Passport where she cooked diverse cuisine from around the world, and Planet Food, a documentary series broadcast on The Food Network and worldwide on the Discovery Channel, in which she journeyed to countries including Spain and India—and she has written a best-selling cookbook Easy Exotic, for which she won the International Versailles Event for best cookbook by a first time writer. Her second cookbook, Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet, is filled with over 150 recipes from around the world.
As an actor she was last seen in Paul Mayeda Berges' film Mistress of Spices, and she appeared as Princess Bithia in ABC's mini-series The Ten Commandments, the second-highest rated television film of 2006. She has appeared in films in the US, Italy, and India.
In addition to her food writing, she has contributed to American Vogue, Gourmet, and British and American Harper's Bazaar.
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