'Modernist Cuisine,' by former Microsoft chief technology officer Nathan Myhrvold, with Chris Young and Maxime Bilet, isn't for the timid. With over 2,400 pages and a price tag of $625, the six-volume cookbook set (to be published March 14) is a deep investigation into the science of cooking, filled with avant-garde techniques. Many of the recipes involve sous vide cooking (in which ingredients are sealed in airtight plastic bags and slowly cooked, often in water), and the book's list of "must-have tools" includes liquid nitrogen, a centrifuge and a tabletop homogenizer.

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