If science and cooking turn your crank, you need The Food Lab: Better Cooking Through Science.

Science and the food world have been having a torrid affair since Heston Blumenthal introduced them. TV shows (Marcel’s Quantum Kitchen, Alton Brown’s Good Eats), a Harvard course called Science and Cooking (billed as a collaboration between eminent Harvard researchers and world-class chefs) plus too many books to mention on the subject.

The Food Lab: Better Cooking Through Science is the standout in this hotter than hot category.  The mega-tome just won the 2016 James Beard Award for the Best Book for General Cooking category. Penned by Serious Eats managing culinary director J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, The Food Lab: Better Cooking Through Science is a 1,000-page grand tour complete with gorgeous colour photography of the science of cooking explored through much-loved American dishes.

While the book delves into the interactions between heat, energy, and molecules that create great food,  Kenji also shows how home cooks can achieve far better results using new―but simple―techniques informed by science. So if you’ve ever wondered (who hasn’t?) how to pan-fry a steak with a perfectly charred crust and an interior that’s medium-rare from edge to edge or how to make homemade mac ‘n’ cheese that is as satisfying as the blue box you grew up with, this is your book.

And don’t be shy – nerds who can cook are sexy.