The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science is a nerd’s dream. I find it hopelessly intimidating yet utterly fascinating, like watching a King Cobra go about its business (it’s hard to tell, but that’s a compliment).

In order to understand the cookbook, it’s vital to read the introduction. J. Kenji Lopez-Alt is a geek in the best and truest sense: he is full of enthusiasm. The man has no chill. He’s also a huge science nerd, and it always drove him crazy that chefs and cooks use methods without being able to explain why they use them. So Lopez-Alt designed this cookbook as a way to analyze what really works in cooking, and why. The recipes are usable, but they aren’t entirely the point. The point is to answer questions like “How should I boil an egg” and “Why is Kraft Macaroni and Cheese so yummy?” and “How can I make the best French fries?”

This latter question, by the way, runs from Pages 904 to 916. There are color photos. There are charts. At one point he took out a microscope. That’s a lot of French fry details – the man is not messing around here.

There are some vegetable recipes in this book. There’s sides, some soups, chili and pasta. But the vegetable that really gets Lopez-Alt excited is the lowly yet delightful potato, and most of the book that isn’t about potatoes is about meat (also eggs and breakfast dishes). I wouldn’t recommend this book to a vegetarian unless they were interested for nerd reasons.

I’m a simple woman. I read portions of this cookbook while eating oatmeal with raisins. I don’t want my food to be complicated. I want to be able to prep and cook a giant pot of something that constitutes a sort of balanced meal and is low calorie, and preferably freezable, in less than an hour, and I don’t want someone to stand behind me explaining that to do it right I should really prep the starches by following a long list of instructions. I just want to cook the damn food, OK?

And yet.

Even though I doubt I would ever actually use this cookbook for cooking, as an armchair read it is absolutely mesmerizing. To my eternal joy, in the introduction Lopez-Alt gives a special shout out to armchair readers. It seems he is especially fond of us. So I can munch on my oatmeal guilt free while staring at all those pictures of hamburgers and reading about the importance of smashing the burger within the first few seconds of cooking so the meat gets a good crust without losing its juices.

I haven’t had a hamburger since 1992 and yet I have strong opinions about how to cook one properly (my Dad was a hamburger master). And I think that a lot of readers will have that kind of powerful emotional response to the cookbook, because it relies so much on comfort foods. It’s a fun book to argue about. Lopez-Alt suggests using cream of mushroom soup made from scratch in a green bean casserole but I’m not sure that’s legal. I’m pretty sure using canned soup is a requirement. I’m also pretty sure the best Baked Ziti is made by Rebecca in Bethel, Alaska, and tastes best when served at a cast party following a performance at the Bethel Community Theater. I’m also positive that many people will say, “The best way to make pot roast is the way my mom/dad/grandma/grandpa made it.”

This book is written with clarity, affection, a lot of illustrations, and a great sense of humor. At one point Lopez-Alt quoted Battlestar Galactica and called himself an idiot in a single paragraph (he put hot liquids into a blender, with a sure sense that this was a mistake, and it was) and I may have developed just a teensy crush on the dude.

It took me a while to understand this cookbook but once I realized it’s purpose, I had a blast with it. And maybe, MAYBE, I’ll try making that cream of mushroom soup.