I’ve written a little about
my job here on this blog. A bit here. A bit there. But not too much. I’ve never
really given you the details. And this month, the details came together into
something big, something concrete, something about which I’m quite proud.
I began working at America’s Test Kitchen a few months before my own book came out. I was hired to edit a cookbook.
An exciting cookbook. One that was published on October 1: Cook’s Illustrated’s
The Science of Good Cooking.
If I learned anything in
the last couple years it’s that there really isn’t any thrill quite like the
thrill of holding a book that you toiled over—wordsmithed over, wrote and
edited and rewrote and reedited for so many, many months—in your hands. You may
not see my name on the cover of this particular book, as is the Cook's Illustrated way, but I’m in
there. I was in charge of every word on every page of this scientific tome. And,
damn, I’m proud. The thrill of holding this book was a different kind of thrill
than the one I had holding my own book for that first time, breathing in its
new-ink aroma, feeling the concrete reality of its spine. But a thrill
nonetheless.
The Science of Good Cooking is organized into 50 basic concepts of food
science—simple concepts, ones that every cook should know. Gentle Heat Retains
Moisture. High Heat Develops Flavor. Salty Marinades Work Best. Sugar Changes
Sweetness and Texture. There are recipes, 400 of them, all culled from the last
20 years of Cook’s Illustrated magazine.
There are scientific experiments to bring these concepts to light, performed by
a talented test cook in the kitchen that sprawls across the first floor of our
office building. (I've been writing a bit about them a bit, here.)
The best part about editing
this book? It taught me to cook with more confidence. Many years of my life
were spent tied to recipes, tied to instructions, unsure of how dishes would
change if I were to cook by instinct rather than rule. But learning about the hows and whys, the way food actually work on a molecular level has drastically changed the way I cook, the way I think about cooking,
the way I move at the stove. Check it out.
