This is a private event for guests of Modernist Cuisine, Heritage Radio Network, 92Y, and MOFAD. For questions, please contact info@mofad.org.
Modernist Cuisine founder and book series coauthor Nathan Myhrvold sits down with Heritage Radio Network’s Michael Harlan Turkell for a discussion about his new 2,642 page book Modernist Bread and why it’s time to rethink bread from the ground up.
Nathan Myhrvold and Michael Harlan Turkell kick off Modernist BreadCrumbs, their new podcast series on Heritage Radio Network, with a special conversation about the future of bread. Myhrvold will share insights from his new 5-volume book Modernist Bread (on sale November 7, 2017), the inspiration behind the podcast, as well as what the Modernist Cuisine team learned over four years of nonstop research, photography, experiments, writing and baking. From its surprising history to the complex science behind every loaf, this discussion will reveal why we need to take a fresh look at one of the oldest staples of the human diet.
Following the discussion, Kitchen Arts & Letters will be available for Modernist Bread pre-orders and Nathan Myhrvold will sign bookplates.
A production by 92Y, MOFAD, and Heritage Radio Network.
About Nathan Myhrvold
Nathan Myhrvold, founder of The Cooking Lab, lead author of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking and Modernist Cuisine at Home and author of The Photography of Modernist Cuisine, has had a passion for science, cooking, and photography since he was a boy. By the age of 13, Nathan had already cooked the family Thanksgiving feast and transformed the household bathroom into a darkroom.
He went on to earn a doctorate in theoretical and mathematical physics as well as a master’s degree in economics from Princeton University. He holds additional master’s degrees in geophysics and space physics and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles. He did postdoctoral work with Stephen Hawking at Cambridge University researching cosmology, quantum field theory in curved space-time, and quantum theories of gravitation before starting a software company that would be acquired by Microsoft.
In 2011, Nathan founded The Cooking Lab, hired an interdisciplinary team that included scientists, research chefs, and writers, and published the much acclaimed five-volume 2,438-page Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking. That was followed by Modernist Cuisine at Home in 2012, which applies the insights of the original book in a format designed for home cooks. In 2013, he wrote The Photography of Modernist Cuisine.
Nathan’s fascination with food continues. In 2014 he hired Francisco Migoya as head chef to work with him and the Modernist Cuisine team in researching and writing the next book Modernist Bread: The Art and Science, on sale November 2017. Unlike any bread book ever published, the five-volume book will provide a comprehensive look at the history, techniques, ingredients, and equipment used to create yeast-leavened bread around the world. The team has conducted over 1,600 experiments to test longstanding practices and beliefs. The result is over 1,500 recipes that use new ingredients, techniques, and insight for baking bread in home and professional ovens.
About Michael Harlan Turkell
Michael Harlan Turkell, a once aspiring chef, now award-winning photographer, who for years captured the inner workings of kitchens for his James Beard nominated Back of the House project, which documented the lives of chefs in their restaurant world. For the past 5+ years, Michael has been recording his weekly food podcast, The Food Seen, at HeritageRadioNetwork.org, which was a finalist for a Stitcher Award in 2013 & 2013. Michael continues to travel the land, in search of good people with inspired ideas, expressing themselves through their culture and cuisine. He’s photographed over a dozen cookbooks, and is now authoring his first, Acid Trip: A Fermented Look Into Vinegar’s Soured Past and Bright Future, due out by Abrams in Spring 2017.
