Hervé This’ Molecular Gastronomy and McGee on Food and Cooking are both excellent. In terms of actual how-to guides I’m not sure - when I was working we were sort of at the start of it on the London scene so mainly experimenting on info from Blumenthal/Adria’s kitchens.

(Thank you for your service)

It does seem a little rogue but it turns out fine dining with gels, foams and sphericals is just edible wet chemistry. So that was my entry into science really. It’s been a surprisingly useful background for both practical lab work and as a teaching tool!