Nathan Myhrvold, cookbook author

Nathan Myhrvold, ex-Microsoftie and founder of an invention company called Intellectual Ventures, is also really interested in food, so much so that he’s writing a monster cookbook (currently ~1500 pages) about the science of cooking.

In another discovery of culinary heat transfer physics, Dr. Myhrvold said the bulbous shape and black color of Weber grills were wrong. To achieve an even cooking temperature across the cooking grate, the inside of the grill should be vertical and shiny to reflect the heat. That can be fixed by adding an aluminum insert to the grill. “So we have directions for that,” Dr. Myhrvold said.

You may remember reading about Myhrvold and IV in Malcolm Gladwell’s piece on the nature of invention last year.

Two things: I’m not sure we need another cookbook on the science of cooking, especially one already over the 1,500 page mark. Harold McGee already wrote the amazing On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. If you’ve read any of it, you know Alton Brown owes much of his success to McGee’s work. Indeed, any cook worth his salt should send a thank-you note to McGee some time today.

More concerning is Myhrvold’s mistake. In examining hardware, he forgot about cooking. The Weber grill is masterfully designed because it allows for very specific heat regulation and air circulation. When grilling, you don’t want even heat distribution. The things you’re cooking should and will cook at different rates.

Picture this: the bulbous Weber with coals piled on one side in the bottom. Near that edge, the food is very close to the heat, perfect for quick grilling vegetables or searing thin meat cuts. On the other side, you’d have a relatively cool temperature, perfect for slow-cooking ribs or pork loin.

The review doesn’t call Myhrvold on his mistakes, which go beyond the beloved Weber:

Confit doesn’t impart a unique flavor, it’s a method of preservation

The book sounds audacious, and I’m sure will include some interesting bits of knowledge for those operating at the bleeding edge of food and cooking. But to claim something’s just wrong without proper context is just sloppy cooking. Journalism, too.

In my house we sit down together for dinner nearly every evening, even weekends. In fact, Sunday dinners are one of my favorites; I have time enough in the kitchen to really cook. But lunch is often a solitary affair, each of us cobbling together nourishment from a hodge-podge of ingredients and scarfing it down between morning laundry and afternoon errands.

I think it might be time to stop the rush, to pause a moment and enjoy the mid-day meal. To make something worth eating. Worth enjoying. It doesn’t have to be complicated or fancy, and it doesn’t have to take forever. Indeed, it can’t. It just has to be good. Sunday’s lunch fit the bill nicely, based on a Rocco recipe (I know, right?).

Grilled cheese and roasted red pepper sandwich with fennel salad

Ingredients (serves 4):
8 slices of delicious bread
2 red peppers, roasted and peeled
Provolone cheese, sliced thin

2 medium fennel bulbs, shaved
Fennel greens, plucked and sorted
2.5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
kosher salt
ground black pepper

Techniques
shave
slice

Method
grill

The mid-day break was fantastic. Home from grocery shopping I sat in the living room with my son perched in his bouncy chair on the coffee table. He watched me eat and drink and I watched him laugh and play with a plastic bee. Would that all weekends could contain such pause.