ALTON BROWN WANNABE:

The universe at home: The man who unlocks many of the mysteries of cooking chemistry started out with stars in his eyes, Helen Greenwood, 3/07/05,

Harold McGee started out wanting to be an astronomer and ended up being a "gastronomer". Along the way, the Californian resident has gone from watching stars in the skies to cooking with stars in the kitchen such as Thomas Keller (The French Laundry) in the US and Heston Blumenthal (The Fat Duck) in the Britain.

He did it by writing On Food and Cooking, the Science and Lore of the Kitchen in 1984. It became a cult book among the world's most innovative chefs, won acclaim from food writers such as Alan Davidson (the late editor of The Oxford Companion to Food) and garnered the 1986 Andre Simon award, the Oscar of food writing. McGee became the guru of chemistry in cooking.

Now he has revised and rewritten the book with a new subtitle, An Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture. He has spent 10 years on the project and in the process made the leap from "mere author to timeless authority", as Tom Jaines wrote recently in The Guardian.