First Look: The Modernist Cuisine at Home Cookbook

An online preview of Modernist Cuisine At Home, the minor league followup to last year's professional (and super expensive) Modernist Cuisine, was just made available to journalists. Without passing too much judgment — as author Nathan Myhrvold promised, the online preview does make viewing the gigantic double-spreads a little difficult — here are a few quick observations.

· The introductions are brought to you by Martha Stewart and Thomas Keller.
· Master recipes are accompanied by variations on the technique. So, for carnitas the technique is braising meat in a pressure cooker, and variations include lamb leg tagine, pork shoulder fricassee with apples and morels, pork vindaloo, Korean short ribs and braised duck baos. (And they recommend store-bought steamed buns.)
· The recipes do in fact seem doable at home, especially if said home comes equipped with a $4,000 Paco Jet ice cream maker.
· No, but really: some of them are accessible with just, say, a Silpat mat and a pressure cooker. But having the Paco Jet/immersion circulator/etc. would certainly make using the book more fun.
· In terms of photography and layout, it's very similar to the original Modernist Cuisine (which means the bisected kitchen appliances are back).
· Sometime the book refers you to Modernist Cuisine for further reading, you know, just in case you have the full set. That said, you definitely don't need the huge professional edition to comprehend what's going on.
· Hope you like foam: all kinds of stuff is foamed from refried beans to milkshakes.
· In case you're curious, no, the book does not work that well online in this particular format.

Modernist Cuisine at Home comes out October 8; preorder on Amazon.

· Modernist Cuisine at Home [Modernist Cuisine]
· All Modernist Cuisine at Home Coverage on Eater [-E-]