Michael Ruhlman

the simple codes behind the craft of everyday cooking

Ratio

The journalist-author of The Making of a Chef draws on his own love of good food to journey into the heart of the men and women whose goal is to serve perfect food, drawing on the collective experiences of three talented young chefs to reveal the dreams, goals, and ideas of great chefs. Reprint.

The Journey Toward Perfection

The Soul of a Chef

In Grocery, bestselling author Michael Ruhlman offers incisive commentary on America's relationship with its food and investigates the overlooked source of so much of it--the grocery store. In a culture obsessed with food--how it looks, what it tastes like, where it comes from, what is good for us--there are often more questions than answers. Ruhlman proposes that the best practices for consuming wisely could be hiding in plain sight--in the aisles of your local supermarket. Using the human story of the family-run Midwestern chain Heinen's as an anchor to this journalistic narrative, he dives into the mysterious world of supermarkets and the ways in which we produce, consume, and distribute food. Grocery examines how rapidly supermarkets--and our food and culture--have changed since the days of your friendly neighborhood grocer. But rather than waxing nostalgic for the age of mom-and-pop shops, Ruhlman seeks to understand how our food needs have shifted since the mid-twentieth century, and how these needs mirror our cultural ones. A mix of reportage and rant, personal history and social commentary, Grocery is a landmark book from one of our most insightful food writers.

The Buying and Selling of Food in America

Grocery

Presents twenty basic elements of cooking and explains their importance in order to become a better cook, from proper salting techniques to mastering such basic ingredients as eggs and butter.

20 Techniques, 200 Recipes, A Cook's Manifesto

Ruhlman's Twenty

Brian Polcyn

Yevgenity Solovyev

An introduction to the creation of pork salami, sausages, and prosciutto outlines key techniques in the areas of preserving, cooking, and smoking, in a volume complemented by 125 recipes including Maryland crab, scallop, and saffron terrine; Da Bomb breakfast sausage; and spicy smoked almonds. 15,000 first printing.

Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing

From James Beard award-winning author Michael Ruhlman, a coming-of-age story about finding a new life and love in the kitchen…and trying not to get burned along the way. When high school football star Theo Claverback breaks his leg just weeks after a devastating break-up, he’s forced to call an audible on his summer plans and put his college ones on hold. He soon finds himself in the most unlikely of places for a jock on crutches: the kitchen of an upscale French restaurant, where he’ll work as a line cook while his heart and leg heal. But it’s in the kitchen where Theo finds new purpose and a new romance. As he becomes a trusted employee to Chef and is welcomed into his inner circle, Theo begins to discover the true costs of running a restaurant—and what happens when you get into hot water with the wrong people. Set in Cleveland, Ohio in 1980, If You Can't Take the Heat is a gritty look inside the belly of an upscale kitchen where love and danger boil behind closed doors.

If You Can't Take the Heat

New York Times bestselling author Michael Ruhlman applies the principles of his innovative book Ratio—about the relationships of ingredients to each other—in this delightful back-to-basics cocktail book, sharing the simple recipes and fundamental techniques that make for delicious and satisfying libations. Did you know that a Gimlet, a Daiquiri, and a Bee’s Knees are the same cocktail? As are a Cosmopolitan, a Margarita, and a Sidecar. When hosting a party wouldn’t you enjoy saying to your guests, “Would you care for a Boulevardier, perhaps, or a Negroni?” These, too, are the same cocktail, substituting one ingredient for another. Or if you’d like to be able to shake up a batch of whiskey sours for a party of eight in fewer than two minutes, then read on. As Michael Ruhlman explains, our most popular cocktails are really ratios—proportions of one ingredient relative to the others. Organized around five of our best-known, beloved, classic families of cocktails, each category follows a simple ratio from which myriad variations can be built: The Manhattan, The Gimlet, The Margarita, The Negroni, and the most debated cocktail ever, The Martini. A practical reference of cocktail classics, a source of inspiration for putting a new spin on the usual gin and tonic, and an affable tribute to the pleasures of the cocktail hour, The Book of Cocktail Ratios shows you how to serve up delectable drinks in no time. Cheers!

The Surprising Simplicity of Classic Cocktails

The Book of Cocktail Ratios

the craft of Italian dry curing

Salumi

The Elements of Cookingis an opinionated reference work destined to stand among the great works of the kitchen. It is slim, clear and to the point- here are the things you need to know how to do, here are the key words of the language of food, and here are the absolute essentials that every great chef knows. The Elements of Cookingdefines vital terms, explains the fundamental ratios of important preparations (sauces, cakes, etc.) so that you will never need a recipe again, and provides countless chef's "secrets". In eight introductory essays, Ruhlman pares down the essentials of great cooking- understanding how to salt food; making stock; making sauces; using heat properly; working with eggs; having the right tools (there are only five essentials); what to read and use as a resource; and lastly, and most importantly, the use of finesse, that extra attention to detail that transforms food into something glorious. This is a book that can be returned to time and again, and its lessons practised for a lifetime.

Translating the Chef's Craft for Every Kitchen

The Elements of Cooking

Described by one surgeon as “soul-crushing, diamond-making stress,” surgery on congenital heart defects is arguably the most difficult of all surgical specialties. Drawing back the hospital curtain for a unique and captivating look at the extraordinary skill and dangerous politics of critical surgery in a pediatric heart center, Michael Ruhlman focuses on the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic, where a team of medical specialists—led by idiosyncratic virtuoso Dr. Roger Mee—work on the edge of disaster on a daily basis. Walk on Water offers a rare and dramatic glimpse into a world where the health of innocent children and the hopes of white-knuckled families rest in the hands of all-too-human doctors.

The Miracle of Saving Children's Lives

Walk on Water

“A propulsively well-written trio of novellas linked by a sense of loss and an inquiry into the impossible past.” —Kate Christensen In his three novellas, “In Short Measures,” “Strong Conspirators,” and “Sally Forth,” Michael Ruhlman delves deeply into the nuanced complexity of romantic and sexual love—and the inevitable evolution of the heart over the span of years and decades. Each novella asks questions about the nature of love in terms of loyalty and fidelity—what are one’s obligations toward one’s spouse, one’s family, and one’s heart? In the first novella, “In Short Measures,” these questions are bound up in a writer’s work and a long-ago love. In the second, “Strong Conspirators,” an unforeseen, cataclysmic event calls for responses from a husband and wife that have never been rehearsed because they have never been required nor even imagined. In “Sally Forth,” a pair of old friends is forced to explore lost youth and lost love relative to maturity, marriage, and the passage of time. Profoundly thought-provoking and satisfying, these novellas are beautifully written with plot twists from beginning to end that will captivate the reader. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Three Novellas

In Short Measures

In this innovative cookbook, James Beard award-winning author Michael Ruhlman explains why the egg is the key to the craft of cooking. For culinary visionary Michael Ruhlman, the question is not whether the chicken or the egg came first, it's how anything could be accomplished in the kitchen without the magic of the common egg. He starts with perfect poached and scrambled eggs and builds up to brioche and Italian meringue. Along the way readers learn to make their own mayonnaise, pasta, custards, quiches, cakes, and other preparations that rely fundamentally on the hidden powers of the egg. A unique framework for the book is provided in Ruhlman's egg flowchart, which starts with the whole egg at the top and branches out to describe its many uses and preparations -- boiled, pressure-cooked, poached, fried, coddled, separated, worked into batters and doughs, and more. A removable illustrated flowchart is included with the book. Nearly 100 recipes are grouped by technique and range from simple (Egg Salad with Tarragon and Chives) to sophisticated (nougat). Dozens of step-by-step photographs guide the home cook through this remarkable culinary journey.

A Culinary Exploration of the World's Most Versatile Ingredient

Anthony Bourdain

A succinct resource to the basics of good cooking, presented in an A-to-Z format, contains eight brief essays on such topics as making stock, using the right tools, and understanding heat, in a culinary guide that features a single recipe for veal stock. 75,000 first printing.

An indispensable new cookbook from James Beard Award-winning food writer Michael Ruhlman From Scratch looks at 10 favorite meals, including roast chicken, the perfect omelet, and paella—and then, through 175 recipes, explores myriad alternate pathways that the kitchen invites. A delicious lasagna can be ready in about an hour, or you could turn it into a project: try making and adding some homemade sausage. Explore the limits of from-scratch cooking: make your own pasta, grow your own tomatoes, and make your own homemade mozzarella and ricotta. Ruhlman tells you how. There are easy and more complex versions for most dishes, vegetarian options, side dishes, sub-dishes, and strategies for leftovers. Ruhlman reflects on the ways that cooking from scratch brings people together, how it can calm the nerves and focus the mind, and how it nourishes us, body and soul.

10 Meals, 175 Recipes, and Dozens of Techniques You Will Use Over and Over

From Scratch

foolproof techniques and recipes for the home cook

Ruhlman's how to braise

Donna Turner Ruhlman

20 Techniques, 200 Recipes, a Cook's Manifesto

In The Elements of Cooking, New York Times bestselling author Michael Ruhlman deconstructs the essential knowledge of the kitchen to reveal what professional chefs know only after years of training and experience. With alphabetically ordered entries and eight beautifully written essays, Ruhlman outlines what it takes to cook well: understanding heat, using the right tools, cooking with eggs, making stock, making sauce, salting food, what a cook should read, and exploring the most important skill to have in the kitchen, finesse. The Elements of Cooking gives everyone the tools they need to go from being a good cook to a great one.

The author of The Soul of a Chef journeys to a famous boatyard on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, to explore the majesty and magic of had-crafted wooden boats, following the construction with the use of centuries-old techniques of the Rebecca, a modern pleasure schooner, and profiling the vivid personalities at work in the boatyard. Reprint.

In Pursuit of the Perfect Craft at an American Boatyard

Wooden Boats

An essential update of the perennial bestseller. Charcuterie exploded onto the scene in 2005 and encouraged an army of home cooks and professional chefs to start curing their own foods. This love song to animal fat and salt has blossomed into a bona fide culinary movement, throughout America and beyond, of curing meats and making sausage, pâtés, and confits. Charcuterie: Revised and Updated will remain the ultimate and authoritative guide to that movement, spreading the revival of this ancient culinary craft. Early in his career, food writer Michael Ruhlman had his first taste of duck confit. The experience “became a fascination that transformed into a quest” to understand the larger world of food preservation, called charcuterie, once a critical factor in human survival. He wondered why its methods and preparations, which used to keep communities alive and allowed for long-distance exploration, had been almost forgotten. Along the way he met Brian Polcyn, who had been surrounded with traditional and modern charcuterie since childhood. “My Polish grandma made kielbasa every Christmas and Easter,” he told Ruhlman. At the time, Polcyn was teaching butchery at Schoolcraft College outside Detroit. Ruhlman and Polcyn teamed up to share their passion for cured meats with a wider audience. The rest is culinary history. Charcuterie: Revised and Updated is organized into chapters on key practices: salt-cured meats like pancetta, dry-cured meats like salami and chorizo, forcemeats including pâtés and terrines, and smoked meats and fish. Readers will find all the classic recipes: duck confit, sausages, prosciutto, bacon, pâté de campagne, and knackwurst, among others. Ruhlman and Polcyn also expand on traditional mainstays, offering recipes for hot- and cold-smoked salmon; shrimp, lobster, and leek sausage; and grilled vegetable terrine. All these techniques make for a stunning addition to a contemporary menu. Thoroughly instructive and fully illustrated, this updated edition includes seventy-five detailed line drawings that guide the reader through all the techniques. With new recipes and revised sections to reflect the best equipment available today, Charcuterie: Revised and Updated remains the undisputed authority on charcuterie.

Michael Ruhlman

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