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Pizza Talk, Season Two, Episode 11: Nathan Myhrvold and Modernist Pizza

Written By Peter Reinhart
Thursday, 04 November 2021 Pizza Talk

Welcome back to Pizza Talk!

So, who gets to coin a new culinary term, create his own publishing house, and travel the world taking gallery worthy photos in exotic places, eating the best food ever made, and hiring talented chefs and writers to create a whole new category of food literature? Nathan Myhrvold is who.

After the international success of the five volume Modernist Cuisine (now in 12 language translations), followed a few years later by the equally large and impressive Modernist Bread, author/publisher/genius Nathan Myhrvold, and his talented team of other food geniuses, are back with the eye-popping, four-volume boxed set, Modernist Pizza. It has everything you could possibly want to know about pizza and more, accompanied by the always spectacular in-your-face photography for which the Modernist books are known. In this lively conversation, Nathan tells us all about his early days as an assistant to Stephen Hawking (yes!!), his role as chief technology officer and Bill Gates “whisperer” at Microsoft, his work as technical advisor to Steven Spielberg for the Jurassic Park films, founder of Intellectual Ventures, where he invests in world changing inventions, and how all of this intersects with his lifelong passion for food, cooking and, now and always, pizza. It’s quite a journey, and you’ll hear all about it in this episode of Pizza Talk.

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Vision Statement

Pizza Quest is a site dedicated to the exploration of artisanship in all forms, wherever we find it, but especially through the literal and metaphorical image of pizza. As we share our own quest for the perfect pizza we invite all of you to join us and share your journeys too. We have discovered that you never know what engaging roads and side paths will reveal themselves on this quest, but we do know that there are many kindred spirits out there, passionate artisans, doing all sorts of amazing things. These are the stories we want to discover, and we invite you to jump on the proverbial bus and join us on this, our never ending pizza quest.

Peter’s Books

American Pie
Artisan Breads Every Day
The Bread Bakers Apprentice
Brother Junipers Bread Book
Crust and Crumb
Whole Grain Breads

...and other books by Peter Reinhart, available on Amazon.com